alternative OS's question

[Bethrezen]

hi all

iv been quite unimpressed with windows performance of late as it has been crashing alot and iv heard that Linux is very fast stable secure and all round reliable however there are so Many versions of Linux i really don't know which one i should get

what I'm looking is a bare bones system (preferably free & Maintained) that is similar to and as easy to work as win 98 but isn't all bloated with other miscellaneous programs the way windows is like outlook express or Internet explorer to name but a few unneeded apps

anyone got any recommendations

[edit] also it needs to beable to run my windows apps such as game and security apps like spyblocker

[libbo1]

my 2 cents worth:

bump ur ram to 256k minimum and upgrade to xp (about $90). XP is very stable and i doubt you will experience any crashes.

<Removed. Although I doubt it would work, if it would, it would be illegal>

[MickeyTheMan]

If you want to try
LINUX, i suggest KNOPPIX
No need to install any partition as everything will run from a CD.

[Bethrezen]

hi

thanks for ya answers

first to libbo1 im askin about linux coz xp is rubbish and coz i dont wanna pay £ 100 for a copy of xp and i already got 256 of ram

micky you got a valid download lcation for KNOPPIX coz i cant find one

[spydespiser]

Hi Bethrezen :)

Would have answered sooner but have had a few gremlins of my own(i.e. no connection) :(

http://www.knoppix.net/

Haven't used knoppix yet so am unfamiliar with it

Have fun ;D

SpyD

[rerun2]

IMO, Windows 2k and XP can be made quite stable if you put some effort into it. A lot can also be trimmed down as well so that it feels less bloated.

If you are interested in learning Linux it might take some time. IMO the best way to learn is to get as much reading material on your particular distro as possible, and to try it out on a spare computer. Knoppix is also a good distro to learn from.

I also think you should start off with some "bloat" (mainly because it will usually contain development tools and other packages you are likely to use). Once you are more familiar with the OS you can start fine tuning it to your needs, and have a better understanding to what packages you want to run. And then you can start to get rid of some of the "bloat." Pretty much the same goes with Windows.

I am not an avid Linux user (I use Windows and FreeBSD more), but here are some distros that you may want to look into.

Mandrake and Redhat - Great for beginners. They are both actually quite similar, and run almost identical programs. Mandrake is considered a little more bloated of the 2.

Gentoo - I used it for a brief period, very easy to configure and optimize but the installation process was rather lengthy. Maybe it has been improved in 1.4.

Vector - Very similar to Slackware (another popular distro), but with easier installation.

Where you will run into problems is with your less sentence. IMO you do not really need to run windows programs on Linux. Not saying you cant (you can run some through Wine but it is slower and usually has hardware support issues), but Linux usually has software equivelants to some popular software used in Windows (xmss - winamp) http://linuxshop.ru/linuxbegin/win-lin-soft-en/. Some big games will sometimes have Linux ports (even then it might be difficult to get running). Other games do not. So if gaming is very important, you may want to just stick with Windows for now. Here are some Linux sites to get you started.

http://distrowatch.colug.net/ - my favorite

http://freshmeat.net/

http://www.linuxguruz.com/

http://linux-newbie.sunsite.dk/

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/

http://www.dsl.org/cookbook/

OSnews.com also sometimes have good articles. And you may also want to look at this thread if you havent already http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=12930 . meener hit on a lot of good points.

[MickeyTheMan]

http://www.knoppix.net/docs/
Oh, and when you burn your iso to cd, just ensure you use a 700MB disk as it will take 699Meg

[meneer]

Alternative? Here you go:

http://www.bebits.com/app/3148
http://www.yellowtab.com/
http://openbeos.org/
http://www.blueeyedos.com/

All BeOS's (first one is the latest version, don't know where it came form, but it's here :) )
Yellowtab is the official follow up of BeOS?
Last two are open source versions, one of them linux kernel based? I don't know.
At least these are very nice, secure, and alternative operating systems ;)


-edit about first edit: you will not need spyblocker but games... I fear there's only a small number...