Well myself ive heard nothing but smiles about ubuntu. Myself i love slackware, its not half as hard to install as they make out dont u rekon! Anyway what are the best points about ubuntu?

I am sad to say that I won't be using Ubuntu, but its not a reason to leave linux, I am using Windows because it works, and Mandrake because it works. Ubuntu is a great distro and its very good. I am still keeping the cd and will see if I can get another box maybe a 1.4 Ghz P4 to install it on with a new mobo and components. I have to say that for me right now the only Linux is Mandrake 10.1, I have had no errors, and my iPod works on it.

Ok, that's your decision. If you are happy with everything you experience under XP, then why change?

By the way, you didn't get XP free. If it was an OEM edition, then it increased the price you paid for your machine. XP is not free. Not now. Not ever.

However, it is useful to hear why people don't want to change to Linux.

One last tip - don't just rely on anti-virus and anti-spyware to keep you safe if you are a heavy Internet user and running XP!

Hi,
Brunellus:
I dont think the DVD prob is hardware because it works perfect in all the other distros and XP.

Photos, In ubuntu only I have this prob, I plug in my camera and it appears on the desktop fine, it opens in nautilus and I can copy them into a folder. When I try to open them into gimp or a veiwer (I have tried a few) that app crashes.
I found that if I ran Paintshop pro via cross over office I could open the pics in that and then save them and then they open in the other apps great.

I did find KDE great for customisation but no better than I can in XP with StyleBuilder and StyleXP and I found Gnome very limited for customising.
As for the menus, Warty could be edited with right click menu but this has been removed in Hoary, someone has written a program you can get to add to the menu but it doesnt give you full control.
In Mepis I could edit the menu but after a reboot it returned to the original setup, I found a fix for it by editing a file but after the edit the problem remained unchanged.

I have tried Mandrake 9.2 and 10.1 and with both of them I ran into problems, I would get it all set up over a few days and it seemed to be working great then all of a sudden a program would freeze the whole system and the only way out was to pull the plug then it wouldnt reboot.

I keep hearing these horror stories about windows but Ive been running it a couple of years now and have used Kazaa and Emule and had them running for weeks on end without any unstability or prolems and I use IE6 and OE that are supposed to be such a security threat I have always used the XP built in firewall without any problems, I have had my virus scanner pop up now and again to tell me it has destroyed a virus that was trying to get in but no problem was caused by these.

I have repaired a few PC's for people who use XP and one with 98.
When I got there they didnt even have SP1 installed, no firewall or spyblocker of Antivirus and have been on line for about a year and are starting to get a few strange things happening, so I install AVG, Adaware, Spybot, give it a quick scan and found anything up to 7 viruses present and 20-30 spyware detected, I clean them out, install all updates give them a quick defrag and educate them about updating stuff and they are fine after that.
So I dont see a problem with Windows.

I was curious at first with Linux and interested in it and I have a couple of relatives who work for software development companies who told me Linux was a load of rubbish and I wanted to prove them wrong but alas I have found each Linux distro to be limited in its own way and Windows seems to do everything I want it to without having to find work arounds etc.

Dont get me wrong I loved messing around with linux and have kept Ubuntu Warty as a dual boot and have kept Mepis and Mandrake Move for emergencies but I have found each Linus distro is great at some things and cant do others and I keep having to return to Windows to do some jobs so I have just decided to stay there.
I have taken a few things back with me Open office, Gimp, Firefox and Thunderbird. They are great.
liked the way the text editors in linux colour code html code as you type so you can see where you go wrong and after a search I have found "Crimson Editor" a freeware that does just that in windows.
So Ive learned a lot of pros and cons with linux and hope that in the future it will become a viable alternitive to Windows but its not there yet.

My hardware:
Dell 8300
512 ram
160 2 x HD's
one cd burner/dvd player
one cd/dvd burner

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop, or use synaptic.

Ubuntu's Debian installer is modified, so it isn't exactly the same. The Debian Installer asks a few more questions for instance. The focus of Ubuntu's installer is to have as little user interaction as possible.

if you all want to stay with Windows, I guess that's your decision. If it works for you, then I guess it works for you.

Ubuntu does everything I need it to do, and it does it free. I don't have a very big budget for computer stuff--my present computer is five years old, and I'll continue using it for a while yet. Running XP on this computer (celeron 800, 256MB RAM) would be an exercise in excruciating slowness.

Ubuntu Warty and GNOME 2.8 work very well for this application-- Fluxbox 0.9.12 works even better! The machine now runs more responsively than it did while it was new. I haven't been tempted to upgrade to Hoary, since everything seems to be working fine for me under my present setup.

Hey its good to see that you are sticking to Ubuntu, but as for me right now I am giving the warty warthog a break. Right now I am on Windows using CherryOS and running Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, infact I am writing this on the emulator. I have come to the conclusion that if you want a good version of a unix-like OS buy a Mac, if you want something cheaper then get a distro. I don't mean to make Linux look bad my Mandrake Drive is awsome! and I would not change it, as for now my Ubuntu drive is the Mac drive, but you have to admit that Windows works and thats it, you can say what you want to say but Windows just works. But still I would not trade my Mandrake 10.1 Drive for a Windows XP Pro.

Linux always Windows Second Mac Maybe

Ubuntu worked for me, and CentOS now works for me also. Windows doesn't work so well for me. (Please don't kill me, since I "have to" admit that Windows just works). My computer has been running since a few days after CentOS 4.0 was released, I could never do that with Windows (without paying attrocious fees for Windows Server 2003). I haven't had any config problems....I haven't had to compile anything. I just enabled Dag's repository and went. With Ubuntu it is the same, enable Universe/Multiverse and go.

Windows is the software version of your mother saying " I told yo so!"

Hi,
What do you mean by that ?

Well Windows is the software version of your mother saying "I told you so" because it works, it might have flaws but it works with almost everything you could have. Mac OS X is like the neighbour that you don't really know, and Linux is the group that you parents wouldn't want you to hang out with. In simpler terms Windows=Salt Apple=Pepper Linux=Chili Sauce

It doesn't have to make sense.

Hi,
Now it makes sense

well i have used windows up to WinMe
RH 7, 8, 9.
FC 1,2 & 3
linspire 4.5
Xandros 1 & 2

Ubuntu is the only OS now installed

but i have enabled a root account
once that was there everything just fell in to place ...

I have tried to get it to work, but its a no go, instead I fixed a miss-streamlined Windows XP Professional SP2, so no more Home Edition for me. My stuff is as follows:

Windows XP Professional SP2
Mandrake Linux 10.1 (I am waiting for 10.2 to become official)
Mac OS X 10.3.8 on CherryOS v1.2

I like Ubuntu 4.10 its a good OS don't get me wrong its really clean looking and the interface is very responsive. But the bones that I have to pick with is the internet connection its brutal, for some reason its pretty shitty when you use it. When I had Ubuntu installed on VMWare it was really fast for internet, its so bad that Mac OS X 10.3.8 on CherryOS is faster at loading pages then Firefox. Ubuntu needs to really work these issues out, other then that I love the OS, but I will stick to Mandrake Linux, I have got it working to what I want. So Ubuntu users, I am not discourging you.

Issues:
bios pnp error -not fixed, can't find work around "nobiospnp" boot option doesn't work, don't know why they would suggest it

hw_random -not fatal but I have fixed this by blacklisting it

slow internet -can't seem to have found a solution for this, I have renamed ipv6.ko to hide-ipv6.ko uncommented it from the aliases file, changed the "faulty" dchp-script input and erased the #net-pf-10 ipv6 off, and still nothing. I was checking my online banking, it took for ever, and it too about 2 sec on both Safari and IE/Firefox with Windows.