[lordcliff#AC]

First played with Linux back in 1997, took a while to get Slackwear installed. Then it took my 3 days to figure out how to get X windows running on my no name video card.

It's gotten a lot easier over the years, unfortunately I'm not nearly as well versed in Linux as I wish I was, I keep taking breaks. Maybe now that my phone is basically running it, I'll jump in again.

Time to upgrade my tower's Ubuntu version.

[lordcliff#AC]

I'm a huge Linux fan. Run mostly Fedora. Makes all of my "old" hardware run great! I hate the overhead of Windows.

I'm with you there. I'm running an ancient Dell Inspiron 2650 that sucked when it was running windows. Now I've got Ubuntu on it and it's mostly worked fine. Having a problem with the keyboard not working on bootup and haven't had time to look into it, thinking that maybe it's time for a new primary Linux laptop.

[jdbower]

Having a problem with the keyboard not working on bootup and haven't had time to look into it

Check for BIOS updates from Dell, especially with a USB keyboard. Even my new Touchsmart has an issue during boot with a third party USB keyboard, but the standard wireless one works fine.

[Jerry Hildenbrand]

First played with Linux back in 1997, took a while to get Slackwear installed. Then it took my 3 days to figure out how to get X windows running on my no name video card.

It's gotten a lot easier over the years, unfortunately I'm not nearly as well versed in Linux as I wish I was, I keep taking breaks. Maybe now that my phone is basically running it, I'll jump in again.

Time to upgrade my tower's Ubuntu version.

I helped maintain the Xfree86 and fluxbox slackware packages for the Vector Linux fork about that time. Yes, it was a mess.

Slackware current is much better now, if you feel like going back to your roots

[zuben el genubi]

Just installed 10.10 on a dual boot desktop. Decided it was time to remove W2K. I was just using the desktop for email and banking since it's behind a router. I was pleasantly surprised the Ubuntu found the wireless mouse, the Wacom tablet, Ancient IBM clicker keyboard, printer and scanner. Went looking for programs to replace the Windows ones I use. I have Stellarium (free app/open source on all win. machines. I will be darned if I can get it to run on Ubuntu, and it's in the software app Ubuntu has. I installed the 64bit as that was recommended.
Does anyone have a list of what runs well in Wine? No games. I want StarMap lite, the Sky, etc. I also have some video converters, etc. that I will have to replace.
I have 2 dedicated XP PCs that will not be updated or converted. Neither machine has ethernet unless I plug it in. One is Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, only - the other runs embroidery digitizing software. I do download updates, and files for these XP computers, so I'd like an AV or something that would check the downloads. So far, so good with Ubuntu, but at times it seems slow.
Thanks

[jdbower]

I helped maintain the Xfree86 and fluxbox slackware packages for the Vector Linux fork about that time. Yes, it was a mess.

Slackware current is much better now, if you feel like going back to your roots

Thanks for your work, I was a "Slacker" around that timeframe myself. Maybe I'll take a look at what they've got these days.

[jdbower]

I have Stellarium (free app/open source on all win. machines. I will be darned if I can get it to run on Ubuntu, and it's in the software app Ubuntu has.

Hmmm.... I just did a sudo apt-get install stellarium and it ran fine - granted I'm running 32-bit Maverick at the moment.

Does anyone have a list of what runs well in Wine?

You can look into Crossover, they are a commercial version of Wine that actually puts bread on the table for the Wine devs. They have a that frequently overlaps Wine's, but some of the more tightly integrated things like Office work better.

For video converters, I've been pretty disappointed by Handbrake, but many converters use ffmpeg as their core so depending on what conversions you need that may be a good start. AVIDemux is another popular choice, but again the topic is pretty broad so some tools may be better than others. I use for converting my BluRays and DVDs to MKV files and then to stream them throughout my house (including my Droid X).

I've so far gotten away with using Gimp over Photoshop, but most of what I did in Photoshop was pretty lightweight (and hardly worth the money I spent on it) so your mileage may vary. I haven't used illustrator, but a friend of mine loves Inkscape for vector graphics. For some Windows-only apps I run them in a virtual machine on my Linux box - much better than keeping dedicated hardware around in my opinion.

[E_man]

I'm a pretty big linux fan. I have my laptop running Mint/Arch, and My desktop running Mint/Windows (windows only when I need it). Definitely feels much better than windows imho.

Then of course, I run it on my phone

As for wine apps:

[TuxDotKing]

Another Linux fan here. Been running Ubuntu since 9.04, running 10.04 on my laptop. Also, wow, I had no idea this forum was here until I randomly came across it today.

[Nitros7]

Well I been running *nix systems going on 6 years now. Started as class work with Fedora for my Linux 1 and 2 classes as well as Linux admin 1 and 2... after that I started playing around with Coyote Linux Firewall (parents wouldn't invest in a router, so I put my collage learning to good use and built one) if you not familiar with it is called brazillWFS now I think... booted of a floppy (and later a cd if I remember correctly), and used IPtables and a very basic web interface.

Later I started dabbling in Unix with FreeBSD and finally settled in to OpenSolaris. Got really in to Sun's offerings and had a solaris box (no not a sparkbox ) with OpenSolaris and VirtualBox that I ran everything on. Just loaded up the VM's for all the other OS i needed... Then Sun traveled down the path of no return an everything was lost to Orical (not a huge fan of them)... So I dropped all of my Sun software.

At that time I started my Securing Linux Systems class at school and my teacher was a big Ubuntu fan... More over he and I had the same laptop and he had Ubuntu up and running (I just got a brand spanking new Toshiba and was having issues with wireless on FC). So to simplify things and cus I new it would work on my system I through Ubuntu on and had it running for 2-3 years till the HD took a dump last month.

Got a new HD for the laptop and re-installed Win Vista for my girl friend, and got a desktop from my old boss... Needed a new MoBo so that was a good excuse for me to drop some cash on new computer parts . Once all was said and done I found my old school HD and dropped that in and now I can dual boot Win 7 for my games and FC14 for my *nix fix!!

[bdotto14]

My first laptop that I ever bought has been a Linux machine since it it wayyy better than XP. I don't use it much unfortunately but my desktop has VirtualBox on it and I run a couple VM's on it when I feel like tinkering. Win 7 has been really acting up on it lately and I'm about one more BSOD away from putting Linux on it and telling my girlfriend to deal

[ANDROID__JUNKIE]

I have played with Linux for years and I love the choices/customization that it gives. Though I must admit that I am a slave to certain Windows software and being a gamer on Linux has its headaches. If more game devs go away from the dark side and drop DirectX I will convert all my systems and run Windows as a VM.

[liquidxit2]

Been messing with linux since the mid 90s. Didnt really get heavy into it until the ubuntu project started in 2004. From then on I have always either had a partition and/or server running some form of ubuntu. As of 11.04 though I have converted completely to debian.

Here is my current setup: