intro...

[para_fms]

hello all. i'm fresh meat here and would like to introduce myself...

I'M PISSED!

well, i think that about sums it up.

more detail? ok:
i've been inflicted with the wintendo disease since win95. that was my first OS on an OEM box. 98 was next and now, very recently, it's XP. since 98 however, i was aware of various security and *GLARING* privacy issues and of course i was aware of various stability issues since the first days of 95.

during my time with 98 i decided to seek alternitives. i had had about enough. i think the biggest motive for wanting change came from reading the "really hidden files" atricle. this led to deeper research and more frustration. naturally linux popped up as perhaps a viable alternitive so off i go to d/l mandrake 8.0. i was INCREDIBLY impressed with the software package that came with even the smaller of the 2 packages! installation was awsome, offering so much control. i was begining to feel free! then the problems:

drivers for my hardware sucked - if even available.

couldn't change display resolution without crashing

although mandrake had a familier interface, i was totally lost when it came to installing anything (build? compile? RPM? - huh!?!?), configuring most things, and i knew none of the command line syntax.

being the "impatient" type as i am, i dumped mandrake but for some reason decided to give redhat a quick test drive. redhat was the first OS that ever crashed sooooo hard that, without knowing any command line syntax, would never boot again. my expierence with redhat lasted approx 30 min's after i had it installed.

back to 98 i happily went.

-------------

no, i am not knocking linux or any distribution thereof. i was a dummy, i admit, and linux did not like my hardware. well, times have changed and although i'm not much smarter when it comes to command line stuff, and i still know nothing of linux syntax, i am being forced out of the "windows" world due to simple COMMON FRIGGIN SENSE! so, browsing for alternitives we go again...

i was hoping some of the flavors of linux would've come further than they have since mandrake 8.0, especially reguarding hardware and drivers. it still looks a little dimm for me, the average PC user with a P3, intel desktop board, gforce3, intel pro 100, SBLive, etc., but it looks doable. i'll be trolling around in the other topics to learn more about that. anyway...

just though i'd say *hi* and tell a bit about me.

BTW, winXP really isn't all that bad! actually, i kind of like using it to browse this forum because it's the VERY FIRST TIME i really do not mind M$ spying on me! that's right you resource hogging, gangster owned, security hole infested, nazi piece of pregnant african turttle crap, CACHE THIS URL AND SEND IT TO BILL!

now please excuse me while i check my brake lines for any recent "tampering".

[voidmain]

Heh heh... good note!  It is true that you need to have Linux in mind before you buy all of your hardware if you want everything to work perfectly.  However, it has gotten much better over the years and you could get lucky and have everything you own work.  Also, when you started using Windows, you probably had a lot of friends that you could call if you wanted to ask a question about how to do something.  That's where the people in this forum can come in.  A lot of the people here are fairly new to Linux (I've actually been using it since 1992 when it all started) and were in your shoes.  I personally like RedHat 7.3 but a lot of the newer people seem to like the latest Mandrake.  I do more server work though.  You definately want one of the newer distros that come with KDE 3.x.  Big improvement, faster, easier to use, True Type font support, etc.

So I won't suggest a distro one way or the other and leave it up to you, but you can't go wrong with latest RedHat, Mandrake, or SuSe.  You might want to check the HCL for each distro (hardware compatibility list) before downloading..

[KernelPanic]

Over the past year or two there have been great leaps in hardware support and ease of installation. If a distro doesnt work for you try another. Also an increase of a few points in version number will probably solve most problems since development is very quick due to it all being open source.

I suggest buying a comprehensive linux book because most are very good and with a book and some experimentation you will realise how quickly you can learn. My trick is to wait for a new revision of a book to come out and get the just replaced one at a discounted price, there is usually little difference in content but a great difference in price. You can always catch up on any other problems on the internet (and right here of course).

Have fun...

[para_fms]

thanks for the welcome folks!

these forums are proving to be quite helpful. i'm well on my way to collecting some very valuable links and info.