I got another laptop, a medium speed Core Duo guy but with 2gig memory and 300gig disk. It came with Vista. That did not last long. After about 20 minutes of Vista (after a much longer question answer session before it finally booted completely) I noticed that certain things were being installed which I did not have the opportunity to say YES or NO.
To me, that is called SPAM/Malware/Spyware/Marketing, and it really soured my first true experience with Vista. It was only Vista Home Basic -- not much of an experience at best, anyway.
I immediately grabbed a CD with openSUSE Linux, which so happened to support all the hardware on this laptop (Dell Inspiron 1520). I wiped out the entire 300gig disk and replaced it with Linux. Now I have a screaming system that computes the hell out of data and has every damn software thingy I could imagine.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING THIS!!! Although I have a great machine as a result, it took my many years of experience with computers, networks, Unix, Linux, XP and all the various wires and vast differences between them. I think that is the real reason Linux will never be a household word. It is just too hard for Mom and Pop to grok.
There are companies that will sell you completely installed versions of Linux for a slight fee over the cost of the machine itself. But I have no time for that. I just do it myself in a few hours. All the frustrations are good for my heart -- pacing around between machines. Good exercise.
To me, that is called SPAM/Malware/Spyware/Marketing, and it really soured my first true experience with Vista. It was only Vista Home Basic -- not much of an experience at best, anyway.
I immediately grabbed a CD with openSUSE Linux, which so happened to support all the hardware on this laptop (Dell Inspiron 1520). I wiped out the entire 300gig disk and replaced it with Linux. Now I have a screaming system that computes the hell out of data and has every damn software thingy I could imagine.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING THIS!!! Although I have a great machine as a result, it took my many years of experience with computers, networks, Unix, Linux, XP and all the various wires and vast differences between them. I think that is the real reason Linux will never be a household word. It is just too hard for Mom and Pop to grok.
There are companies that will sell you completely installed versions of Linux for a slight fee over the cost of the machine itself. But I have no time for that. I just do it myself in a few hours. All the frustrations are good for my heart -- pacing around between machines. Good exercise.
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