can a pure "end user" switch to Linux?

[polo]

Greetings,

I made the move to Linux about eight or nine years ago when our corporate network was brought to its knees by the Melissa virus and Corel had just announced it would port its Wordperfect Suite to Linux.

I bought a copy of Wordperfect Suite and along with it came a free copy of Corel Linux. It was a rocky start then because Corel Linux would install from my computer's CD reader but then the OS itself would not recognize the CD reader once I rebooted. I ended up selling it to a friend whose CD reader was supported.

I later tried Caldera Linux but eventually ended up with Mandrake which was pretty easy to install and recognized all my hardware except the Win-modem and I even later resolved that problem with a driver from Linuxant. True, I had my share of challenges with printers and scanners in those early days but I always managed to get things running. I stayed with Mandrake through its transition to Mandriva and ran it flawlessly on a Sony VAIO laptop, a Sony VAIO desktop, and an IBM Thinkpad A31p.

I was a Mandriva gold member and thought I would be there forever until one day a year or so ago when my landlord's son convinced me to run an Ubuntu Live CD in my laptop. I was immediately impressed and switched distros that day never to look back. I'm running the latest beta of 8.04 Hardy Heron and really like it. True, there are a few things most quickly and easily done from the command line but there are graphical interfaces and/or applications for virtually anything one might want to do. The only thing I missed initially was the lack of a way to log onto the system as administrator with a graphical interface but I've gotten over that as I've learned to do what I need to do from within my user account.

I have every piece of hardware including printer, scanner, mp3 player, digital camera, modem, wireless card, etc, save one working and working well with Linux. The only thing I'm still working on at present is my USB TV tuner but I have found enough info on the net that I expect to have that working sometime soon.

Just my two cents' worth but I hope it helps add a little more perspective to this discussion.

Polo

[The GNUinator]

Thanks, I'll check into the hopping thread.

I'm trying to get a grip on the linux lingo:

Distros? repositories?

I understand Distro to some extent, but not quite sure what it's about. It's all Linux, but are they all compatible in terms of the software that they can run?

Is anyone aware of a Linux for Newbies web site or faq? I'm off to google for it.

So why is it that Linux "snobs" tend to look down on Ubuntu? I saw another comment about it in another forum. Nothing specific, but it was like "oh, how common." sort of a vibe.

Hi,

If you are still reading this thread, a good resource is
http://distrowatch.com/

This site gives you comparative information
on numerous Linux distributions. One of their
better features is announcements when new
versions are released. Another good resource
is
http://linuxquestions.org/
Here you will find lots of help
on hardware and software questions.

Now I must admit that Slackware is my
favorite Linux distribution. But several years
ago I had a ThinkPad 760XL and I put Vector
Linux 3.2 SOHO on it. The sound card was recognized
immediately. I also had at the time a 760XD and
I continued to run OS/2 on it as that operating
system recognized IBM's proprietary mwave DSP
and modem. Linux did not, or at least did not
without an awfully lot of fooling around.

Today, Ubuntu has all the buzz. But I think
that Slackware and Ubuntu are based on
very different objectives. If Ubuntu success
and great community support bring many new
users to the Linux community then that is a
good thing. I find that the people who like
Slackware are intensely loyal to it.

I personally would never look down on
Ubuntu users. I tried it myself (Breezy Badger)
and found that there were other distributions
I preferred. Again, YMMV...

Good luck and please let us know the
outcome.

The GNUinator