Yeah, I'm not bold enough to drop Windows quite yet myself, Banshee- dual boot is a little like training wheels, you keep it on for a while and when you get your balance you let it go.

And it was far easier than I'd been led to believe, especially in light of my last foray into the great penguin's territory.

Yeah, actually, I just got the printer to spit out a test page. It was kind of a woot moment for me, though I know it's a simple victory (didn't require all that much work), it's a proof-of-concept that I need to be able to bull through this stuff and continue pursuing an all-Linux desktop. If I can make it meet all of my personal minimum-requirements (one is network printing, another is interoperability with my Zen), then the rest is just gravy. Plus it's fun.

W00t!

Alright, Demo! Credit where credit's due- I've been using Mint for the last 3 hours and I'm already happier with it than I was with Mandriva. I'm especially pleased that I don't have to jump through any hoops to make my MTP player (Creative Zen) work with it, I can just copy files and go.

You done good, my friend.

Ha! If I could find one manual to do all the crap I need to do, I'd be glad to. The big thing I'm running into is that every problem I encounter has a rabbit trail of potential resources to follow, and having to run down the trail every time is a real nuisance when I'm busy learning a new job and fixing up a new house. Plus we're trying to plan a wedding. Weeee!

Never heard of it. What is it, multiple implementations of different distributions?

Pfbbbt. Painting's for losers. Linux, now that's for teh win.

 

So as it turns out, I'm an idiot- it's not KDE, it's the GNOME flavor of Mandriva.

Still wondering if I'm insane.

So I finally buckled under to the madness that some of you have espoused and installed Mandriva (KDE) on my desktop and laptop, and I'm stumbling around it like a drunk sailor on leave trying to figure out how to do anything. In general, I'm pretty pleased, so far none of the stuff I've done has broken it, but I haven't done anything seriously complicated yet because, quite frankly, I don't do much on my computer these days. It's an embarrassing admission, but the majority of my time on the computer is spent on (somewhat) serious tasks such as email and web browsing, and the occasional torrent download. No gaming, video editing, crazy graphic mods to the interface, nada. However, I do have a few minimum requirements not yet being met two weeks into my experiment, and when I can't find a way to do them I just bounce back out and into my dual-boot Windows, handle those tasks, and come back a day or so later. This is where I find Linux to be slightly lacking, although I'm betting that's just because I lack understanding, not that the OS or the community hasn't come up with answers to my problems.

This brings up the question- I'm delving in to downloading packages and compiling source and 'make' and 'sudo' and 'apt-get' commands, and I'm finding that those commands aren't there. I have to go and locate the packages that contain them, then install those packages, then i can compile and install the packages that made me want to use those commands in the first damn place. Not good. So this is where I seek some advice from those of you who've been there, done that- What am I doing here? Did I screw up the installation and leave those packages out, or is Mandriva set up to be so newbie-friendly that it doesn't include some of the more complex commands which might wind up breaking things? Or the third option, is this how all distributions of Linux are set up? Do you have to download all your commands before being able to do anything purposeful here?

Am I actually insane?

Detta, honestly I got my blackjack as a sort of lark. I had some extra cash & I was tired of my existing carrier, so - just did it. Now, however, having explored some of the other features (calendar, email, mobile apps), I'm not sure I could do without it. - especially depend on my outlook synchronization to keep contacts and calendar information straight- if I didn't have this thing reminding me to get a check cut for ashland, they'd never see their money (okay, it'd take a lot longer, maybe not "never"). It's simple things like that that I'd never be able to keep up with if I didn't have this little electronic crutch holding my memory up.

Yeah, I've enjoyed my Samsung Blackjack (first gen), updated it to WinMo 6 a month or so ago, but the hardware's kinda wearing out- speaker's losing volume, the keys respond funny sometimes, and it occasionally gets hung up for no apparent reason. I want to keep the functionalities I've gotten used to, but go to another operating system; I've seen a lot of reviews that have suggested that WinMo's really on the low end of overall user experience, and I'd like to expand my experience so I can make my own judgment.

   **This thread has been split off from  BSoD thread **

And since you're blowing it away and starting from scratch, now would be a good time to give something different a try.

No registry cleaners, no BSODs, no viruses, no adware, just a usable computer.

Alright, I'll bite. But what kind of PDA/smartphone support would I have? I'm probably switching to Crackberry in a few weeks, so I don't necessarily need Windows anymore...

I saw them about 6 months ago with The Sword. Coincidentally, I am going to see The Sword again tomorrow.

Hate you. The closest they come to Richmond is Philadelphia, which irritates me b/c they're ostensibly from MD. How do you come from a place and not play the state adjacent? I'm not familiar with The Sword, but if they're anywhere near Clutch, I'm sure it was a kickass show.