SillyDog701

[Jeffredo]

I finally (after three attempts) found a Linux distribution that works for me and my PC. SuSe 9.2 was too buggy. Linspire crashed everytime I tried to shutdown (but had a great and easy to install software library). Xandros has finally replaced XP as my daily OS. I'm very nearly a Linux idiot, but that doesn't matter with Xandros. It installed perfectly in 15 minutes while setting up a dual boot partition with XP (which still boots fine - couldn't say the same for SuSe or Linspire). The Xandros Network is a great software library and installation tool that has literally hundreds of Debian packages available that can be installed with one click. Plus it has Crossover Office (WINE) available if you must install and run certain Windows apps (I installed Quicktime and WMP). It is very user friendly, stable and attractive. It just works! The only thing I need XP for now on my dual boot system is my collection of games. I highly recommend for anyone wanting to "get their feet wet" with Linux!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041204 Firefox/1.0 (Debian package 1.0.x.2-1)

[Antony]

Jeffredo,

Thanks for sharing your result with us. It's good to know that you can run QuickTime. Now, the most important question, can you run iTunes?
Can you access iTunes Music Store and buy music under Xandros?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/125.5.6 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/125.12

[DJGM]

If the version of CrossOver Office that came with Jeffredo's Xandros distro is v4.x, then iTunes
will run, albeit very slowly. The latest version of iTunes supported by CrossOver Office, is v4.6.

iTunes will fail to install with any version of CrossOver lower than v4.x.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.8b) Gecko/20050205

[Antony]

and how would the authorising issue? Would it be possible to authorise the computer under CrossOver Office (for legally purchased music playback)?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/125.5.6 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/125.12

[Jeffredo]

iTunes did install via Crossover Office. I got some error messages saying registry information was missing and to reinstall. That could just be from the Crossover Office installation. It may still run. I'll give it a try soon. The music store is there and it seems to move around the menu fairly quickly. I never used iTunes on Windows, so I don't have a way to compare!

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041202 Debian/1.7.3.x.1-39

[Antony]

Jeffredo,
Do you happen to have an iPod or an [sdt=8032]iPod shuffle[/sdt] to test if you can upload songs from iTunes under Crossover Office?

(There might be a problem with iPod shuffle, as it requires iTunes 4.7.1 or later.)

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/125.5.6 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/125.12

[Jeffredo]

Unfortunately I don't. About the only test I can do (and I will try this weekend) is to buy songs and burn them to CD. Just from seeing how smooth and well integrated this OS is, I would bet that in another year there will be a number of Linux distros that will give Windows XP a run for it's money. If Cross Over Office and Win4Lin type apps progress enough to install and run most any Windows software without conflicts, that will pretty much settle the issue for many people.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041204 Firefox/1.0 (Debian package 1.0.x.2-1)

[Mandrake]

Unfortunately I don't. About the only test I can do (and I will try this weekend) is to buy songs and burn them to CD. Just from seeing how smooth and well integrated this OS is, I would bet that in another year there will be a number of Linux distros that will give Windows XP a run for it's money. If Cross Over Office and Win4Lin type apps progress enough to install and run most any Windows software without conflicts, that will pretty much settle the issue for many people.

I've noticed that, I enjoy using SuSE Linux .. in terms of a desktop OS, it's almost as good as Windows XP. However, with Longhorn due to come out mid next year - Linux will look rather primitive as a desktop OS in comparison.

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1)

[Jeffredo]

It could look primitive in it's current state. But it's developing so quickly that in another year and a half it may still be a viable alternative even against Longhorn.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

[Edward]

I finally (after three attempts) found a Linux distribution that works for me and my PC. SuSe 9.2 was too buggy. Linspire crashed everytime I tried to shutdown (but had a great and easy to install software library). Xandros has finally replaced XP as my daily OS. I'm very nearly a Linux idiot, but that doesn't matter with Xandros. It installed perfectly in 15 minutes while setting up a dual boot partition with XP (which still boots fine - couldn't say the same for SuSe or Linspire). The Xandros Network is a great software library and installation tool that has literally hundreds of Debian packages available that can be installed with one click. Plus it has Crossover Office (WINE) available if you must install and run certain Windows apps (I installed Quicktime and WMP). It is very user friendly, stable and attractive. It just works! The only thing I need XP for now on my dual boot system is my collection of games. I highly recommend for anyone wanting to "get their feet wet" with Linux!

Interesting to hear that SuSE 9.2 was buggy, glad I decided not to buy it. In fact, I downgraded to SuSE 9.0 (from 9.1) on my Pentium PC, because 9.1 ran too slow on it, plus I recently began seeing unexplained errors involving firewall rules. I almost want to say that 9.0 on the Pentium runs faster than 9.1 does on the K6-2 (which has a CPU 3x faster than the Pentium).

I was not able to get WINE to run under SuSE 9.1, but was able to with 9.0.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i586; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041217

[Mandrake]

I found SuSE 9.2 to be very stable, and faster than 9.1. The new features like silent installing of USB and Firewire devices (just like in Windows 2000 and XP) are excellent.

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)

[Edward]

At first glance, I'm guessing the overall slownesss of 9.1 on the Pentium, may be due to the fact that the 9.1 has the 2.6 kernel which contains lots of stuff, that 9.0 using the 2.4 kernel does not.

I had to tweak the margin settings in Mozilla in order to get everything to print out with the Epson Stylus Color (SC) 400 that is connected (via USB) to the Pentium, but to print properly with Opera (the footers from a page viewed with Opera initially did not print), I had to change the PPD printer file from the SC 400 to one that is used with the SC 440, then everything printed perfectly.

UserAgent: Opera/8.0 (X11; Linux i586; U; en)