1: Xubuntu is great! If you still have problems with it try Puppy Ubuntu. Runs off a USB key!

2: Sounds stupid to mention it but the obvious one: http://www.ubuntu.com/

3: Either way works fine!

Here are my questions (bear with me I am not super technical – but brave!):

I have 256mg, only will use the laptop for surfing and an occasional letter on OpenOffice. I use/will use firefox.

1. Is Xubuntu the OS I want?

2. Any particular site that you have found useful?

3. Assuming I get the appropriate version of Xubuntu on a CD or external drive – do I simply tell my Inspiron 2500, via setup screen, to boot from Xubuntu install CD and then, once deployed, I wipeout any trace of XP? I would like to wip out every trace of Microsoft first, I assume even without an OS, I can still communicate with Setup – true? Any suggestions?

I know these are alot of questions – any and all input will be very much appreciated.

Peter

The new Ubuntu 8.04 is the best yet. Im downloading Xubuntu to put on my older laptops so I can use them in the kitchen for looking up recipes, watching online TV, listening to music, checking email, etc. The old laptop in the kitchen will work as a quickie family central computer.

My wife is still not convinced yet on linux, but slowly I am converting her She needs MS office for accounting purposes and says OpenOffice just isnt powerful enough. using an XP emulator called Wine you can get a lot of software made for XP running on your linux system. MS products may need “CrossOver” to work the best in Ubuntu which is like $40 I think, but if you absolutely need MS products it might be worth it. I run XP within Ubuntu using VirtualBox just to brag and tell people I have XP in a little prison on my computer I can do whatever the heck I want with XP. Ha!

One thing I was kind of struggling with was whether to choose Kubuntu or Ubuntu. Like a few other people I’ve read posts by on the web, I like a lot of the KDE apps (K3B, KVPNC, Konversation, Amarok, KRDC, KTorrent), but prefer the Gnome environment. Well, no problem! Ubuntu easily installs KDE apps to Gnome from Add remove programs! The same is true if you prefer KDE, but need some Gnome apps.

Ubuntu is nothing like many other distros. It’s much easier to install a driver.

For that matter, I use Gentoo, one of the harder distros to get up and running, and I never had to recompile my kernel for a video driver, unless there was some option I didn’t enable that was required when I last compiled.

And, as far as Windows compatibility, there are many many ways to run windows programs under linux. I use VirtualBox and run my Windows apps seamlessly (ie: they look like they are running in Linux..) under a virtual HD. This can also be done using your live Windows partition with VMWare (Install VMWare’s SCSI driver or something…) but I didn’t like the speed (or lack of)

And there’s Wine and Cedega for games.

Personally, I thought my conversion would have been more painful, but except for my mapping software (Delorme Street Atlas, I use it to confirm my routes when I’m driving my semi) I don’t need Windows. And someday, there will be a solution for my mapping proggy too.

On a Vista Hater’s note: My new lappy came with Vista. I ran it for 10 minutes, just to be sure of it’s kompleate suckage, then nuked it from my system (I saved the restore partition, just in case…) and threw XP Pro on it.

My Vista experience has been really bad – it’s slow, awkward and the permissions issues just crazy

Well done for taking the chance.

Now off to play!

Didn’t think it needed to be more than that