PC & IT 01 (May 08 - Oct 08)

[kennynah]

i think a better choice of candidate for lara croft is this...

[ehchang]

i recently tried out fedora (a free open source os) on my desktop. there were glitches at first but after some serious reading and getting use to, i find it is good to use. now my desktop run entirely on open source software, no more windows/office. i feel so great that they are free and running well.

[blid2def]

i recently tried out fedora (a free open source os) on my desktop. there were glitches at first but after some serious reading and getting use to, i find it is good to use. now my desktop run entirely on open source software, no more windows/office. i feel so great that they are free and running well.

Well done! I'd have really seriously gone down that path if not for the need to play some PC games. Only issue I've had with Fedora (or ubuntu for that matter) has to do with drivers (as usual) for a Linksys wireless adapter. Dig high and low, check forums, try a whole bunch of stuff, just couldn't get it to work.

[sesdaqfan]

hi granny,
I have been using open office on windows Xp for some time. I'm thinking of reformatting and installing a open OS for my Tablet. Which open source OS would you guys recommend in order for it to work with my aztech adsl wireless modem. linux?

[blid2def]

Eh, I think the ADSL modem itself shouldn't be a problem - I don't think you'll need any drivers for that. I assume your tablet PC has a built-in wireless adapter - that might be the one that'll give you more problems when installing Linux, because the product companies don't always provide the Linux drivers. Cue mad Google searching for generic drivers, or digging for info on the wireless adapter (e.g. which chipset it uses - leading to the drivers for that chipset), etc.

If I were you, I'd surf for info on whether others have had problems with running Linux on that tablet PC of yours first (specifically on the wireless adapter issue). If the tablet PC is the only PC you have, then this is all the more important, because the worst case is to encounter problems and be unable to surf the web to find help / info.

As for the operating systems, I've only used (sparingly) Ubuntu Linux on an old desktop PC I had (not anymore though). I think it's one of the easiest to install, and the package upgrading support is pretty good. Fedora is a pretty simple install too, but I haven't used it much. Ubuntu also has a pretty decent support community out there.

If your XP is working fine, then personally, I wouldn't advise reformatting it off and installing a new OS which you (I assume) have no experience with. Probably safer to just install Linux on top of it (if you've disk space) and dual-boot (so you can choose at power up, whether you want to boot into Linux or XP). That way, you get a chance to try out the new OS without losing access to your PC, if things go wrong.

[sesdaqfan]

Thanks gran for the quick reply.

Mine is the Compaq Tablet 100 that runs using the Transmeta Crusoe 1 GHz Processor, not Intel. It is working perfectly fine. The reason I'm still using it is that i found it to be the most beautiful man-made thing that I have ever laid my eyes on. None in the market is even near to it. Its a bit slow now with all the garbage that Windows has loaded on after all these years. Not too sure whether it can have a dual boot though. Any particular website that i can download from as i found so many Linux clones when i google.

[blid2def]

distro's! The term is distro's!

Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com/
Fedora: http://fedoraproject.org/

[sesdaqfan]

Hi Granny,
Bad news. My hardisk crashed after I tried to instal the new OS. I could not even startup now with my external Cdrom. Guess got to go to HP to see doctor liao.

[helios]

sesdaqfanny,

(have a break, have a kit-kat).

[sesdaqfan]

Kind of sad, sanny. The XP just refused to work, I guess they don like linux. Must be enemies in their lifetime. This tablet has been my baby for so long.