* John & Peg Pickard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [030121 05:06]: > In short, will I be able to do something productive with Debian LINUX? And then > I > will want to network it with our laptop running WinME, and a LinkSys Print > server, > and possibly a US Robotics broadband router (if I can use the "back up" dial up > connection on a permanent basis, which would then have an external modem). > All without requiring a PHD in networking? If I get that far, LINUX will be for > real, > and I will also load it on my old 100 mhz Dell and network that too. > > Any hope?
Yes, alot. I have to admit it has been an uphill battle using Debian, but as a developer I have been doing my best in the last couple of months to plumb the depths of the system. I have admit that the new installer is not as pretty as the other distros but it is very effective, and I found that at the end of it I had a running system from sound, video to network. The only thing that was sticky was getting adsl over pptp setup, but that was my isp's fault for giving bad intructions. The libranet option sounds a very nice option, and I have to say that once you have a system up and running apt-get is amazing, making the installing and removal of software incredibly easy, much easier than it was on windows (especially removals which left all sorts of crap all over the registry). I would also like to point out, that as a long time windows user, I have spent hours, days and weeks trying to debug problems with the various systems, win2000 has probably been the best so far for stability, but is frustratingly slow even on my Dell latitude 600 laptop with lots of memory. I have also spent days installing or reinstalling windows on my machine or someone elses because it has irreperably broken or become so buggy that it spends more time rebooting after crashing than actually running, leading to the aforementioned reinstall, which takes forever. For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be productive as time went on, and if something went wrong very difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head setting up and learning the system with ease of use and the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I use the system. Diving in (a couple of months ago), making the commitment and I won't deny spending hours learning the machine with the liberal help of the wonderful people on this mailing list, has been the best thing I have done. I have learned more about computers (useful because I am a developer) in the last couple of months than I have in years with Windows. It has also opened my eyes to there being many ways to skin any cat. For office productivity I use OpenOffice sometimes, and if it has to look really good latex, or lyx on the document front. I have to say that I took over my windows partition, and now run win2k in an emulator for the times I need to for work, and it runs as fast, with a few trivial exceptions, in the emulator as it did on its own, and for the rest of my life I get to run on a fast responsive and endlessly configurable system. I have discovered that linux is a wonderful thing, and I had many of your objections less than a couple of months ago. It is an evolving of you and the system ie. mail (very important part of life these days) has run from Outlook with exchange server (meaning I could send mails at work but not from my home internet connection without using the web interface) to Mozilla mail using IMAP (where I was introduced to the wonders of threaded mail) to what I use now mutt with IMAP with exim for sending mail which doesn't care where I am as long as it has access to dns to figure out where to send mail. On windows, without buying a piece of software I could not maintain two distinct lan settings and switch between them (one for work, one to use the pptp-adsl connection I have at home), so I had to switch my settings if I was working at home, and (this is the beauty) reboot again for the settings to take place (win2000) which is completely ridiculous. On linux I have a number of lan settings for my one ethernet card, and if I had others they could each have a number of settings each, all I do is pick which one I want and tada done, if I am at work suspend my machine and go home and power back up it takes about 10 seconds (no joking) for the system to switch to the new settings and everything functions perfectly. Suspending the computer is another element that was always buggy with win2000 and could not be done more than one time before a reboot or nothing worked. With my debian system I keep going for weeks with no problems, and every so often when I have to reboot it takes about 2 minutes, compared to win2000's 5-10 min(again, no joke). And I could go on....... This was not meant to be so long, but I am way more productive (except when writing long emails:)). The writers who have been telling you that once you make a committed switch you will wonder how you ever did with out it are right, I for one as a recent switcher completely agree. Did I mention the virtual desktop feature, as well as using different guis according to your tastes, I have been switching to quick and snappy lately. I have spent many hours figuring things out and being frustrated (like mutt and exim), but it has been worth it, and I spent as much if not more time doing the same in Windows often with dead ends facing me at the end of a long search, and the support with debian has been amazing. alright will shut up now...:) I hope you switch soon, you will love the results. rohan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
