Unfortunately, you cannot install Mac OS X on anything other than a Mac. (officially that is. There are some intel motherboards which can install an EFI bios and get a hacked copy of OS X, but in general you can't)

OpenOffice 3.2 is about the best package for linux, but I'm not sure how it compares to Keynote. You can download it for windows or mac os x as well - it behaves pretty much the same on every OS, so try it out.

>> ^MycroftHomlz:

I thought if I got the Viao or any other PC I would consider installing OSX on it or Linux. I would be hard pressed to use Windows again.

I've been running Linux on my production machine for 2 years now, after trying it out for a year before that. For out-of-the-box usability, there are several distros that are very close to Windows or OSX and even surpass them in some ways. Ubuntu is a great place to start.

And let's not forget that open-source goes way beyond Linux. OpenOffice, the GIMP image editor, Inkscape vector editor, Pidgin IM, Audacity audio editor, Firefox, Thunderbird... there is a huge list of FOSS applications that can do just about anything you want.

Games, agreed, are more problematic on Linux, but as Tymbrwulf mentioned that is a function of the userbase, if it does catch on the way Firefox did, you can be sure that there will be a lot of Linux game releases. Meanwhile games and proprietary software can be run in VirtualBox.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'attack ad, openoffice org, open source, not, the, grades, anything, but, the, grades' to 'attack ad, openoffice org, open source, not the grades, anything but the grades' - edited by Throbbin

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

The girl that laughs at the end is my kind of girl


She can have my free OpenOffice.

>> ^budzos:
I mean, look at your rationale... the bundled software is better, and justifies the added expense. That's goofy.


I don't see how that's goofy. I'm prepared to pay money for better software that makes doing things easier/better/faster. I gave OpenOffice a damn good try because it was free, but you know... I ended up paying for MS Office 2007 because it's just better.

Same goes with the Macs, the software that comes with it, and therefore the day to day experience with it can make life better... that is worth more money.

Don't mention it, I'm glad to help. And I know how frustrating it can be to ask the geek squad anything and trying to get a decypherable answer (I try and I try, but then my drive to educate people overcomes me and my simple answer evolves erm is intelligently redesigned...). Don't feel obligated to promote though, I'm more of a lurker on VS nowadays due to different reasons.

And feel free to approach me on other linuxy questions.

Regarding Flash: thats odd. I only have Flash 10 installed. Maybe that caused the problems? Well, as long as everything is ok now we don't need to poke it until it's broken again.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
I have no real need for OpenOffice 3, so I guess I'll stick with Intrepid for now. I didn't do any separate Flash upgrade. I checked in Firefox, and it indicates that I have both Shockwave Flash 9.0 and Shockwave 10.0. Is that normal?

Hey, I really appreciate all the help. That's worth at least a few promotes in my book. Thanks.

I have no real need for OpenOffice 3, so I guess I'll stick with Intrepid for now. I didn't do any separate Flash upgrade. I checked in Firefox, and it indicates that I have both Shockwave Flash 9.0 and Shockwave 10.0. Is that normal?

Hey, I really appreciate all the help. That's worth at least a few promotes in my book. Thanks.

In reply to this comment by srd:
Great! Too bad we don't know what caused it... If intrepid is running well enough for you, then I'd say stay there for a while. So far I've been mildly disappointed with Jaunty (new amarok version that can't talk to ipods, general ipod problems, less runtime for laptops, etc. Stable but less able.) Unless you need openoffice 3 to deal with ms office 2007 documents. But there are other ways to get office 3 into intrepid. Did you upgrade your flash player while you were at it?

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Good news: I don't have the stutter problem anymore. Videos now play smooth as silk. All I did was upgrade from 8.04 Hardy to 8.10 Intrepid. I should have done that sooner I guess. Do you think I should upgrade to 9.04 Jaunty? It's new, so maybe all the bugs haven't been worked out so I might have the stutter problem again. I'd rather stay with Intrepid if that's the case.

Great! Too bad we don't know what caused it... If intrepid is running well enough for you, then I'd say stay there for a while. So far I've been mildly disappointed with Jaunty (new amarok version that can't talk to ipods, general ipod problems, less runtime for laptops, etc. Stable but less able.) Unless you need openoffice 3 to deal with ms office 2007 documents. But there are other ways to get office 3 into intrepid. Did you upgrade your flash player while you were at it?

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
Good news: I don't have the stutter problem anymore. Videos now play smooth as silk. All I did was upgrade from 8.04 Hardy to 8.10 Intrepid. I should have done that sooner I guess. Do you think I should upgrade to 9.04 Jaunty? It's new, so maybe all the bugs haven't been worked out so I might have the stutter problem again. I'd rather stay with Intrepid if that's the case.

In reply to this comment by chilaxe:
Perhaps reinstall Firefox or do a system restore back to when it was working. Or try the open source version of word, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org

Also, if you keep your comments shorter and more to the point, there's a greater chance people will get through the whole thing

In reply to this comment by GeeSussFreeK:

{ps. anyone know of a good online spell checker? My firefox is buggerd and it spelled checked for me}


Hehe, thanks. The open office I can do, hard to keep my answers short though...im such a wind bag lol. Just been to lazy to install open office...now is as good a time as any.

Perhaps reinstall Firefox or do a system restore back to when it was working. Or try the open source version of word, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org

Also, if you keep your comments shorter and more to the point, there's a greater chance people will get through the whole thing

In reply to this comment by GeeSussFreeK:

{ps. anyone know of a good online spell checker? My firefox is buggerd and it spelled checked for me}

A little over a year ago I slapped a computer together for my mom using spare parts I had laying around. I installed Ubuntu on it, pointed out a few things and let her go. She really didn't have any problems and I can assure you she's far less savvy than you. I don't find it's normal for the average user to need to use the command line.

The only problem that I would anticipate you having is with your wireless card. The majority of laptops seem to use Broadcom wireless these days and Broadcom has gone out of their way to not support open source. Reverse engineering has yielded solid drivers for some Broadcom chips, but others are still not usable.

I took a quick look at Mint a little while back. It didn't look too shabby but I can't really say much, as I didn't spend enough time with it.

I would recommend against the dual-boot option. It sounds like a great idea, but it can leave your system in a rather strange state if you later try to remove Linux. Use the LiveCD option to try it out instead. The LiveCD won't touch your hard drive so if you don't like what you see, it's as simple as throwing the CD out and you're back to where you are now. The downside of the LiveCD is it will be a bit slow and any changes you make will be lost upon shutdown. If you've got the Windows install disc, I think you're better off just wiping Windows out. If you dislike Linux, you can reinstall Windows. The fresh install might solve a number of your problems anyway.

Keeping the programs that came with Windows is a no-no. In most cases you'll want to find replacements for them instead. Here's a few suggestions:

MS Office -> OpenOffice.org (comes with Ubuntu)
Instant Messaging -> Pidgin (comes with Ubuntu)
Web Browser -> Firefox (comes with Ubuntu), Opera, SeaMonkey
Outlook Express or Windows Mail -> Thunderbird, SeaMonkey

As arvana mentioned above, most Linux distributions come with a package management system now. This means you won't generally go to a website to download a program that you want. Instead you'll go into (in the case of Ubuntu) Synaptic Package Manager and select the program you want. The system will take care of retrieving and installing it.

One last piece of advice: The number of choices available to you when going Linux will be overwhelming. Desktop environments, window managers, composition rendering... there are a dozen options for damn near anything you want to do. Don't let it worry you. Just pick one and go with it. Until you've got a bit of experience, you're not going to be able to make a meaningful decision... and in some cases you still won't a couple years later.

Poor linux. I've been using linux for a number of years now and am really impressed with what it can do. It's largest flaw is that it is free. You heard me. If it's free, people assume it's not as "valuable" as an OS you usually have to pay hundreds for.

As far as games go, there are a lot of great commercial and free games that are ported to linux (not through wine). One great example is NeverWinter Nights and it's sequel. For a a list of games that run on linux, check http://www.icculus.org/lgfaq/gamelist.php?license=free .

And for video editing? The problem here is not the linux shell. The problem here is that the commercial grade programs for video editing are not written in or ported to linux. Because linux has less overhead resources than Mac's or Windows (configured properly of course), video editing could be as much or more effective on linux than the other operating systems. It's also worth mentioning that many 3D rendering farms (the masses of computers that render animations for studios like Pixar) often run linux.

Excel Spreadsheets? Really? openoffice.org people. Even on windows, as good as MS Office and $200 less.

Conclusion:
Use linux. It's very good and everything you've been assuming about linux is probably wrong. With the addition of Wine, linux can be very effective for gaming and there is almost no function that can be preformed in Windows or Mac OS that cannot be performed in linux. I dare you to at least try it.

http://www.ubuntu.com/
http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php <-- these are OS's that run right off the CD.

Cool! It boots in 6 seconds!

Um...and then what? It boots in 6 seconds but let's face it, it's still Linux. Don't need a hard drive? Cool! So it runs what then on that little 2MB BIOS? OpenOffice? Gaim? Gimp? or are we just looking to run something to manage a network or something...if so, then why even run X11 at all? You CAN run multiple terminal sessions.

Or is the whole point and the whole exercise only to see "if it can be done". Yep, it can be done!

moving on...