[ale] Greetings and introduction

[aaron]

On Wednesday 19 April 2006 02:59, David Nixon wrote:
> I am an avid gamer/geek that has been firmly entrenched in the windows 
> world for eons.  I tend to upgrade constantly and I game quite a bit, 
> and so always had trouble with Linux.  I have spent more than $1000 on 
> various distros, but in the end have always been forced back to the 
> Mother Ship due to an incompatability, lack of driver support, or the 
> inability to play a particular game.  I tried dual-booting, but hate 
> maintaining two OS's.
>
> I have dabbled with Linux for many years, learned some things, had some 
> fun, but never got to the point that I could stay with it full time.  
> Off the top of my head, I have used(usually multiple version numbers):

I'm curious how you (or anyone) could manage to spend $1000 on Linux distros 
when most can be downloaded for free or can be ordered on CD sets for 5 to 25 
dollars.  My own explorations of dozens of Linux distros has only cost me 
about $90 in blank CD's and DVD's plus $30 spent on pre-packaged sets. Even 
the couple of retail "boxed set" distros like Xandros, Suse and Mandriva are 
under $200. Still, giving the benefit of the doubt that this isn't a troll...

Linux excels at most all the mainstream arenas of computing. A number of 
modern distros offer very capable choices for handling all the common 
desktop, communication, network, office and amusement applications that 
majority of people find themselves regularly using a computer for. But 
computers are nothing if not versatile, so there a million ways to use 
computer technology and no single operating environment can address all of 
them with equal ability.  With any system there will be niche interests and 
areas that could be addressed better, even with the diversity of Open 
Source. For instance, the absolute best media production systems on the planet 
right now are all Mac OSeX.

The worst systems and software for just about any computer application are the 
ones that come from Micro$haft. For starters, the whole company is incapable 
of surviving without relying on the criminally extortionary business 
practices for which they've been convicted 3 times in federal court (yet 
continue to employ). Compared to Open Source systems and software, they have 
prooven themselves generally incompetent at network server applications and 
system security.  Most importantly, they really, truly and totally suck at 
respecting the privacy and fair use rights of their users, which means their 
systems and software should be avoided and eschewed across the board without 
further question. It is impossible for M$ products to ever offer enough 
benefit to offset their blatant, arrogant abuses of their users.

About the only excuse for having an M$ platform is bleeding edge gaming, since 
the unearned market dominance of these corporate criminals means that short 
term greed drives the bleeding edge hardware suppliers and game writers to 
feed at the big pigs' trough and neglect the healthier, sustainable choices.

Even there, I'd suggest that if you're into bleeding edge gaming, you'd be a 
lot better off buying a PS2 and converting your PC to Linux.  Ubuntu and 
Fedora are good choices of well supported free distros, while Mandriva and 
Suse provide commercial support and proprietary license access for a modest 
price. If you have more of a custom purpose system in mind, there are 
literally hundreds of specialized (and free) Linux distros to choose from, 
most of which are reviewed and referenced at DistroWatch.org. If you enjoy 
geeking as much as gaming, then you need to do yourself the favor of dumping 
windblows.

peace
aaron

[snip]