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[bubosquared]

I'm halfway planning to refomat my HD and install Linux/Unix/whatever, basically, an open source OS. Could anyone please tell me if this is a good idea for me? Ta.

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stupid lj wouldn't let me put it all in one comment.

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

Also wanted to point out- I don't know about the GUIs availible to run on unix-based OS. It's been ages since I used any of them, and we don't run any here regularly. (All of the properly desktop machines with monitors run windows varients- mostly so I can play games and things easily, and in my SO's case because the accessibility features, onscreen keyboard and so on, are much better in windows. Everything important- file server, router, etc. run freebsd.) I do know that you can run windows on top of freebsd, if you want to use windows programs, and then if windows crashes, it only takes the work from within windows with it- the rest of the machine should stay up and running happily.

and the footnote:

[1]- I feel it only fair to point out that in some cases the friendly advice might well be "get something else." The guys (very few girls- they keep trying to get me to do useful things for them just 'cause I'm female) tend to concentrate on newer stuff because it's more in demand, and also generally more obtainable. If they happen to have a piece of hardware to hand, or someone donates it, generally a driver gets written eventually, but it's a case of when they get around to it. (I don't even want to count the number of soundcards we have at this point- well over 30. Boxes of the things.) Also, occasionally drivers don't get written (particularly with newer hardware) if the manufacturer of the chipsets on the card won't cough up the specifications. I know the guy who does most of the ethernet drivers flat out refuses to work on anything he doesn't have specs for, because he feels it's a waste of his time when there's so much else to do, and Neph (my SO) tends to put off things he doesn't have specs for, or offloads them to one of his sound-minions.

Oh. Just asked what some committer-folk thought, and they reckon you shoudl be ok, but one of them recommends you learn C, because C and Unix are very intertwined and knowing C helps to understand unix. (It also means they can tell you to fix things yourself, but he didn't say that, it's my own personal observation. They like telling people to fix things themselves and then submit a PR.) (PR being Problem Report.)

If you decide on freeBSD, I could probably post you a copy of one of the books on using freeBSD. (I forget which one. Neph's dad borrowed it, but I don't think he's using it at all, so I could get it back, but I don't have it around to check atm. :)

-Kris