Operating Systems... Raise your hands everbody!

[blkmage]

Have a dual-boot running Ubuntu and my "This copy of windows is not genuine" Win 7. As of now, I'll use Win 7 for the Adobe suite and for iTunes. I'll use Ubuntu for everything else... Though Ubuntu doesn't seem to like the multi-touch touch pad on my laptop... I have to be careful how I touch it so it doesn't jump around like crazy.

EDIT: Oh, and it's really annoying how 99% of software distro'd on Linux is distro'd as SOURCE CODE. There's plenty of good stuff, but trying to do everything with the terminal is frustrating. What is wrong with executables?

Like the others suggested, are you using Ubuntu's package manager or are you downloading tar files and doing the whole ./configure, make, make install dance? If it's the latter, stop immediately and get acquainted with the package manager.

90% of Ubuntu's software can be found through the package manager which manages downloading, installing, upgrading, and keeping up-to-date all of your software packages and any software packages that those software packages depend on. It's a much, much better idea to learn how to use it than building your own binaries from source.

If you're not comfortable with the terminal to apt-get install <package>, then you can use Synaptic, which is a GUI frontend for apt. You can search for packages through Synaptic.

Using the package manager, you can even do version upgrades of your distro.

[Bobtheduck]

[quote="blkmage (post: 1381387)"]Like the others suggested, are you using Ubuntu's package manager or are you downloading tar files and doing the whole ./configure, make, make install dance? If it's the latter, stop immediately and get acquainted with the package manager.

90%]

Thank you... I was going through sourceforge, which is where I went for all my open source software on windows, but that's because the windows ones have executables about 80% of the time. This helped so much... I'm sorry, brand new to this whole linux thing. Installing hangul and hopefully find Japanese IME now.

Different topic now... My lappy has a multi-touch touch pad... If I so much as press down too hard on it, and God forbid I actually place two fingers on it, it goes CRAZY in Ubuntu. Any clue how to deal with that? I'm liking the fact I've gone 2 days without a crash. It feels nice. Getting rid of my biggest annoyance would be nice.

[Mithrandir]

I'd recommend you get an external mouse, or practice your l33t trackpad skills. Last I checked, there was still a bit of work that needed to be done on the track pad input stuff. If you post your make/model of your box, we might be able to help you google for some answers.

[Bobtheduck]

I have a Toshiba Satelite L500 and I did look it up, but I haven't found any answers except a possible downgrade to an earlier Ubuntu version. The problem the person was showing was the touchpad not responding AT ALL, though. Mine works as long as I don't accidentally touch it in two places at once.

I also have an external mouse, it's just really poor quality. Very jittery no matter what surface I use it on. It came with my Laptop. I should get a better one.

[Mithrandir]

Hmm... Are there any options to disable multi-touch in the preferences anywhere? It could be something like that is messing you up.

[abbyjenna]

windows xp(desktop), windows 7(laptop), and MAC OSX snow leopard(mac mini)...

[Bobtheduck]

Hmm... Are there any options to disable multi-touch in the preferences anywhere? It could be something like that is messing you up.

Actually, it's not just the multi-touch, though Ubuntu definitely doesn't like that. It seems to be the right click button that's the biggest problem. It's hyper sensitive in Ubuntu, and I brush it when I type and it opens context menus with keyboard shortcuts I activate before I realize what's happening. It doesn't do that on Windows. I have to press it harder for it to work. If I could set it up to disable the clicks when I'm typing, and not just the touchpad itself, that would be great.

I can disable the pad itself while I'm typing, but not the buttons. I have to keep my hands hovering, or tilted in an unnatural position in order to avoid opening the context menu when I'm not trying to. If I could deactivate the mouse buttons themselves while typing, that would be nice.

[SnoringFrog]

I use XP on the main computer, the old desktops laying around in my room are currently running DSLinux and Windows 2000. The horribly old laptop I was given recently is running the middle-weight version of SliTaz (for it's 32mb ram).

[Alcuinus]

Linux (fedora flavor) ftw woot!... though I'm stuck on Win 7 atm for a certain project :|

[firestorm]

I use a powermac G4 quicksilver tower with Osx 10.4, and it's working great for me! lol shows how much quality Apple puts into their products ^-^. 8 years old and counting.

[Atria35]

I've got Vista on my laptop... which apparently decided it wasn't good for it's digestion and so broke down. I was thinking of upgrading to Windows 7, though. Anyone got any thoughts about that? Good, bad, indifferent?

[Mithrandir]

I've got Vista on my laptop... which apparently decided it wasn't good for it's digestion and so broke down. I was thinking of upgrading to Windows 7, though. Anyone got any thoughts about that? Good, bad, indifferent?

The people I have talked to who did exactly this are happy they made the switch. I have not used either OS myself, so I can give no first hand information - only 2nd hand.

[Atria35]

The people I have talked to who did exactly this are happy they made the switch. I have not used either OS myself, so I can give no first hand information - only 2nd hand.

I'll keep that in mind, and continue to ask around to see if any of my other friends know anything about it. Thank you!

[Hakaii]

At work, we are going to have Windows 7 and Mac OS 10 dual-booting off of an Imac. The Windows 7 partition should also have a Virtual Box of Windows XP SP3.

[Garland]

I have two laptops. One is one my dad gave me after he got a new one. It's a PPC Mac running Leopard (10.5). The other I got when I couldn't get my Mac to work consistently (Its a Powerbook G4, if that gives you an idea of its age), so I bought a new laptop that dual-boots Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.10, Ubuntu being the one I use most of the time.

I also have a flaky Windows XP desktop that my family uses, but we need to fix it or replace it.

[ST. Attidude]

Wow, am I the only one here stuck with Vista?

You're not alone. I'm stuck with it too; waist-deep stuck.

[FllMtl Novelist]

Huh, old-ish thread.

Windows xp is on almost every computer at my house. (The only exception being the Windows 98--I think it's 98--that my siblings run most computer games on.)

[Rusty Claymore]

I use Altimate. ▬_▬

[MxCake]

im a windows nerd and i just ordered a laptop with windows 7

[RefractedAhav]

Currently Linux Mint, and I believe it's version 9. I thought about going with the Debian version, but my poor old hard rive has been reformatted so many times, I don't think switching os' is a good idea. I thinking about getting a netbook and salvaging this laptop to make a pc Linux version of the modbook. One geared toward artist, with a colour pallet touch screen on on the side that would also allow for quick access to multiple clipboard files.

Anyway, I'm actually platform agnostic and my dream (one that would be easy to produce anyway) pc right now is a modbook pro with win 7 , Mac OS X, and some debian based linux distro installed and configured to take full advantage of the wacom. tech used to power it's screen.

oh if you don't know what a modbook is, it actually came before the ipad and is a full fledge tablet pc based on a mac book.

[Hiryu]

XP still works fine for me.

[Arya Raiin]

I'm running on good ol' Windows XP. I could switch to 7 but I don't want to bother with it. A guy I met before created his own OS. I asked him to give me a copy but he forgot to. DX

[TheMelodyMaker]

Mine came with Windows XP, but I set it up to dual-boot to XP or 98SE. (That's the "Windows Other" I voted for in the poll. ^_^ )

[Bobtheduck]

I have an Ubuntu 10.something and Windows 7 dualboot, but I haven't used Ubuntu in a long time, because I need windows for the Adobe suite, and there aren't really suitable open-source (or even Linux version) substitutes available.

What happened to the darned Linux version of Unreal Tournament and Unreal Editor, too? *sigh*

I prefer Ubuntu to Windows other than that little problem.

[ST. Attidude]

I prefer Ubuntu to Windows other than that little problem.

I have heard of that OS but never seen it...is it much different than Windows?

[Bobtheduck]

I have heard of that OS but never seen it...is it much different than Windows?

Kind of. It's more stable, usually runs faster (though not always), but is much more limited in its software. If you only need it for office stuff and web browsing, it's vastly superior to windows, but if you want to game on it or do art stuff or something it's not gonna cut it... I mean, there's the Gimp and Blender, but they're no replacement for Photoshop and 3ds Max or Maya.

[Warrior4Christ]

I mean, there's the Gimp and Blender, but they're no replacement for Photoshop and 3ds Max or Maya.

On the other hand, the Linux stuff is free as opposed to expensive....
For programming, Linux is superior also.
On Linux, installing programs that your distribution provides is straightforward, but ones not provided can be somewhat tricky. Installing programs in Windows is in most cases straightforward.

[blkmage]

Setting up my Windows machine for development at my last job was a week-long trial that ended up being a house of cards in terms of stability and predictability for four months.

[Warrior4Christ]

Setting up my Windows machine for development at my last job was a week-long trial that ended up being a house of cards in terms of stability and predictability for four months.

For me, it was about a day, and was pretty solid. Until there was a hardware fault...

[QtheQreater]

Windows XP, which probably won't change until this laptop releases the magic smoke.