[GLLUG] Re: cheap cd-rw drives

[Jolyon Michael Vincent]

Phillip Hofmeister writes: 

> On Thu, 01 Jul 2004 at 09:27:37AM -0400, Scott Harrison wrote:
>> I'm trying to decide between windows and linux.
>> Any ideas or suggestions out there?
> 
> I actually wrote my college honors thesis on this topic.  It is around
> 45 pages if anyone is interested....just email me. 
> 
> -- 
> Phillip Hofmeister 
> 
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If you have the money, or the means...use windows xp pro or 2003 server. 
Then run a virtual machine (even for your nomral windows os) inside your 
windows xp/2003. It will run slower, but you are now working in basically 
one large file (that houses your OS and all your drives) rather than host 
OS.
Heres a few pros/cons. 

Q: Why does windows suck?
A: Virii. Spyware. Most of this stuff was designed for windows, not linux 
users. Windows is also prone to memory leaks. 

Q: why do (some) variations of liinux suck?
a: lets take debian for an example (feel free to flame me here). Debian has 
little documentation for someone learning linux. And Redhat, despite having 
a package manager, still requires you to install bits and pieces in order 
for it to properly setup and run your installed software. I'm sure someone 
will correct me on this, but the operating system itself (in windows) 
generally does not need you to install anything more than drivers in order 
to run your software. *nix requires you to compile code in order to obtain 
functionality.
Now, *my* personal favorites are Redhat, and Knoppix. Knoppix, is a live CD 
which "your grandmother could run". I havent played with it that much yet, 
but the knoppix-std versions out there promise to be very exciting in what 
it can do. Especially when you're running old machines like mine. 

see my tagline, and also www.linux.org 

Use Open Source Software. http://www.gllug.org/ is much better.