Is it yet possible to _really_ switch from Windows?

[gm5729]

*************Yes and yes:)

Yeah, this is going to seem somewhat like pointless
complaining/trolling, but I assure you it's not.

*************Naaaaaa thats how we learn. This is things I have
experienced or others I know.

I've been using Linux for several years now, but really just for
servers, and pretty much only running Debian. I've only recently
decided to take the full plunge, and switch my main desktop from XP to
Ubuntu. Seems people have been raving about how Gutsy "Just Works!", so
it seemed natural to give it a whirl. At first it wasn't possible to
get my native resolution of 1680x1050 on my LCD (WTF? Don't most
widescreens use that as a native these days?), until I figured out the
modeline stuff.

I************f you have been using Debian say Potatoe to Etch you're
probably pretty familiar with apt and deb packaging. I don't know if
your servers have X on them but from Etch to SID(which Ubuntu is
frozen off of and over 6 mos old currently) there have been major
changes to X system again. I think the last change was from Sarge to
Etch with going from Xfree86 to Xorg. New renderings, etc so the bugs
still may not be worked out yet. I think there are some new changes
due out late spring/early summer again for X too.

Then ALSA had all kinds of issues with my external SB
Live 24 bit card.

************* Basic question but is your card supported first of all.
Secondly if you have a brand new machine the modules for ALSA may have
caught up from the Ubuntu freeze to when your system was manufactured.
I just bought a new lappie in July and at time was using Lenny but
both the kernel and alsa needed to be updated for me to get sound
working properly.

Finally got that working, and got to spend 2 days
figuring out why I couldn't sound in Firefox. Got that working only to
find that any pages with flash in them spiked CPU to 100%. It's bad
enough that even the mouse starts lagging.

*************** Flash has been having major problems with vid probs,
computer lock ups, etc... It would not seem to be to far fetched to
have excessive use as a bug at the time. Testings flash is supposed to
work along with downgrading IW. This link may help:
http://sidux.com/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-7483-highlight-flash.html

That I haven't found a
solution to, other than "eh...just going to have to deal with it, at
least it isn't Windows!" Last two rounds of updates resulted in a
computer that hung on reboot at "Starting up..." At first it wouldn't
even boot in recovery mode, then after letting it sit for a day, it
started booting in recovery mode, and then suddenly just booted
normally. I have no idea what happened or what fixed it.

About 10 mins ago, XMMS stopped playing, giving a sound card error
(forget the specific error now, but basically saying you have the right
configuration, and no other programs are using the sound card), and I
lost sound in flash...again. Went into XMMS prefs, chose the sound card
instead of the default, and XMMS works again. Still no sound in flash.
Based on what I'm seeing online, this is far from an uncommon problem.

**************** Is ARTS enabled anywhere? Check your preferences to
make sure ALSA is sound system.


The computer is less than 3 months old, all new components - Abit
Fatal1ty mobo, Intel 3Ghz dual core proc, 2GB Kingston DDR2, Maxtor
160GB SATA drive, using onboard ATI X1200 video, and external Sound
Blaster Live! 24-bit sound card. I really don't see how flash could be
stressing out the proc that much (proc runs about 10%-15% normally),
plus it runs fine under Windows.

******* Good rig you got there. Only major gotcha I see is the ATI
video... ATI is not really linux friendly. Nvidia does a better job at
least.

This isn't at all to say that Linux sucks or anything like that, more
that I'm just confused. For various reasons, mainly software
compatibility, I've stuck with Windows up to now, but I'm no longer
constrained in that regard. I'd love to be able to be 100% Linux, but
quite honestly, I have zero desire to spend a couple hours every other
day tinkering with my computer to keep things working right, and
accepting that certain, rather basic, uses of the computer just aren't
going to work right on the basis of "at least it's not Windows!".

Am I just using the wrong distro for this stuff? Should I be looking at
Suse, Fedora, Mandriva, or maybe even one of the BSDs instead?

*********** After using apt for so long I think rpms would be a real drag.

Here has been my experience the last 6 months on a brand new machine.
http://sidux.com/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-6493.html


VampirePenguin