My First Post in VL

[ethos]

 IMHO this is 1 good distro-better than most actually. At least better than most that ive tried. Trying to leave windows and vista is daunting especialy for me as I have an A+ and an MCSE from 01. 
 Which brings to the point linux has just way too many flavors all trying to do the same, offer an alternative. Yes I think all these flavors to choose from is great but (think of kid in candy store) will i ever find "one that just works" . You see the reason i cant stand windows anymore is im always tweaking or installing or configuring or nlightening (which works really great if you want to spend hours doing so). The list can go on for days as most of you know what makes windows suck i wont bother.
  Ok so i started this mission after i got pissed @ microshaft    [in short my girlfriends computer less than a year old came with vista premium 32 bit, after a few problems i decided to do a reinstall after checking out the shity upgrade disk that came with the system i decided on giving vista ultimate a try thinking maybe its like longhorn] I circumvented the time bomb once and because of that damn update system they use i screwed myself. I knew better but hey i didnt really care it was only temporay any way.    I wanted to set up her system different anyway.   Software raid, cause a problem between vista software and intel hardware ment that for me to get hardware raid it would be better to just go get a raid card. Dual boot to media center, a proper swap drive set up, special network options so i didnt have to ever actually touch the main pc to watch my movies from anywhere i wanted to even if it was off and a couple of other things as well that woulda been nice.
  Here is where TSHTF I cant find the freakin OEM disk. The upgrade disk wont allow an install over exsisting os it wants to erase it, that is not an option as my 3 160 gigs are damn near full. Of my available options to save my stuff and have a running system the way i want it (think burger king) i said screw microshit.
  Linux to the rescue!  So now I've been looking for my distro; burning countless cd's and dvd's still after over a month. I've found 1 good for my laptop, one for my old system (p3 1ghz 256 mb). But I have yet to find 1 for her she is the point and click type, plays neopets and pogo games and  all that other girl stuff ,her work deals with a company to provide all benifits i think its called mybenefits and guess what they require internet explorer for the site to work properly.

  Now i would like a 64 bit system to drive my hardware to hell. So here I am Vector linux
 As there is plenty more to post about my dilema I will stop here to see what replies i get to my first post here @ VL.

[Colonel Panic]

Good for you! I've got a basic computer tech qualification in the UK but couldn't get the funding to do my A+ (so far anyway).

I've seen a lot of complaints about Vista, I think it was rushed onto the market as an unfinished product like Windows Millennium was in the hope that its users would report the faults themselves. I thought Windows XP was a pretty good OS, at least with the SP2 service pack, but I wasn't able to boot it anymore so installed Linux instead.

Most people who've used Vector Linux for any length of time tend to stick with it, it has a utility called VASM which is unique to it and which enables system configuration to be carried out easily and conveniently.

Too many flavours of Linux? Maybe, but most rely on a similar pool of applications such as Firefox, Gimp and Open Office so in practice there isn't that much difference.

.

[bigpaws]

Welcome to Vector Linux!

The switch from Microsoft to Linux can be a big deal with
a decent learning curve.

You mention tweaking Windows systems, Vector and Linux
in general is good for that.

Searching for the right distro can be daunting. One thing to
consider is what is it that you want to do. Answering that and
working towards that goal will get you headed in the right
direction. 

Good luck in your search.

Bigpaws

[rbistolfi]

A few nice topics here. Bigpaws made a very good point. To have clear objectives will really help in any migration and advance step by step until all the objectives are accomplished before propose new ones.  I am planning a switch for the computers of the office since six month or so. Still working in CAD solutions, migration of Excel sheets and macros, we have a few usb win modems, and some other minor things. I am sure a rush could end in a failure. Excel calcs giving wrong values, boxes without internet, etc.

About "too much flavors", I think there is a point there, I would like to see devs joining the VL project instead starting a new one.