koolmansam375

I beleive this is what they call "dependency hell" Also nVidia is making a step in the right direction with their driver which (on any distro) you type one command and itll install. You just have to make sure some parts of xorg.conf are setup right. For Xorg and XFree: Xfree86 is for the older versions of X. It was transferred to Xorg andd they changed the names of all the files to Xorg. Thats why in a topic on linuxquestions.org in the Slackware forum, people got confused 'cuz they couldnt find xfreeconfig when they really needed xorgconfig. And for binaries, many distros offer some form of binary package. Redhat based have RPMs. Debian based has debs. Gentoo has emerge. And Slack has tgzs. And last, about choice, choice is what makes linux better than Windows in certain aspects. In windows the only internet broser used to be IE. Linux had like 5 browsers. Windows has notepad. Linux has emacs, vi, vim, pico, nedit (if you install it yourself). And with the distros some people like point-click-install-run others like issuing commands directly. Its all a matter of taste.

Linux can and cant be hard to setup initially. Many Distros of Linux can parition the hard drive, setup the swap space, detect and configure your hardware all during setup (Red hat/fedora, knoppix, Mandrake, SUSE i think never used it). Others do some of that but have you partition manually and detect all your stuff but have you setup X yourself (Gentoo i think never used it, and Slackware (the best distro imho). Even the ones that do everything for you may rewuire a little tweaking.The problem comes when you have an old version of a lot of things, such as the kernel, kde, X, etc, and you feel the need to update everything even tho everything works perfectly fine. This is when you could potentially mess up your system to an unbootable state.Also, Windows is a fine OS as long as its protected with a firewall, virus checker/remover, spyware checker/remover, SP2, and Firefox. Many times the problem is not with the OS its that the user has installed something that he was unsure about. the problem is not the OS, in that case the PEBKAC.And for my stance on KDE vs GNOME. GNOME looks very nice however in some aspects it has limited functionality. KDE can (with Slackware it asks the first time you run it) be setup to use a variety of looks and feels. the KDE feel, MS feel, Mac feel or even BSD feel. There are also other wms such as xfce, fluxbox, dropline gnome, and enlightenment to name a few. If those are to MS you can always just use the CLI (i dont tho i use KDE)

I dunno if this has already been said because i skipped over some pages but the best site for game programming and developement has to be gamedev.net hands down.

Even if you use linux you can still run windows games with programs like WINE (all purpose) or the commercial WineX (mainly for games) or CrossOver Office (for MS office)By default Linux doesnt install a gui of any type it uses CLI for everything. That changed when X was developed and later KDE, Gnome, and all the other lesser known ones like Xfce were created but they all use the X libs.I know in KDE when you load it up for the first time it asks you what kind of 'feel' you want your desktop to have. The default KDE one, a Microsoft feel, or a MacOS feel.

I think it all depends on what you use your computer for:-If you like photo/video editing then Mac OS X is the best-For the gamer then Windows XP is the best-Coders/hackers and those with old systems who know a lot about computers will go for Linux-Most general users will go for Windows but those fed up with its bugs will use MacsThere are also many more distros than those in the poll choices that are designed for different types of computer users:-Redhat/Fedora, Mandrake, and Knoppix being for new users-Slackware, Debian, and Gentoo being for those who want the most out of their computer.

I like Headbangers Ball and metal but some of its just too hardcore for my tastes. I like Killswitch Engage, Megadeth, Fear Factory, Nightwish,Helmet, bands like that. I dont like the all screaming type except for Lamb of God.

I like alt. rock like Modest Mouse, Louie the 14th, the Killers, etc but wouldnt stuff that was alternative in the 90s be considered mainstream now? Like Radiohead, R.E.M, and a bunch of other bands I cant think of now :S We had a good Alt station where I live (MD/DC) but they changed their format to Spanish music in response to the growing number of Hispanics who listen to the radio. You can find new music faster on the internet anyways.