[ale] Greetings and introduction

[Rob Fauls]

aaron: check your clock settings.
-Rob

aaron wrote:
> On Wednesday 19 April 2006 02:59, David Nixon wrote:
>   
>> I am an avid gamer/geek that has been firmly entrenched in the windows 
>> world for eons.  I tend to upgrade constantly and I game quite a bit, 
>> and so always had trouble with Linux.  I have spent more than $1000 on 
>> various distros, but in the end have always been forced back to the 
>> Mother Ship due to an incompatability, lack of driver support, or the 
>> inability to play a particular game.  I tried dual-booting, but hate 
>> maintaining two OS's.
>>
>> I have dabbled with Linux for many years, learned some things, had some 
>> fun, but never got to the point that I could stay with it full time.  
>> Off the top of my head, I have used(usually multiple version numbers):
>>     
>
> I'm curious how you (or anyone) could manage to spend $1000 on Linux distros 
> when most can be downloaded for free or can be ordered on CD sets for 5 to 25 
> dollars.  My own explorations of dozens of Linux distros has only cost me 
> about $90 in blank CD's and DVD's plus $30 spent on pre-packaged sets. Even 
> the couple of retail "boxed set" distros like Xandros, Suse and Mandriva are 
> under $200. Still, giving the benefit of the doubt that this isn't a troll...
>
> Linux excels at most all the mainstream arenas of computing. A number of 
> modern distros offer very capable choices for handling all the common 
> desktop, communication, network, office and amusement applications that 
> majority of people find themselves regularly using a computer for. But 
> computers are nothing if not versatile, so there a million ways to use 
> computer technology and no single operating environment can address all of 
> them with equal ability.  With any system there will be niche interests and 
> areas that could be addressed better, even with the diversity of Open 
> Source. For instance, the absolute best media production systems on the planet 
> right now are all Mac OSeX.
>
> The worst systems and software for just about any computer application are the 
> ones that come from Micro$haft. For starters, the whole company is incapable 
> of surviving without relying on the criminally extortionary business 
> practices for which they've been convicted 3 times in federal court (yet 
> continue to employ). Compared to Open Source systems and software, they have 
> prooven themselves generally incompetent at network server applications and 
> system security.  Most importantly, they really, truly and totally suck at 
> respecting the privacy and fair use rights of their users, which means their 
> systems and software should be avoided and eschewed across the board without 
> further question. It is impossible for M$ products to ever offer enough 
> benefit to offset their blatant, arrogant abuses of their users.
>
> About the only excuse for having an M$ platform is bleeding edge gaming, since 
> the unearned market dominance of these corporate criminals means that short 
> term greed drives the bleeding edge hardware suppliers and game writers to 
> feed at the big pigs' trough and neglect the healthier, sustainable choices.
>
> Even there, I'd suggest that if you're into bleeding edge gaming, you'd be a 
> lot better off buying a PS2 and converting your PC to Linux.  Ubuntu and 
> Fedora are good choices of well supported free distros, while Mandriva and 
> Suse provide commercial support and proprietary license access for a modest 
> price. If you have more of a custom purpose system in mind, there are 
> literally hundreds of specialized (and free) Linux distros to choose from, 
> most of which are reviewed and referenced at DistroWatch.org. If you enjoy 
> geeking as much as gaming, then you need to do yourself the favor of dumping 
> windblows.
>
> peace
> aaron
>
> [snip]
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