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alternatives to windows


FthrJACK

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i was a bit bored today so i thought id look into installing a secondary OS on here again. theres a suprising number of operating systems out there, most are free. i just thought id share a few with you that you might not have heard about, some are very cool looking, have a hunt on google for screenshots of some of the following:

[b:e8c313d057]QNX[/b:e8c313d057][/size:e8c313d057]

Screenshot: http://www.stardock.net/people/dangeruss/i...eruss%20QNX.jpg

QNX has been around since 1981 and only M$ beats it in terms of longevity as a desktop operating system manufacturer.QNX is easy enough to install and can be installed ontop of windows if you would like (then boot it from floppy) or on its own partition. like XP QNX detects most hardware on install and auto installs the drivers needed for your setup. if you download the full ISO file it comes with many programs and utils, but free software is available all over the net.

download: http://qnx.tucows.com/files/qnxrtp.iso

[b:e8c313d057]Atheos[/b:e8c313d057][/size:e8c313d057]

Atheos is pretty young as OS go, its programmed not by a team of people but by one guy called Kurt Skauen. Atheos can be tricky for some to install and requiresa bit of messing around a' la Linux. unlike most OS that are a graphical interface ontop of a command line such as windows or linux, Atheos is graphical right to the core, and offers a 64 bit journaled filling system. might find it harder to find software for this, but it can run many modified Linux programs.

Download / screenshots: http://www.atheos.cx

[b:e8c313d057]SkyOS[/b:e8c313d057][/size:e8c313d057]

SkyOS is true open scource code, started early 1999. installing SkyOs might involve changing some of the scourse code, and may only work on some countries keyboards, software is a bit sparse too as the system is so young.

Download / screenshots: http://www.skyos.org/

[b:e8c313d057]Linux[/b:e8c313d057][/size:e8c313d057]

Linux comes in many shapes and sizes, or "distros". theres a huge amount of free software for linux, from text editors and office suites to movie editors and media players. Some users might find installing linux a pain, and you should read all the instructions carefully before you try! you will need to know as much info about your hardware as possible for most distros, from the parts installed to the refresh rate of your monitor.

Downloads and screenshots: www.mandrake.com

www.linux.org

www.redhat.com

www.suse.com

anyone got any others to add? BeOS etc?

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having used QNX yesterday, ill say this, if XP didnt exist and it was still windows 98 id dump windows like a brick, QNX is fast, easy as hell to install, and very nice looking, i need to learn some BASH commands though.. i need to be able to do nslookup, ping, tracert, ipconfig and netstat. i didnt install QNX - you can load the OS from the CD to test if it works well on your system, everything was installed for me and i was browsing in under 5 minutes. the browser itself (called voyager) is very good, although i needed to alter the settings as the text on web pages was so small i couldnt read it. its comparable to opera, but i think its the next best thing to IE, it comes with flash plugin ready installed too... now i just need to find an MSN messanger client and ill install the full package (just installing the OS itself only takes up about 64mb!, dont be put off its full of features and is very nice looking)

xper.. thats site has some very exotic sounding systems on it!! jeez theres loads, might try a few for laughs!

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Lindows is just a commercial distribution of Linux with Wine (http://www.winnehq.com) that has been apparantly improved.

And I fear that it will give many people a bad impression to Linux, as I don't feel it will be a good solid product.

As a Linux advocate, I have a hard enough time explaining Linux to people, and the last thing that's needed is Lindows tainting the Linux name. :mad: But maybe people will realize Lindows is not the same as a real Linux distribution like Debian or RedHat.

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Exactly.. No Linux user will want Lindows, And I doubt any Windows user will as well.

Wine is good, and in the past 3 years it has really come a long way. Apparantly Lindows has modified Wine a bit. Will they give their changes back to the Wine project? Not likely. Unfortunatly, Wine is not under the GPL license, So it's perfectly legal.

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I personally think its a great idea, and am going to buy it as soon as the final comes out and the support, bugs etc.. are worked out. My question: will your linux versions run Windows applications like Office XP, Frontpage, etc...? I think that is the point of lindows to be fully functional as a linux operating system while having the ability to run windows Applications.

Big Booger

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ill try it out, id rather just use linux, but linux doesent like my pc, it hates my sound card (although sound works) it hates my vid card (well.. so do i it sucks a**) and it hates my netgear fa311 NIC card. says unknown device next to them all.

mandrake takes 40 minutes (you heard me 40!!) minutes to boot then runs so slowly i almost fell asleep waiting for the command line to open, never mind LICQ etc... jeez. i so wish it would run... feel like crying :cry

if mandrakes that bad ive no chance getting Suse to run, i need it to work so i can get used to it in the first place never mind trying fixing something i know little about

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ok.. i installed Redmond linux, its working fine apart from Ksnapshot wont run it crashes every time i run it.. maybe if i reboot.

anyway... Redmond linux looks very much like XP.. it was a swiz to install.. it let me play solitare while it did it!!! when i manage to take a screen shot i will.

i cant find krusader... pity i prefered that browser

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