It's official!

[Coolwater]

I am now a Penguin Head! My computer has had all the Microsoft erased from it and had Linux put on. No more patches, no more viruses, no more craplets, no more crashing for lack of memory and overused CPU! Whoo hoo! Can you see how nicely my computer is working now? ;)

Annnnnd the new computer at work is going to be an Apple. In your face, Blue Screen of Doom!

That's why I haven't been on-line much lately. My ancient computer was in the shop becoming penguinized, and the loaner from work keeps crashing.:rolleyes:

Any other Penguin Heads out there?

[EvanStar4506]

I am now a Penguin Head! My computer has had all the Microsoft erased from it and had Linux put on. No more patches, no more viruses, no more craplets, no more crashing for lack of memory and overused CPU! Whoo hoo! Can you see how nicely my computer is working now? ;)

Annnnnd the new computer at work is going to be an Apple. In your face, Blue Screen of Doom!

That's why I haven't been on-line much lately. My ancient computer was in the shop becoming penguinized, and the loaner from work keeps crashing.:rolleyes:

Any other Penguin Heads out there?

No Misrosoft? :eek: Is that possible? Did the world stop revolving?
Tell me more of this Linux you speak of, Miss Pengunie.

[Coolwater]

Yes! I phoned around until I found a shop that understood Linux and for $35 they stripped off the Microsoft, and installed Linux. That is the operating system stolen and modified by Apple and Microsoft, and used in nearly all servers. Then they installed Mepis, a program designed for Windows users who want to switch. I took a little mini course on using it at the shop, and that was entertaining. So far I've had no trouble with any of my programs opening and reading any of the MIcrosoft materials, and it seems to be an easier switch than from MS to Apple.

See, it is inexpensive because Linux and Mepis are open source: you don't have to pay for the downloads, only for the work. The programs are created and modified by computer people who are largely anti-big business, rather strange and humorous folks, I might add. You could do the transformation yourself, but unless you are a serious computer person, though, you may want to have someone reformat your hard drive and do the installations for you.

Part of the beauty of Linux is that because the "kernel" (the homunculus that runs the merry-go-round of programs) only recognizes the programs you've told it to, it won't accept anything that downloads itself. Thus, no viruses. You'll still need a firewall, and I'm not sure about a malware program (I really should ask), but spending a lot of space on a virus protection program is unnecessary. Oh, and things don't time out, because the kernel gives equal time sequentially to the programs you choose to run. MS runs programs it decides to run in addition to the ones you've chosen, and gives time to the programs it favors at the expense of the programs it doesn't. If you doubt that, try deleting Explorer (after you've loaded, say, Thunderbird): it just keeps reloading itself! :eek:

Go to http://www.linux.org/info/penguin.html for the Linux creator's explanation of the satisfied penguin logo. Gives you a good idea of what the open source folks are like. :D

[EvanStar4506]

Thanks coolwater. That's a lot to look into but I;m willing to try something else. Strange how easy it is to become dependant on a program to the extent to think that nothing else is out there and all computer set-ups are pre programmed with them and you basically have no choice.
Cheers~:)

[Littledevil]

I have heard of linux, and have heard good things. I am a computer person myself and have built, and setup 7 of my own computers. My husband and I have 4 computers between us, so I am well aware of the nightmare hassles, blue screen of death errors, and endless malware and virus crap. I recently discovered my silly hubby didn't have any firewall, antivirus, or malware protection on his laptop. I borrowed it to look a few things up when audio pop ups started to show up, but all you heard was the audio advertisements. So I did a little digging of my own. Found a little over 2,500 viruses, malware, and trojan horses on the laptop. Macafee got rid of half, another program I have got rid of the other half, and I had to get rid of 7 manually before I had the damn thing fixed. Talk about a pain in the @ss. I yelled at him for that one, especially since we have customer info on this computer, nothing that would be dangerous info but I don't like screwing with that stuff.

I am used to windows based and work a little with apple, I just don't have the time to invest in switching anything right now, even if I wanted to.