Rocky's Coffee Club II point 16

Rocky was a friend of mine. And though we served on different coasts, we were both in the Navy at one time. Now many of you know, that while on shore duty, sailors would get together and form a coffee club, so that there would always be that life-blood available first thing in the morning. So, go ahead and post your messages and chit-chat here, like you were drinking coffee with your mates.

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Oh, and everyone is welcome here as long as they behave.

Please don't post here just to keep this thread above the other Rocky's thread. This thread is for real messages and conversations; it's not a competition.

Time for a new Rocky's Coffee Club. I actually wanted to open a new one yesterday but I couldn't get to the initial post as "point 15" was locked.

I was bored last night so decided to try a different version (Bistro) of Linux. I downloaded Mandriva Linux, all 3.8 Gigabytes of it. All out of DVD's so a friend gave me one, burned it as an ISO. Then installed it on one of the three hard drives I have in my PC. The install was successful according to the install wizard. Restarted the computer as directed and a screen with a green box came up with nothing in it.. lol!! Well, it wasn't so funny at the time but...

So I'm back to open Suse Linux. Now if I can get SETI installed, get a good driver for my security camera's and encrypt the whole drive, I'll be in business. Nothing is easy with Linux, not compared to windows. That's my main gripe with Linux. If it wasn't for that fact I would stick with it and never use windows again. Still waiting for the day you can download a program on Linux, double click on it and it's installed. Doubt that will ever come to be.

So, here's my question for anyone in the know.. What's the best Bistro of Linux for someone who's a novice? By best I mean can easily install programs and has support for a wide array of hardware.

Is there such a thing as a version of Linux that you can download programs to (Say the desktop) click on it and it simply installs? If not, why not?

Every time I get on Linux it feels like I'm learning a new language.. I just want it to work and with simplicity.

I was bored last night so decided to try a different version (Bistro) of Linux. I downloaded Mandriva Linux, all 3.8 Gigabytes of it. All out of DVD's so a friend gave me one, burned it as an ISO. Then installed it on one of the three hard drives I have in my PC. The install was successful according to the install wizard. Restarted the computer as directed and a screen with a green box came up with nothing in it.. lol!! Well, it wasn't so funny at the time but...

So I'm back to open Suse Linux. Now if I can get SETI installed, get a good driver for my security camera's and encrypt the whole drive, I'll be in business. Nothing is easy with Linux, not compared to windows. That's my main gripe with Linux. If it wasn't for that fact I would stick with it and never use windows again. Still waiting for the day you can download a program on Linux, double click on it and it's installed. Doubt that will ever come to be.

So, here's my question for anyone in the know.. What's the best Bistro of Linux for someone who's a novice? By best I mean can easily install programs and has support for a wide array of hardware.

Is there such a thing as a version of Linux that you can download programs to (Say the desktop) click on it and it simply installs? If not, why not?
Every time I get on Linux it feels like I'm learning a new language.. I just want it to work and with simplicity.

Giving an answer as to which is better is a good way to start a flame war. I don't know as I don't play the Linux game.

I also doubt that Linux ever will reach the double click level. The groups who use it really don't care about that as they tend to have taken computer science courses. It isn't technically impossible. Unix(R) on the Mac OSX shows what can be done with some $$ and direction. It is so well done there are people who swear Mac OSX isn't Unix(R).

I've been using SuSE Linux for years. I am now using version 11.1 but plan to upgrade to 11.4 on a new disk when it comes out, conserving the old disk as a backup. I am running 6 BOINC projects on an Opteron 1210 CPU, no GPU, on a 24/7 basis. One of them is a VirtualMachine using Virtual Box. I have also a Solaris guest OS running a BOINC client and a SETI@home app by Dotsch.I am using Sun's Open Office, Firefox and Seamonkey browsers. My GUI is KDE on Linux and Gnome on Solaris,I can stream music via VLC and RealPlayer, and all NASA streaming videos via Mplayer, compiled by me.I can download pictures from my Sony digital camera and print them on my HP 2400 printer. I have also Skype.
Tullio

I'd give Ubuntu a try.

Easy and linux tends to be something of an oxymoron - unless you go Mac ;)
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Carola
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I'm multilingual - I can misunderstand people in several languages!

Wintel machines represent 80% of the worlds computers, and I do not see that changing significantly in the forseeable future. Apple Macs have always been particularly suitable for the graphics and publishing sector, and they hold the market share there. Linux, in all of its flavours, has grown in popularity over recent years, but it is still generally seen as an OS for geeks.

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Damsel Rescuer, Kitty Patron, Raccoon Friend, Uli Fan,
Julie Supporter, ES99 Admirer, PETA Member, 1st Childhood

I'd give Ubuntu a try.

Easy and linux tends to be something of an oxymoron - unless you go Mac ;)

On old UNIX systems there were to commands "crypt" and "uncrypt" by which you cold crypt a file. Then they were taken off for security reasons. I never used them since I was afraid I could forgive the key and not be able to read my files.
Tullio

Well, I wish thieves would carry away my three old computers. But they are interested only in gold, jewels, money and new flat screen TV sets. So i don't worry, I have none of these objects.
Tullio

16 months ago I bought a Dell with an Intel Core i7 processor and 8 GB of memory. It's a fast gaming machine, even though I don't play games. The warranty period is, of course, 12 months. Last month it appeared that the power supply went out, as pressing the power button had no effect. I had a new power supply put in but now the computer freezes up for no reason and it has to be rebooted a number of times until it warms up. Luckily, the power supply is still under local warranty by the shop that put it in.

I don't know why I buy Dell computers. I've always been dissatisfied with their quality, and their practice of using proprietary parts. I guess I'll bring it back to the shop and installed the power supply and see if they can diagnose the freezing up problem.

16 months ago I bought a Dell with an Intel Core i7 processor and 8 GB of memory. It's a fast gaming machine, even though I don't play games. The warranty period is, of course, 12 months. Last month it appeared that the power supply went out, as pressing the power button had no effect. I had a new power supply put in but now the computer freezes up for no reason and it has to be rebooted a number of times until it warms up. Luckily, the power supply is still under local warranty by the shop that put it in.

I don't know why I buy Dell computers. I've always been dissatisfied with their quality, and their practice of using proprietary parts. I guess I'll bring it back to the shop and installed the power supply and see if they can diagnose the freezing up problem.

That sucks. I've got 2 Dells, a desktop and a laptop. Desktop is going on 3 years I believe, and no hardware problems as of yet, and my laptop for 1.5 years, only thing with it is I had to replace the power cord. So I don't know why you would have such luck with yours. Could it be due to the fact the computer has to come by air and gets bounced around a bit?

My 4 PCs are all custom built and running OK.

The oldest is a W2K pro SP4 dual P3@933MHz server, on a SuperMicro server MoBo, and is still crunching projects after 10 years of fault free running on the GPUs. My next oldest is a dual Prestonia Xeon server, on an Intel server MoBo, under XP Pro 32bit SP3 and crunches projects on both the CPUs and GPU for the last 7 years hardware wise fault free.

The other 2 are more recent quads, but up to 3 years old, relatively fault free (except one ate PSUs due to a short). These run projects on both their CPUs and GPUs.

I must say I have never been attracted to PCs built by the big vendors like Dell, and I think the reliability I have (quickly touches wood) shows that.
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It's good to be back amongst friends and colleagues