I've heard about this free OS, though since I wasn't at all impressed by Linux, I was wondering whether it's different from it... and what about windows software such as Flight Simulator, NFS and other games for Windows? Can they work under Kubuntu?
it's good, i'm using it now Kubuntu is Linux, basically it's Ubuntu but with KDE not Gnome (Ubuntu's default window manager) about 90% of Win software runs fine on any linux system, Win software runs through Wine
With 'good' being relative, the only thing I can ask is what do you want from it? For the right uses, its good. Why wen't you impressed with linux? What distrobution did you try? The world of free operating systems is huge and there are many, many options. I would say for a free 'windows replacement', Ubuntu or Kubuntu would be a decent option. Some other options would be PC-BSD, PCLinuxOS, and MEPIS. What do you want out of a free operating system? We can make some recommendations for you.
I'm using Mandriva 2007 Free on my laptop, and its very good. Wireless support is much better than other distributions in terms of ease of use and setup. There are graphical wizards for doing a lot of things, and its fast. Bootup/shutdown is much faster than Debian/*buntus, although there isnt much difference once you're using the system.
Well, let me say it in a few words: I want it to be fast, reliable i.e. not too buggish, to run MS Flight Simulator X, MS Office 2007 and to support my nVidia GPU... And at the end that it would look good (if possible). I understand it's a bit too much to ask from free OS but I'd like to give it a chance... just not Linux itself please! To tell you the truth, I didn’t like the interface.
Linux has many interfaces, not just one like windows and mac. For desktop environments, there is GNOME, KDE and XFCE. Also there is a host of window managers, see "Window Managers for X". If you don't want linux, look into PC-BSD or desktopBSD. Both are based on freeBSD, the basis for the core of OSX, but act nothing like OSX. Both look good too.
Most distrobutions are centered around a chosen interface but you can change to whatever you like best.
Operating systems like Windows and Mac OS give you essentially one way do see and do everything, with only slight variations of superficial settings possible. With Linux however, you can choose from many different interfaces which all look & behave differently, depending on your needs and preferences. For instance, the two most popular are KDE (K Desktop Environment) and Gnome. KDE is fast powerful and flexible, and Gnome is, well, it's simplistic. I prefer KDE for most things, but there are also a whole myriad of others. For instance, Xfce which is similar to Gnome but vastly faster, Fluxbox which is sleek and minimalistic, and WindowMaker, which is a clean and efficient interface that runs in only 2mb of RAM. Best of all, you can run each of these side by side to see which you like best. It's as simple as selecting which window manager you want to run from a menu when you log in. I run Debian Linux (the distribution which *ubuntu is based upon), with KDE and Beryl (an optional 3D framework for Linux). You can see it in action . Keep in mind that I'm encoding the video on the same system I'm demoing with, so the effects are not as silky-smooth in the video as they'd normally be.
So, of all those free OSs, which is the best equation of speed, reliability, ease of use and of course windows software compatibility? Would it be Kubuntu or Debian Linux or another derivative of Linux?
They are both exactly the same except Kubuntu uses KDE and Ubuntu uses GNOME. Underneath they both use the same core packages, they are essentially one distribution except from some graphical packages installed. As AT said, Linux isn't the GUI or the installed programs, it is the kernel which is the core of the operating system. Anything else can be customised, and so you have lots of distributions packaging slightly different programs than each other. I'd go for Kubuntu, since I also prefer KDE myself.
Forget about running Office 2007 on Linux, it's not supported yet. Office 97, 2000, XP and 2003 work correctly though. Crossover Linux is a great application based on WINE that will let you run Office and other Windows applications. They have an application compatibilty sheet on their website. If you would rather run free software, you could run native WINE. However it'll take more work getting your Windows applications to run. Which Linux distribution did you use previously? As mentioned previously, Linux has two primary interfaces, KDE and GNOME, plus some other smaller alternatives. If you don't like Kubuntu with it's KDE interface, you should probably try Ubuntu with GNOME. I'd recommend you download the Feisty Fawn Beta, instead of the latest stable, Edgy Eft.
Well it was Aurox AFAIK...very unclear to use... it was very boring, I spent a lot of time finding what I was looking for... Anyway, I downloaded Kubuntu 6.10 and it gives errors when I boot using its DVD... something to do with Kernel. I've read the instructions but nothing specific about it, BTW I tried the OEM installation, nothing came up, as for the text installation it had the errors I mentioned.
Help would be appreciated, note that I haven't formatted the HDD for Kubuntu... but I don't even get there, so that shouldn't be the problem...
What edition of kubuntu are you installing, ie x86, AMD64 and so on. Does this edition match your processor type? If they don't match, then it won't install. What are the errors exactly? Kernel errors can be caused by many things.
