Indeed it does but it's still at apha build stage so it might be some time before there's a finished release. That said, it surely can't be in alpha stage as long as ReactOS which shall never be let near any of my equipment.

It's now listed on Distrowatch http://distrowatch.com/index.php?dataspan=1 so it should start to get some interest but initial interest does not seem to necessarily translate into long term popularity. For example, some distros have taken off, e.g. LXLE, while others, like Q4OS, seem to have faded away.

Didnt think it would work with my Ubuntu, but it does

https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-gb/

http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/...ficial-client/

They are working on making it available in the software ctr.

As its so closlely tied in with some of the devs that work on the Debian project
http://tanglu.org/en/faq/
Im hoping its a stayer.
Also i dont read to much into the distrowatch ratings i dont get the impression they want to take on ubuntu or mint or fed etc,, its more about trying to set some sort of standard for everyone to work off.

I actually wish there were a standardised and agreed way of measuring the popularity of the assorted Linux distributions. The number of site visits per day does not necessarily equate to the number of actual distribution downloads or installations, for example.

User agent strings are no good because they only give out the underlying base level operating system, e.g. Ubuntu so you can't differentiate between Ubunto, Zorin, Linux Lite and so on. The Linux Mint team have claimed that they are now the fourth most popular operating system after Windows, OS X and Ubuntu but I have no idea how they arrived at that conclusion although I suspect they are probably right.

Right, so I'm gonna give Linux another go when I go home tonight. I'm determined to get it to work and my dad finds my attempts hilarious Anyone know of any good lightweight, 32 bit distros? I can't use 64 bit as the laptop is too old.

I'm using Linux Lite on a netbook that runs lovely. It's an old netbook that's had XP on it all its life and it always felt kinda sluggish from day one. Since all that XP support thing ended I decided to put LL on it and it's like something else completely, I am stunned at how quick things load. It still needs a new battery, it's so old it can hardly hold a charge. But it's at the point of the hardware being so old I think "What's the point? Continue using a plug or replace the whole system".

I think others will be able to give better advice as to what distro you should try. I've been out of the loop for sometime with computer specs, so I am not too sure what's too heavy and what's not.

On my desktop I have it like this:
HDD 1
- Windows 7
HDD 2
- Ubuntu Linux
- Linux Mint KDE

I use HDD1 (WIndows) for gaming and a few other things, then I use the first partition of HDD2 for a main (Ubuntu) and the second partition for fun. I try different distros now and then to see how I like them and if I want to change my main one to something else. I have a feeling Linux Mint KDE will actually replace my Ubuntu Unity installation soon, I am starting to love it more and more.

Things have certainly got easier over the years for dunder heads like me. I no longer have to keep a computer scientist on speed dial.

Linux Lite sounds good. I might download it later. LOL at the idea of keeping a computer scientist on speed dial I know a Linux geek but even he couldn't get it to work. He installed openSUSE on the laptop and webpages looked as though they were being viewed on some dodgy late 1980s CGA monitor Why is Linux such a pain in the arse to set up?

I've always equated Linux users to something that some dad's are like. You know the type, they buy a flash TV in a store and have to upgrade all the other bits and mess about with the menu functions, they're never usually 100% happy unless they're messing about with something techy, where as mum can sit down in front of the TV and just watch it for what it is without messing about with settings. I think blokes that like that sort of thing would love Linux.

Nowadays it is getting allot easier for both dad and mum types to enjoy. Depending on the distro it can be as techy as you want it to be or as user friendly as you want it to be, it can be with all the bells and whistles or barebones, or both. It can look archaic on first installs of some distro's, but once you learn about the different GUI's, themes and the customizing you can make an unbeatable looking workspace, as long as you have the patience. I remember when I first installed Mandrake years ago and it looked horrible, I thought "Oh man, I've regressed", lol. It looked retro, and I don't mean retro in the cool kids way either, it was ugly as sin. I had it looking **** hot after a week of learning about gnome.

It's a learning curve but it's not as steep as it used to be thanks to the changes and better literature around.

I had no luck with Linux Lite. I made a Live CD but it wouldn't boot and that was the 32 bit version! My dad's laughing his head off. Gonna try PCLinuxOS now. Is that a lightweight 32 bit one?

Do you use a USB stick to boot from? I used Rufus for Windows to make a Live CD iso on a USB stick and booted from that. I did need to turn the option on so I could boot from my USB though, it was in the BIOS settings. Once I did that I booted from the USB and installed from there.
EDIT: Found a good tutorial for using a Linux ISO on Rufus, it's Ubuntu but you can just change that to whatever iso file you like.

I've no idea about PCLinuxOS, but from the description I've seen it does look like a good all rounder, not sure if it will be heavy to run or not, but you'll need the i586 version if you're going for the 32bit one.

No I used a CD as the machine is too old for booting from USB. I used a CD.
UPDATE: I think I got PCLinuxOS to work. I'm just setting up now. It's on the hard drive and it installed the GRUB bootloader and everything. It's a miracle How do you install software on it?

Nice one, good luck for the first boot, hope it's smooth. Since I'm not sure how old your system is, you might need to rollback a few drivers here and there to older stable ones, hopefully nothing too drastic. I had to do it so I could get my acer netbook fan to run properly instead of always on high, that was in Ubuntu. I didn't get the same problem with Linux Lite.

Just tackle any and every problem one by one and she should be ship shape eventually.

For installing software it looks like you have Synaptic package manager with that distro, go through that and have a browse through the list(s). There is probably someone else on DS that could recommend some sort of list for you better than I.

Well the first boot went fine and I got to the desktop fine, but the internet didn't work in the end The machine is from late 2004. I tried Synaptic package manager but didn't have anything useful on it (eg browsers, games or office programs), so I had to dump that distro and now I'm trying Fedora. That's the third one I've tried tonight. At least I know something can work!

I used to follow loads of Linux podcasts, tutorials, news sites, forums, more tutorials... But I noticed a while ago that since installing Mint I haven't fussed at all. It just works. I haven't had to worry about anything. Now some of that comes with becoming accustomed to something, but even then that's still a leap forward in itself.

So in recent times it's become something I feel less inclined to spend time poring over, and just a great OS that works. Things really, really have come far imho.

Yup. There are arguments from some people that it has become too easy, to the point that people don't want to bother to learn. It is true there are people who just want to do stuff and not learn, but the good thing is, Linux is starting to cater for both sides nowadays. You can have out of the box or one where you put it together yourself. I'm loving Mint KDE at the moment, if I move it to my main Linux distro then I'm not sure what one to play with next in my spare partition, hrmm.

cnbcwatcher, you have less patience than me, man. Have a fiddle around with it to get networking going. Go through every problem one by one, most of the problems I've ever had I've been able to find a thread on by googling the problem. The chances are, whatever bug/problem you get, someone else has already had it and posted about it somewhere, and you sometimes get a [SOLVED] notice you can read where it might have a fix you can apply.

UPDATE 2: I've tried Fedora 17 (or whatever the number is) and it works fine. The GNOME 3 desktop is in fallback mode because it's an old machine but other than that no trouble. I've got the internet and Youtube working, I just need to get LibreOffice, the GIMP and the printer working. Is there a Software Centre for Fedora?

Have you tried LXLE? I'm sure it's been suggested to you previously as a simple lightweight distro, based on Ubuntu.
Or is that one of the ones you tried that wouldn't connect to the net?

If Fedora suits you that's fine, but it's not one I would recommend to a beginner.
It doesn't have a user friendly Software Centre as such, but it does have a package manager for downloading software. Think it's called RPM?

I was going to try LXLE but I was put off by the fact it uses torrents to download and I didn't want to risk getting cut off. I don't find Fedora too bad so far. The UI doesn't seem too different to Ubuntu and I've tried that one as well. I also had a friend who used it. I presume there are programs you can download (legally) from the internet for Fedora? Anyway so far it works and I might tinker with it a bit more and see what I can do. I don't think I need to recompile the kernel though

You can use YUM to install packages on RPM based operating systems like Fedora, it's similar to APT for Debian/Ubuntu. If you prefer to use a gui try Yumex.

I even used to care about which Gtk version I was running! Like that even matters!

Now, I don't give a monkeys!!

MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!




/crickets

One of the big advantages of downloading via a torrent is that if your internet connection gets cut off with a big download you can easily pick up where you left off. Whereas as with a regular web download if your internet is cut off whatever you downloaded for a particular file is lost and can not be picked up to finish off. Using torrents for downloading in circumstances like this is a perfectly legal convenient method of getting large files/ISOs.

If you are using an old machine and are interested in using LXLE the version you need is the 32 bit one LXLE 32 bit revisited (current 12.04.4). Works really well even better than Linux Mint 17 xfce.

The latest LXLE 32-bit variant is now running on my ex-XP laptop and I'm very pleased with it. Linux Lite came a close second and that's another one to try out on older equipment.

Yes but how would the powers that be know it was a Linux distro you were downloading and not a movie or something? IIRC IP addresses of torrent users are logged and then if they're caught they could face the connection being cut off - or am I thinking of P2P/filesharing sites?


Is YUM a command line system?

The way a .torrent works is to connect you other users who have that have the same "seed" as you do,you then download/upload that specific file(s) and nothing else.
So by using a legal seed ie a linux distribution there is no chance of you engaging in any illegal activity.

Even so there's no way for an ISP to know what the file is if your connection is encrypted, other than that you're downloading something large.