Reply #13: Like many with a windows machine [View All]

[madokie]

I just finally got tired of having to reformat and reinstall because I picked up a nasty somewhere, virus, adware and/or spyware so I downloaded Mint and put it on my machine as a dual boot system with xp and after about a months time I removed the xp partition and haven't looked back since. The first few questions I had I asked them here and got answers and explanations to where I could do what I was wanting to do. We have some excellent DU'ers with some damn fine knowledge of linux, any flavor and someone is always willing to hang with you until you get it figured out if need be. I'm new to firefox also so I've had to figure that out too but, hey, gott'a have something to do with my time anyway. Add adblock plus and NoScripts to your firefox and you're about as safe as you can get on the internet. My opinion there only.

With linux there is no need to worry with the registry because there isn't one, no reason to defrag as your files don't get fragmented. Mint says as you're installing it that there is no need for anti virus or anti spyware or any of that kind of stuff. When you install a program it installs everything it needs to run as a package and when you remove a program it's removed as a package so there's no little tidbits left here and there like on a micro$hitwad (new word I think I coined for microsoft that I like) machine. I'm thinking I'm about two months into this new way of complaying and I like it better by the day. If you do try one of the linux's come here often and ask as many questions as you have until you don't need too any more. RoyGBiv, and among others, helped me out tremendously, couldn't have made this switch without his and their explanations and patience, don't mean to be calling Roy out and that is only for an example of what the quality of support is you will find here.

Where I was getting nasties was using the google for looking for answers to question I have about anything. For instance I've fixed one of our vehicles heater/airconditioner by googling the problem, broken vacuum hose that I otherwise would never have found, picked up something also as those kind of sites seem to have a lot of bullshit passed around. Now that I use linux I can go and ask as many question as I need, without getting infected. Linux is almost like her on birth control while he is wearing protection too.

At first Linux is a bugger and pretty scary, if, like in my case, I started on dos 3 and worked my way up through the micro$hitwad world of doing things so linux required a different way of looking at and doing things but its getting pretty intuitive now though and if you have software that you just have to have and it only works using windblows linux has Wine to do that with.

Right now I've got ubuntu 10.04 alpha 1 on this computer and even though its a pre release I like it and it seems to work fine, boots in about 15 seconds from stone cold to ready to go, not just to a splash screen either, I mean it being settled down and ready to roll, its not ready for prime time yet but since I only use the internet for DU, news, search and email it's no big deal, other than the aggravation, if and when I do crash.