oti0sus

The main drawback I've found with Linux is the problem of hardware compatibility. Specifically, in my case, trouble with the video card driver. I cannot use the TV out option with Linux. It's important to me as I don't watch broadcast, cable, video or DVD, but I do watch DIVX format, and I enjoy the extra size of the TV screen. I gather some versions of the Nvidia card are capable of handling TV out on Linux, but from the forums I checked with, and the fiddling about I've done, it seems my card does not do TV. It's possible that other hardware, printers, scanners, webcams etc could have driver issues as well. I am not concerned there in any case. Another problem I have with Linux is streaming some video. On many websites the streaming works but there are times it doesn't. ie C-Span. I've found though I can live well without lunatic call ins or reporters parroting government press releases. Games like Doom 3 are written for Windows, and supposedly work on Linux with some extra application, but I can live well without Doom 3 and haven't bothered to look into this.

So for the TV out option, I wanted to install Windows to work alongside Linux on my computer. My first attempt was to install Windows on the large D: drive, leaving Linux on the C:, and choosing which OS through the boot sequence options on booting. It was not successful. Linux is more submissive in this regard, while Windows will not install on the slave drive. Perhaps I could have made it work but there was nothing in the forums to indicate this was a practical solution. Next step was to format the C: drive and install Windows there. No problem. Next step was to re-install Linux, Suse 9.1, this time on the D: drive. After installation was complete, I ran into major problems: failure boot. My computer was crippled. I copied down the error message, Error 18: Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS, and ran it through google on my office computer. Again the forums were extremely helpful; Due to the old BIOS I was using, I had to re-format the C: drive, putting Windows on no more than a 7 gig partition. Then I could put Linux on the remaining 13 gig of the C: drive. It worked! On booting, I'm prompted by a command line asking if I want Linux or Windows. Both are working fine. By the way, I found the utility qtparted on the Knoppix Live CD very useful for formatting and partitioning HDDs.

My computer has been running as described above for almost a month now. And in this time I've had more trouble with the Windows with its spyware and viruses. The Linux is very nice and I recommend it. I don't have complicated computer needs, so I haven't had to compile programmes and such. There is a lot left to explore, but that is not really a priority with me. I do like to poke around from time to time, and there is plenty of scope for that. Handling of Asian fonts such as Chinese, Japanese or Korean is vastly superior in Linux. Screen savers too are neat and there is at least one great game, Sokoban, which seems included with all distributions. Still I sometimes switch over to Windows though for a game of Internet Backgammon.