Hello Dr. C, nice to be here.
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"I agree, XP SP2 is a very solid, stable OS. My XP machines are very robust, maybe more so than when they were Win2K machines. Especially as media-centered (pun intended) machines."
My experience as well; I'm using Xp Pro x64 and it's been as stable as XP SP2 for me. Welcome to Bill S & Bturner45, enjoy the endless pleasures of MC!
Only thing (and a few others) keeping me with M$ is MC and maybe Wavelab, although I have heard there are some good recording apps on Linux.
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This is the first report on x64 with M$ I have seen, at least from somebody I could trust. Linux has x64 support and has since there was x64. I use AMD chips, I have a 2GHz Sempron in my current system. Like a lot of my friends I am saving for an Athlon 64.
So far as multimedia stuff is concerned I'm pretty much 'Joe User' but I know that they had a 'graphics farm' of Linux machines that was used for the movie Titanic. They have a graphics program (the GIMP) that is comparable to Photoshop. They have several programs for multimedia that are good, damned good.
The problem is they are too 'limited' in their approach. If you want to rip CD's you need a ripper program. This program may or may not have the ability to also burn CD's. Odds are pretty good that the formats you can rip to and from will be limited to 'free and open source' (FOSS) types, meaning no mp3, M$ formats, or other 'proprietary' formats of whatever type. The madness gets worse when you talk about doing something as simple as watching streaming video off the web. Whatever program you use for your ripping and playing cd's will almost certainly not work for the video. At least Real Player has a Linux version, one small gleam of hope that things can be better.
Linux is crying with the need for a really good 'general purpose' program like MC.
Linux distros are split along one of two lines. 'Pure' distros, like Debian, that use only FOSS components. Depending on what you want to use it for this might be just fine. For servers Debian is second to none, servers don't need multimedia stuff all that much. Even on the 'pure' distros there are programs out there that the end user can install to overcome the lack of ability to play the 'proprietary' formats. This can turn into a nightmare though, especially for a 'newbie'.
Then you have the other side of the coin, the more 'consumer friendly' distros that include the ability to play a lot of the 'propriatary' formats from the git. Xandros and Linspire are a couple of good examples of this. I think the best example though is PCLinuxOS.
Here's a link to their homepage: <http://www.pclinuxonline.com/news.php>
PCLinuxOS (PCLOS) has been my 'distro of choice' since I stumbled onto it. Xandros and Linspire are good, but you really have to install them to your hard drive to really get the full benefit. Also, they are 'commercial' and while there is nothing inherely 'wrong' with a 'commercial' distro I have never liked the idea of 'buying a pig in a poke' so to speak. Compared to the price of M$ OS's they are quite reasonable. But. Tbere is anotheer way.
PCLOS is one of a multitude of distros that have the ability to run off your CD without being installed to your hard drive. These are called 'live cd' or some variation. Important thing is that you don't have to touch your system in any way, shapre, or form to test it out. Download and burn the image to CD, reboot your system, check it out for a while to see what you think. If you want you can install it to your system of course, but with a 'live cd' you don't have to. A huge and significant advantage.
'Try before you buy' is always better than 'a pig in a poke' for me, and a lot of other folks too. They accept donations but don't have a fixed price like Xandros and Linspire. The PCLOS 'community' is a really friendly place to hang out, because all of us remember that at one time we too were 'stone noobs' with no clue.
Enough for now.