Benefits of Linux

Actually, wireless is pretty solid these days. There are some chipsets that can be a bitch, but generally it should work. I have yet to have a wireless card/adapter fail to work in Linux.

 

I personally use Fedora 12 myself. If you don't have an unusually old printer, Linux will work fine, as for Itunes, what exactly do you need with that DRMed music program for? If it is for nothing more than just keeping your mp3 music files organized there is Rhythmbox, Amarok and several others. They also connect to Jamendo and some other music estores so you can buy more if you so desire. but it if is for an Ipod, most of those can be connected to as an external drive so Itunes is never 100% necessary.

I would also like to report that I have had no trouble with crashes on my particular computer as I had in Ubuntu and variants (Mint, gOS, moon OS, etc)(edit: also my computer has very difficult to support hardware. very difficult to find windows drivers and unstable with it). Wireless works just fine. Netgear dongles, cards and whatnot tend to work just fine. If you have Atheros wireless cards, they will work thanks to the MadWiFi driver, some are even directly supported by the kernel (Ath5k is what I have). But with all things, not everything has a driver right away. Broadcom based wireless cards (last I checked) didn't work all that good.

as for overall hardware support, It's higher than windows 7 is, with every linux kernel version, support gets better. though older hardware gets depreciated after while, but that usually doesn't happen till it is far beyond usable. In other words if you had a p1 system that has only 256k of RAM you won't be doing linux... Linux has a min requirement of 8 megabytes of RAM but that would mean command line only. then again if you can handle the command line then 8 mb may be all you would need as long as you don't expect graphics.

But back on track, I went from windows to linux with no trouble. the difference is that I had been using Open source software in windows for so long that when I changed to linux it wasn't much of a transition at all. I had been Using OpenOffice.org as my main Office suite for a few years, Firefox (at that time it was called firebird) as my web browser, and pidgin for my Instant messaging. gaming to me was mainly emulation and since there are emulators in linux as there are in windows (and in some cases you can use the windows version on linux using WINE) the transition was amazingly easy.

If you are expecting to run out to the store to buy software(ex. the latest and greatest game) and install it with linux, then don't bother transitioning. But otherwise just give it a try, that's what a live CD is for, run without installing it directly from the CD. The overall Learning Curve is actually pretty light duty. I picked up Linux pretty quick and I had no previous knowledge of it. You just have to be willing to get out of your "comfort zone". Linux is like a living, breathing creature that is always growing and evolving. Windows doesn't change much with each version. It's always pretty much the same thing over and over with graphical "upgrades" and more restrictive controls. For linux the community develops it, so if a restrictive line of code is implimented somehow and someone catches on, it will be either removed or people will just not install it. Pretty much saying that linux is designed around what the average user wants, not what the corporations want.

The interface you see when you first install is not what it is permanently. you can change it up to be what ever trips your trigger, If you want a "start Menu" like you see in Windows (XP, Vista, 7) using GnoMenu on Gnome (not sure if it works on other Desktop suites) you can. If you want one taskbar (panel) instead of two, then all you have to do is right click on the panel you want gone. If you want it to look like Mac OS X it is doable there are plenty of websites that will help you with direction on how to do that. and it doesn't take any third party programs like it does in windows (look for Avant Window Navigator). If you want it to be your own way then make it, all it it takes is right clicks to the panel and the appearance manager. If you were to go find my post on the post your desktop in the forum, you would see what I currently use and what it was previously.

as for the command line. It's not as hard as some make it out to be. most of the time you don't even need to touch it. The actual need to go to the command line is very slim. but it's not as hard as it seems to use the command line either, most of the time if you need to use it, someone else has come across the need of the specific command so it will be posted somewhere on the internet and therefore available for direct copy and paste usage. So the need to actually learn the command line is negligible.

Linux is not as hard as anyone says it is. most modern Linux's are easy to work with, Ubuntu is the easiest linux there is to just start and try, Fedora though is just as easy but has some extra things that complicate things slightly. (like setting a root password, Oh wait... it's like that in a properly set up Windows, Users and admins, you just do not log in as Root for anything because you can temporarily become Root/admin by using the password prompts when they come up.) It really is not hard at all. you just have to step out of your comfort zone that has been set by everybody saying "use windows", or less likely "Get a Mac". Many mac converts were windows users that went through the transition and the learning curve of the different OS. Every OS has a learning curve for someone that has never used it before. If anything I think that Mac OS is a harder transition than linux was because some things didn't work as expected and the key commands are so wacky in a Mac, at least the key commands in linux tend to be the same as windows.

Spoiler

FYI: Some modern games work pretty good, Sims 3 is actually installable and playable, but once again only using WINE, there are instructions on appdb.winehq.org/appbrowse.php to use several different programs on linux using WINE. So you get the idea.

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Basically Linux Mint (not Mint OS) is nothing more than Ubuntu with a black, green, and blue interface (looks nice that it does...) special exclusive programs, flash player preinstalled, and all the video codecs. My experience so far was that it was less stable than regular Ubuntu. but you never can tell, Ubuntu is built from Debian's Sid (AKA unstable). they take a snapshot of what is available in Sid server and build around it. and since Linux Mint is based off of Ubuntu you get the same available stuff and a little more. If you liked it then I suggest adding a second hard drive to your computer so you don't have to repartition your windows drive (if you still have one) If you don't have a windows drive then it really doesn't matter.

as for jdownloader, isn't that just a java based download manager? I personally use DownThemAll, the firefox extension download manager. It gets the job done without the Java runtime environment. but if you want Java installed check synaptic Package manager under administration, search on that for Java 6.