Official Linux Versus Windows Skull-Bashing Thread

[Nailer]

I found a  PROSTAR Laptop model 2200C  in the trash and it had the AC power supply with it. Brought it home hooked it up  and it has windows XP on it.  Now I have thought about trying a different operating system and  was wanting to know where I get the disk to install Linux or ubuntu ( spelling).

I will try it on the laptop and if I like it I will install it on our HP PC.

[Femacamper]

I found a  PROSTAR Laptop model 2200C  in the trash and it had the AC power supply with it. Brought it home hooked it up  and it has windows XP on it.  Now I have thought about trying a different operating system and  was wanting to know where I get the disk to install Linux or ubuntu ( spelling).

I will try it on the laptop and if I like it I will install it on our HP PC.

My personal recommendation:

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

[Viper]

As i'm a fan of the 64-bit platform i've started using explorer 64-bit browser, which funnily
enough shows up pics on the web in a little more detail.
Unfortunately though the flash vids don't work so firefox has to be used with youtube and the like.
Adobe Flash player will support 64-bit soon though.>>

"Adobe is working on Flash Player support for 64-bit platforms as part of our ongoing commitment to the cross-platform compatibility of Flash Player. We expect to provide native support for 64-bit platforms in an upcoming release of Flash Player following the release of Flash Player 10.1."

[RabidSheep]

I use both. Is that not allowed? 

[Femacamper]

I use both. Is that not allowed? 

Then we must average the two. Settle for 48-bit?

[RabidSheep]

Eh i guess that will have to do. I use windows 7 starter and ubuntu on my netbook. I use windows vista 32 ultimate and ubuntu on my desktop. I also have an older laptop running android at the moment.

[Femacamper]

Windows 7 Live CD FTW!

[Monkeypox]

I use both. Is that not allowed? 

Personally I use several different versions of Windows and Linux on my PCs.

[bigbrothertech]

Linux Mint The way to GO! 



Linux Mint is one of the surprise packages of the past year. Originally launched as a variant of Ubuntu with integrated media codecs, it has now developed into one of the most user-friendly distributions on the market - complete with a custom desktop and menus, several unique configuration tools, a web-based package installation interface, and a number of different editions. Perhaps most importantly, this is one project where the developers and users are in constant interaction, resulting in dramatic, user-driven improvements with every new release. DistroWatch has spoken to the founder and lead developer of Linux Mint, Clement Lefebvre, about the history of the distribution.

Some of the reasons for the success of Linux Mint are:

    * It's one of the most community driven distributions. You could literally post an idea in the forums today and see it implemented the week after in the "current" release. Of course this has pros and cons and compared to distributions with roadmaps, feature boards and fixed release cycles we miss a lot of structure and potentially a lot of quality, but it allows us to react quickly, implement more innovations and make the whole experience for us and for the users extremely exciting.
    * It is a Debian-based distribution and as such it is very solid and it comes with one of the greatest package managers.
    * It is compatible with and uses Ubuntu repositories. This gives Linux Mint users access to a huge collection of packages and software.
    * It comes with a lot of desktop improvements which make it easier for the user to do common things.
    * There is a strong focus on making things work out of the box (WiFi cards drivers in the file system, multimedia support, screen resolution, etc).

[Femacamper]

Linux Mint The way to GO! 

+1

[Whistler®]

Agree about Mint. For normal pc use it is the best.

My main desktop is setup thusly, XP x86, XP x64, Win7 64, Mint7, Mint7 KDE, Backtrack 4,Slackware 13.
Used to have Suse installed also, but removed during cleaning....just haven't reinstalled yet.

Sometimes I cant decide what to boot into ... lol 

Have 2 other xp boxes for the TV's and 1 xp laptop as a remote control. 2 laptops both running Mint8/XP86 dual boot.

IMO, Mint is great for this one reason alone. I can install it on anything in 15 min, and my old lady can use it with no trouble ( she is puter illiterate ). She actually is far better with Mint than with XP. CLI is still there for me, but not necessary for her 

[bigbrothertech]

Backtrack 4 is awesome Whistler.I have it on a usb.

[skunkjar]

Mint is by far my favorite.  It works great, and does so even on old hardware.  I actually kind of like Win7, but mint is my main OS.  I have 2 desktops with mint 9, a laptop with mint 9, and a desktop with Win7. 

LINUX MINT FTW!

[wvoutlaw2002]

I've heard good things about the new Peppermint OS. It's a blend of Lubuntu and Mint. Unfortunately, it's pushing the cloud computing agenda with web apps being opened up in Mozilla Prism.

[Whistler®]

Backtrack 4 is awesome Whistler.I have it on a usb.

Ya, The more I have used BT4 the more impressed I am with it. Previous versions were not "quite right" and I only used it sparingly for pen-testing ( ). BT4 (pwnsauce) however, is the first BT I can say is all around usable. It makes even me, as a novice, into 1337 h4x0r...lol. Coming from BT2 it is a huge change.  This OS is THE TOOL... without exception.. it not for writing letters and viewing web pages.... it is a tool and the very best at what it does .... everything else is sprinkles and the cherry 

Also: BT4 installed runs like you would imagine when installed to local hd. Speed increases in every aspect.

[skunkjar]

Maybe I am just old, but I like my apps to be locally installed on my HD...

[Freelancer]

Maybe I am just old, but I like my apps to be locally installed on my HD...

I thought that way for a long time, till I had one of my machine's snatched during a lan party that got raided for violations of DCMIA, at least that was the excuse they gave the judge to get a warrent.

I work for a fortune 500 company and for all intesive purposes the machine was returned unscathed, at least thats what they told my employer, I had a boatload of proprietary code on that machine uncompiled, a mistake that will never happen again..

Everything I do now is booted from a 16 gigabyte USB flash drive and when finished wore around my neck, I'll swallow that thing first before anyone unwanted prying eyes sees my data again.


BTW BT4 is the bomb..

[Whistler®]

lol.... 16 GB is a lot to swallow 

[Lucian Solaris]

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/=========) *.:{ Quote }:.* (==[ Freelancer ]>
I thought that way for a long time, till I had one of my machine's snatched during a lan party that got raided for violations of DCMIA, at least that was the excuse they gave the judge to get a warrent.

I work for a fortune 500 company and for all intesive purposes the machine was returned unscathed, at least thats what they told my employer, I had a boatload of proprietary code on that machine uncompiled, a mistake that will never happen again..

Everything I do now is booted from a 16 gigabyte USB flash drive and when finished wore around my neck, I'll swallow that thing first before anyone unwanted prying eyes sees my data again.

BTW BT4 is the bomb..
\==========) *.:{ End }:.* (===[ Freelancer ]>

Though that isn't a bad idea, why not have gone the Linux dm-crypt route?

You could set up your HDD as
sda   - drive
sda1 - Encrypted Swap (random key on startup)
sda2 - Encrypted / (root, password protected AES encrypted)

and program a 4-6 key sequence and give your user account access to '/sbin/halt' or '/etc/init.d/cryptdisks stop' to kill your system or mounted root and swap partitions in the event of a 'raid'.  The NSA would have a hard time with your HDD (assuming they forego rubber-hose cryptanalysis)...

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[Freelancer]

lol.... 16 GB is a lot to swallow  

Indeed, however them hardware boys are making them smaller everyday, with a lil luck and maybe another year or so, the thing will be the size of an anti acid... I can swallow that  

[Femacamper]

AES is backdoored to hell.

I wouldn't trust NIST and the NSA with my encryption. Truecrypt is your best bet for software -- choose your encryption standard carefully.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

/=========) *.:{ Quote }:.* (==[ Freelancer ]>
I thought that way for a long time, till I had one of my machine's snatched during a lan party that got raided for violations of DCMIA, at least that was the excuse they gave the judge to get a warrent.

I work for a fortune 500 company and for all intesive purposes the machine was returned unscathed, at least thats what they told my employer, I had a boatload of proprietary code on that machine uncompiled, a mistake that will never happen again..

Everything I do now is booted from a 16 gigabyte USB flash drive and when finished wore around my neck, I'll swallow that thing first before anyone unwanted prying eyes sees my data again.

BTW BT4 is the bomb..
\==========) *.:{ End }:.* (===[ Freelancer ]>

Though that isn't a bad idea, why not have gone the Linux dm-crypt route?

You could set up your HDD as
sda   - drive
sda1 - Encrypted Swap (random key on startup)
sda2 - Encrypted / (root, password protected AES encrypted)

and program a 4-6 key sequence and give your user account access to '/sbin/halt' or '/etc/init.d/cryptdisks stop' to kill your system or mounted root and swap partitions in the event of a 'raid'.  The NSA would have a hard time with your HDD (assuming they forego rubber-hose cryptanalysis)...

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[Femacamper]

I've heard good things about the new Peppermint OS. It's a blend of Lubuntu and Mint. Unfortunately, it's pushing the cloud computing agenda with web apps being opened up in Mozilla Prism.

Linux Mint LXDE pwns Peppermint bigtime. More features, better GUI, better speed (IMHO).

[InfoArsenal]

I exclusively use laptops now and have thought about booting from thumb but the thumbs are just too small. Instead I just store my travel programs/files on it.

[Femacamper]

I exclusively use laptops now and have thought about booting from thumb but the thumbs are just too small. Instead I just store my travel programs/files on it.

SSD are nice, but they wear out more quickly.

Gotta love USB distros and portable Windoze apps.

[Lucian Solaris]

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/=========) *.:{ Quote }:.* (==[ Femacamper ]>
AES is backdoored to hell.

I wouldn't trust NIST and the NSA with my encryption. Truecrypt is your best bet for software -- choose your encryption standard carefully.
\==========) *.:{ End }:.* (===[ Femacamper ]>

I suspect as much and use twofish or serpent instead.

I always thought it was dumb rijndael was chosen over twofish because it was simple enough to implement in hardware, and that rijndael is real weak at 2/3 the rounds as implemented.

Here's hoping for skein to win SHA3!  I'd love to use 1024 bit threefish.  Always thought it was dumb that these algorithms aren't easily scalable, and that 256 bits was an obsession point.

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[wvoutlaw2002]

I'm currently running Peppermint Ice on my netbook. Just installed SRWare Iron on here cuz the default Chromium is too connected to Google. Thinking about adding AbiWord and Gnumeric cuz I don't want to rely on Peppermint's default office suite (Google Calendar, Google Docs, etc.). Might remix this into "Peppermint Iron".

[Femacamper]

srware?

[Cyclonis]

Piracy is part of the Microsoft Marketing Strategy.

I have that on very, very, very, good authority.

I would have to agree on that one    i could have sworn i read an article back when winblows 95 came out.. that microsoft attributed 21% of their entire software sales to piracy. s00 the word of mouth and slight of hand tactic worked in the office well.. and s0 did those 3.5 inch discs i had to install the bloody thing LOOL .. don't you all miss those days where the baud was king?.. i still have my 2400/9600/14.4/28.8/56k modems kicking around and a couple versions of Renegade BBS/Teleguard ...long live KERMIT the frog....geez it would take me forever to d/l anything....queue up a file and go to sleep and wake up it was done.