Fedora Core 11

Since I have set up a new PC to "evaluate" Windows 7, I might as well make use of this PC to test other Linux Distros. Fedora has always been on my mind, as it is one of the pioneer distros around plus I really want to try something other than the *buntus.

I went for the KDE version because I have not played with KDE 4, so this is also a good opportunity to try it.

First impression:

- Beautiful distro.

- Everything works well.

- I don't know why but the installer is very slow and not responsive. After the installation, the performance is sluggish as well. Maybe it is because of the graphics intensive KDE 4? The performance improves greatly after I added another 512MB of RAM to the PC.

- KDE will take some time for me to get used to, especially on the applications part. I have trouble installing flash plugin for Konqueror, and finally gave up and did the Yum install Firefox.

- Still having some problems on flash sites such as youtube on Firefox. The video will just jitter... Perhaps it is because of the Firefox 3.5 beta? Or it might due to my graphics accelerator? Will have to do more tests on this.

- New set of commands to learn, and to be frank, I do miss the "apt-get install"...

Anyhow, I think I will have a lot of fun playing with F11.

Windows 7

Downloaded Windows 7 RC.

Retrieved my daughter's old Dell Dimension 2400 P4 computer from the storeroom, and decided to try Windows 7 on it.

Somehow Windows 7 couldn't boot from the DVD drive, initially I thought my DVD drive is a goner, but the PC is able to boot my other Linux distro discs fine. Next, maybe the ISO wasn't created well, so I tested it on other PCs, and it was ok. Hmm...

Strange problem, finally I created a bootable USB drive for Windows 7, and install the OS from USB, and tah dah, I got Windows 7 up and running! Err... My screen resolution is only 640x480? I didn't give much thought about it at first, as I have done that numerous times on other Windows installations-- a driver update will solve the issue. Somehow the Windows 7 couldn't find a driver for the integrated Intel graphics accelerator, even from Internet. Ya I know this PC is old, but still...

I searched Dell website and just as I have suspected, they have only old drivers for this PC, and it's Windows 2000... -.- The good news is, the driver works in Windows 7, and the screen resolution is updated to 1280x 1024. Cool. So for those who want to try Windows 7 on an old Dell Dimension 2400, you can actually use the Windows 2000 graphics driver.

Talk about difficulty in installing Linux... Windows is just as bad if you are not experienced to do so and it really takes a lot of time to set it up properly with anti virus, anti spyware, and etc especially I am no fan of integrated security suite. Spent all in all about 4 hours on the installation process including the time spent on making a bootable Windows 7 USB drive, and I still have yet to install Open Office and other applications.

Overall, the OS looks Vista-ish, but I actually like it. It runs much faster than Vista, and I do not feel any sluggishness at all on this old P4 2.8Ghz with only 512MB RAM. Hmm... great improvement, and I might even get a copy after the trial license expires as my one and only Windows PC replacing the Vista. Anyhow, I will wait for users reviews on the OS after the official release to decide, who knows this version is actually with all DRM off to not antagonize the beta testers?

Vista?

No. That's not the reason I stopped blogging about Linux for awhile. I am still a happy Ubuntu user.

Yes. Indeed, I did start to use Vista because I have formatted my Dell Mini 9 to Ubuntu Jaunty recently (great decision, you should do it too if you own a Dell Mini 9), and I thought I should keep a PC running Windows for games, office usage, and photo printer. So I started to update my primary notebook Vista partition, and try using it for awhile. Grrr... Glad that I switched 2 years ago...

Vista is so so so annoying. At times when Ubuntu crashed on me a few times over the last 2 years, I thought hmmm... maybe Windows don't do that so often. But the truth is, Vista hung on me in the last couple of weeks more than Ubuntu over the last 2 years. And Vista is slooooooow!!!!

Why do I even bother...

Worm