Linux...

[elbee]

I tried a version of Ubuntu about 6 months ago. I liked it but I couldn't run battlefield or my vst plug ins. I do wishing or Ubuntu (what's the difference btw? ) would fuck Microsoft.

Discuss.

[ziznak]

I've only used BT5 ubuntu and found it to be a really cool OS... I'm just not getting how exactly to install all the applications I'd like to in linux... the "apt-get install" works and is cool and "apt-get cache search" but it all seems so complicated... how exactly are you supposed to download and install stuff?  Anyways, I was thinking I could see myself eventually using ubuntu as an everyday OS.  May take a while to ween me off of fuckrosoft's shit but linux seems to be a much smoother architecture when thinking of performance.

[MV/Liberace!]

For a year or two now, every version of Ubuntu has been slower and more bloated than the last. I don't know what those fucking people are doing.

[Mind Flayer Monk]

have you tried using Wine?

http://www.winehq.org/

[McPhallus]

For a year or two now, every version of Ubuntu has been slower and more bloated than the last. I don't know what those fucking people are doing.

Maybe they're aiming to be the new Microsoft?

[Keep Rock Evil]

I believe Canonical (Ubuntu) is working to push the Unity window manager much like MS is doing on Windows 8.. I do all my work on  Fedora 17 w/KDE installed (I hate Gnome) .. Only problems I have had is some issues with ATI video cards (switched to NVIDIA)  and unfortunately the sound card, but then again my sound card is ancient. Newer systems "should" be fine I would think.

Depending on what you are installing on you may not have any issues at all, Fedora is fairly user friendly but fixing some of the driver issues could be a pain. If you have a spare PC try it.

Note: Install yumex for packages (sudo yum install yumex), its a nice graphical front-end for yum (which is the Fedora equivalent of apt-get). Also use this guide to get the codecs and other necessities, it looks pretty solid:

http://www.abouthack.com/articles/linux/fedora-17-post-installation-guide.html

Just dont take my advice and go blowing away a PC you need or anything, but if you got a setup that you want to test drive it on go ahead. If you look on fedora.org you will find some .iso's that will let you test drive a KDE setup before installing.

[Morgus]

Read a comparison of the top 5 Ubuntu alternatives here:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Top-5-Ubuntu-Alternatives-215953.shtml