Gentoo

[ross]

Put Linux on my new destkop box as its only OS, not used Linux as a desktop for a while, so far so good :). Gentoo Linux with Fluxbox as window manager v v nippy on AMD XP1800+,256mb ddr.

[Mr_Nemesis]

Heck, even WinXP is half-nippy on hardware like that! ;)

Gentoo is a damned fast little number though (I'm presuming that you DID actually compile everything yourself, as is the norm with Gentoo?).

Never been too keen on fluxbox though... I am boring and just love the Gnome/Nautilus combo... and I did so love my Sawfish WM, but it's no longer supported since it was originally written in some totally obscure language so I have to use metacity instead :(

Hell, even the notoriously slow Nautilus runs like a beaut (i.e. way way faster than my slimmed down modded to hell and back Explorer on Win2k) on my ageing 1 GHz P3 w 384 MB's RAM. Not that I've ever caught Linux using more than 140 of it anyway.

BTW, DivX playback in Linux rocks windows' socks off. And running a DVD movie as a wallpaper, although damned hard (damned CSS), is mind bogglingly awesome.

Ah, desktop Linux. When it doesn't work, you want to scream and shout and generally kill small animals. ut when it all comes together (like it did the night before last) you feel like the coolest guy on the planet.

Of course, then you realise you have no friends you've ever met in the flesh, your skin is like a sheet of used andrex and your room is knee high in chinese takeaways...

...but it's still cool :)

Never really felt confident enough to meddle with Gentoo though... thought about giving Debs a try next...

[ross]

Yup optimised fully for this system, compiled every stage :). Divx is something I need to install as is DVD playback, what players you using?

[Mr_Nemesis]

I typically use Xine for everything, but it's easiest to get DVD's working under Ogle. And fr general "play any format ever" (even Quicktime Sorenson now) I use mplayer.

I'm still not entirely sure how I got it all to work though, simce my mate tried for ages and managed to fsck up his install totally.