Sunday, September 9, 2012

New Commodore 64x.


I just watched a video of the new Commodore 64 running Linux Mint 10-10


One word - Awesome.


It has the great eye candy installed, Retro Sounds for your computer.  Many Commodore 64 things laying around the screen. 

Eye Candy alone is worth the download.

Of course I cut my teeth in Computing on the Commodore 64 and the Commodore VIC-20.  I did (still have) a Commodore 128.  and last time I powered them up, they all worked. and the disks still were readable.  Some 20 years later.

And today all three of my computers are running Linux Mint.   The Commodore 64 was one of the best home computers way back then.  Apple was the other.  There were at one time about 20 different home computers.  Radio Shack had the Tandy. 

Today I am glad for Linux.  It is one of my favorites.  I am not to hip on Fedora or the Red Hat based distros.  I do like the Debian based, and I love the Gnome Desktop over the KDE.  Nothing wrong KDE or Fedora, Slackware or any of their distro downstream.  Debian was the one I learned on and thats the one I like.

I am starting to go through the Linux From Scratch.  Wanting to build a system from the ground up.

Have some fun and download a few Linux Distros and play awhile, you just might give up that Windows machine.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Linux has been great.

I move to Linux a few years ago and I have never looked back.  Windows has so many problems and bugs that I was spending more time running anti-viruses than doing what I wanted to do.

My wifes old laptop refused to run Windows XP.  She has had it for over 8 years.  So for her retirement I let her get a new laptop.  She picked it out.  We had it for less than two months and it stopped working.  Had to ship it off to  get a new motherboard and harddrive.  Got it back and it had VIRUSES all  threw it.  So my wife called and they said it was not their problem.  So after a long battle between Windows and the games she can play and Linux that does not have all those games she likes.  She is considering it after we got our Credit Card bill and Norton charged us $80 for something that doesn't work.  Their Anti-Virus.  She gets so frustrated over the fact that I can do almost anything she does and I don't have to spend Hours waiting for the Anti-virus to do its thing.

I put Linux on her old laptop and it works good.  I have some problem with her WiFi card and some Distributions.  The Distributions (Distros) that I don't like, reads her WiFi.  The Distros I like does not.

I have a lot more to learn about Linux and one of them is getting her WiFi to work using the Distro that I like and works well with her old Laptop.

There are plenty of great Linux books and podcasts that can help you with learning Linux.  I have been tempted with starting a podcast for Linux newbies.  First listen to Chess Griffins - Linux Reality.  So much great stuff there and I don't know if I could do better than what he did.  Second get a few ebooks and read through them.  You can find plenty of them for free online.

If you want to do some programming - look to Linux. If you need to run a office - look to Linux.  There are plenty of reasons to move to Linux.  The biggest reason - its free.  As in costs nothing to get or use.  You have control of your computer.  Unlike Windows where they have control of your computer.  Read the License Agreement.  There is a little bit of a learning curve, but its worth the time and trouble.  You have several office suites to choose from, by the way most of the programs on Linux are also free like before costs nothing to get or use.  That includes most of the office suites.