My new computer

My old computer was old.  Over seven years. 
Running Linux for the three years. 

I screwed up and shut down while it was doing a check.  I admit it.  I asked my wife for another harddrive, I told her the truth "I scrambled the harddrive".

She suggested that I get a new computer.  So we went to a computer store and had one made. 

Blu-Ray drive,
DVD drive,
8 gigs memory,
1 terabyte drive
and
NO OPERATING SYSTEM.

I was going to put Linux on it.

So a week later she goes and picks it up.

I put it in the place where my old computer was.
I got a new keyboard and mouse too.

About 10 minutes to put the computer together and hooked up.

Now what distro to put on it.


After going through different live distros, I decided on Mint Linux, it had everything working out of the box except for the Blu-Ray.

I spent a couple of weeks trying to get Blu-Ray working.  I am not a newbie, but I am not an expert either.  I am able to go into root and take care of things. 

So in the mean time, I got a old Panasonic toughbook.  Windows 98 and full of problems.  So this one I tried several different distros.  (Installed, not live versions)  I came across Fedora.  I like it.   It worked on the laptop just fine.

So back to the desktop.  I switched to Fedora.  It took me less than an hour to switch from Mint to Fedora.  Then I went to work on the Blu-Ray drive.

Fedora has a great forum section.  I was able to find what I needed to get Blu-Ray working in less than an hour.  Download a few files, move them to different directories, download the VLC player (this one supports Blu-Ray)
Change the /dev/dvd/ to /dev/sr0/

BINGO, Blu-Ray works.  Tried several movies all worked.  The only thing that doesn't work is the menus.  But the movie runs fine.


So next step.  Linux from scratch.  I did take business computer programming in college,  Have played with programming on my computer.

I think I might just be able to build a Linux from scratch.  Best part of it, I have a computer with plenty of room to use. 

For someone who did not like Fedora when I started Linux, I now have two computers running Fedora.

Best part of Linux.  I can get the software that I need and want.

If I want a game, education, office, utilities, music or video.  Just look it up and download it.  My first Distro was Debian.  I still like it and Ubuntu before unity.  I am not fond of Gnome 3 either. 

The other part of Linux I like.  Different desktops. 

Unlike Windows. Linux is very customizeable.



Give Linux a try.  Try PCLinuxOS, Mint and a few others have everything working out of the box.  Except for Blu-ray.