[OT] looking for LINUX USNET group

Michael Plante wrote:
> Tim wrote:
>> On 10/01/2010 06:09 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:
>>> Tim Wescott wrote:
>>>> On 10/01/2010 01:44 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:
>>>>> I've grown terminally annoyed with MS Windows.
>>>>> Having never used any variety of *nix, I'm looking for suitable group
> to
>>>>> ask "Which distro would best meet my needs?"
>>>>> Browsing groups carried by supernews.com I don't find an *ACTIVE*
>>>>> generic Linux group aimed at users rather than developers.
>>>>>
>>>>> Comments/suggestions?
>>>>
>>> I can not honestly say that "Windows(tm) does not work". HOWEVER, Gates
>>> &  company keeps telling me that they KNOW what's best for *ME*. They
> are
>>> just plain ignorantly *WRONG*!!!!!!
>
>
> One nice thing:  once you get comfortable with *nix, you might consider a
> more flexible distribution (in case the one you chose "got things wrong",
> too).  But what I'm hearing here is consistent with what I generally hear
> people say to those starting out:  debian/ubuntu.  I'm partial to gentoo
> myself, but I just like the feeling of control.  Of course, first you'd
> have to get that internet connection fixed, if what Tim says is still the
> case for you.

I might consider high speed service when either of the the two 
local providers will honestly advertise their prices. The current 
scam is to blare a rate for "x dollars per month for *EACH* 
service in the bundle" (the only thing I'd have use for would be 
the internet) and "its guaranteed  for y months" (ie an 
introductory teaser rate apparently). It just not worth doubling 
or worse my cost for actually needing it once a month or less. 
For that I can take a flash drive to my local library (limited to 
an hour per session or two hrs on any day)



>
>
>>> 3. can it read NTFS Widows drive(s)?
>>>
>> Yes, yes and yes.
>>
>>
>> And it reads (and writes) NTFS drives just fine.
>
>
> The following page may have been updated more recently than 2008 (or may
> not have been), but has the status of the NTFS driver:
>
> http://www.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php?id=status

Went there and related links. Well written.

>
> Because the specs are closed (unlike with FAT*), a lot of RE goes on.  READ
> support has been stable for a long time.  They've progressed rapidly.  I
> remember looking this up a few years ago (studied disk structures in detail
> when I had to recover some files manually from a drive with a corrupted
> MFT) and finding that you could only overwrite files of the same size
> (useful enough if you want to load grub or lilo off the 2k/XP NTLDR, since
> a 512-bytes-every-time file is fine), but it seems files can be resized
> now.  There may still be some features it's lacking, though.
>
> Short story:  I'd personally be careful writing to NTFS drives if you don't
> make regular backups.  I don't doubt Microsoft has introduced some
> landmines in the design of NTFS.  And I certainly would create non-NTFS
> partitions for day-to-day use of Linux (ext3 or ext4 should be good).

For what I would be doing I'd only need read access to the 
Windows drive. I would do my Linux work on a flash drive until I 
was comfortable and then I would wipe Windows off the machine. I 
may do that relatively soon on my laptop.

>
> Michael
>

On 10/2/10 6:26 PM, Symon wrote:
> http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity

If popularity is the criterion, then Linux is not the answer.  Windows is.

Ray

Raymond Toy wrote:
> On 10/2/10 6:26 PM, Symon wrote:
>> http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity
>
> If popularity is the criterion, then Linux is not the answer.  Windows is.
>
> Ray

Universe of discourse is either
  1. *nix distros
  2. Arbitrary non intel arch
  3. friendly OS

;/