even though i love linux wine will never be able to fully recreate a windows environment to run your programs in and i think the repository system across all types of linux is just mind blowing it would be awesome if windows had something similar
OK, so somehow foothead has convinced me to try linux out again, seeing that I have some more common hardware now. So what would be the best distribution option for me to get?
This is where users need to join together and create pressure on developers of the applications that you want to use on Linux but can't. If you can prove to, for example, Adobe that there is a large enough market, there's every chance they will create a Linux version of Photoshop. But it requires that to be demonstrated.
The latest version of either Ubuntu (9.04) or Mint (7) is always a safe bet.
I've already used Ubuntu, and generally liked it for surfing the web and simple things like that, but like I said previously, drivers were a pain to find and install, and I couldn't get any help on the forums. What's Mint like?
But to put it simply, Gentoo used to be easily worth the hassle, because I'd probably spend just as long scratching my head over what Ubuntu hadn't got working properly. But now on most machines I can get Ubuntu fully up and running in a couple of hours tops, but Gentoo still takes just as long. The result? Nowadays I'll start with Ubuntu and strip it down rather than start with Gentoo and build it up.
It's just my preferred way of doing things really - I can get a working system in a matter of minutes, and then take my time rebuilding the kernel / uninstalling what I don't want to when I get time.Why not do what I do and start with a minimal Ubuntu install and build it up instead of trying to strip it back? It's much, much easier.