What is the best Windows 8 alternative? |
Linux Mint |
|
19% |
[ 4 ] |
Ubuntu |
|
4% |
[ 1 ] |
Fedora |
|
0% |
[ 0 ] |
Puppy |
|
42% |
[ 9 ] |
Debian |
|
9% |
[ 2 ] |
openSUSE |
|
0% |
[ 0 ] |
PCLinuxOS |
|
0% |
[ 0 ] |
Kubuntu |
|
0% |
[ 0 ] |
Mageia |
|
0% |
[ 0 ] |
OS X |
|
0% |
[ 0 ] |
Other, please state below |
|
23% |
[ 5 ] |
|
Total Votes : 21 |
|
Author |
Message |
darrelljon

Joined: 08 Apr 2007 Posts: 555
|
Posted: Fri 27 Sep 2013, 08:17 Post subject:
What's the best alternative to Windows 8? Subject description: Heavyweight 64 bit alternative |
|
I've posted about Windows 8 before here http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=87647
Just got a new laptop that came with Windows 8 and after a few hours of frustrating use, I am looking for an heavyweight 64 bit alternative.
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
darrelljon

Joined: 08 Apr 2007 Posts: 555
|
Posted: Fri 27 Sep 2013, 18:08 Post subject:
|
|
Just discovered you can't move the user profile to another partition let alone another disk. There are ways involving regedit but no official or supported method. Thanks Windows 8. What a POS.
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
Smithy

Joined: 12 Dec 2011 Posts: 852
|
Posted: Fri 27 Sep 2013, 19:15 Post subject:
|
|
Fatdog 64 and Lighthouse 64 are the ones in Puppyland. There may be others.
I think they start off light but can become heavyweight. Depends what you want to do I guess. Hope this helps you a bit.
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
rokytnji
Joined: 20 Jan 2009 Posts: 2287
|
Posted: Fri 27 Sep 2013, 19:47 Post subject:
|
|
After struggling still with installing Windows XP drivers (I have the OEM driver cd for XP) on my eeepc 900 so I can sell it monday.
Anything is better than Windows. On my 64bit computers. I am partial to AntiX
64bit 13.1 so I voted other.
Macpup 550 is going on the replacement netbook I bought to replace the eeepc instead of Windows (washes face and hands).
But, I don't game, CAD, or use Skype and could care less if Adobe Flash Player
dies and HTML 5 takes over also.
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
Ted Dog

Joined: 13 Sep 2005 Posts: 4013 Location: Heart of Texas
|
Posted: Fri 27 Sep 2013, 19:55 Post subject:
|
|
Fatdog64-621 with the right HD drivers for video card can be more useful out of the box than windows 8 after a week of tweaking,
Fatdog64 will even boot with the crazy EFI 'lockdown' Microsoft attempts, just be-sure to turn off hibernation in Win8 or newer linux drivers will refuse to mount win8 active partions due to a VERY nasty method win8 uses to fastboot. To avoid disk corruption, best to not dual boot, just use a different HD
My Win8 had a oversized harddrive, but I found if you shrink the image first, then direct copy onto a smaller harddrive, windows 8 does not throw a fit like past versions. It now wisely has your 'product' key embedded in firmware at manufacturer. I reduced my win8 active portion to 11G, and after perfecting the backup/restore (at 8G moved to bluray storage) so I fit Win8 into a 60G HD. It complains but for what little use I have for it, works OK.
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
Colonel Panic

Joined: 16 Sep 2006 Posts: 1970
|
Posted: Sat 28 Sep 2013, 12:40 Post subject:
|
|
I'm not familiar with the recent 64-bit Puppies but Fatdog was good when I last used it (version 511).
Apart from Puppy, if I had to choose just one 64-bit distro for my machine my choice would probably be one of the RPM-based distros - either CentOS (or one of the spinoffs like Stella) or SUSE, and given the need to choose I'd go for CentOS or possibly one of the other RedHat clones and derivatives such as Scientific Linux. The RedHat derivatives are like Windows NT - a bit retro and perhaps boring but rock stable and they get the job done.
Other people may have been luckier with Mageia than I was - the last time I tried to install it on my machine (a beta version btw) I trashed the MBR and couldn't boot my computer at all.
_________________ Acer Aspire M1610 (Core 2 Duo, 2.3 GHz), 3 GB of RAM, 320 GB hard drive running Devuan 2.0.0 Beta, Slackel 7.0 Openbox, Bunsen Labs Deuterium, VLocity 7.2 Final, X-Slacko 4.4, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Budgie,Stella 6.8 and Gecko Mate (rolling edition).
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
Terryphi

Joined: 02 Jul 2008 Posts: 768 Location: West Wales, Britain.
|
Posted: Sun 29 Sep 2013, 01:01 Post subject:
|
|
Linux Mint is the best alternative to everything - but Puppy is fun to play with.
_________________ Classic Opera 12.16 browser SFS package for Precise, Slacko, Racy, Wary, Lucid, etc available here 
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
koulaxizis

Joined: 17 Jul 2011 Posts: 437 Location: Greece
|
Posted: Sun 29 Sep 2013, 04:40 Post subject:
|
|
Terryphi wrote: | Linux Mint is the best alternative to everything - but Puppy is fun to play with. |
I totally agree!
_________________ Christos Koulaxizis
Woof woof from Greece...
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
Colonel Panic

Joined: 16 Sep 2006 Posts: 1970
|
Posted: Sun 29 Sep 2013, 07:41 Post subject:
|
|
Terryphi wrote: | Linux Mint is the best alternative to everything - but Puppy is fun to play with. |
I'm not going to argue - Mint or CentOS it is then
_________________ Acer Aspire M1610 (Core 2 Duo, 2.3 GHz), 3 GB of RAM, 320 GB hard drive running Devuan 2.0.0 Beta, Slackel 7.0 Openbox, Bunsen Labs Deuterium, VLocity 7.2 Final, X-Slacko 4.4, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Budgie,Stella 6.8 and Gecko Mate (rolling edition).
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
grump

Joined: 10 Oct 2011 Posts: 124 Location: Melbourne, Oz
|
Posted: Sun 29 Sep 2013, 20:17 Post subject:
|
|
darrelljon wrote: | Just discovered you can't move the user profile to another partition let alone another disk. .... |
Right-click on 'My Documents', then 'properties', then 'location' and type in where you want the files to reside. It can be another partition (I always have a 'data' partition) or another disk. Repeat for 'My Music', 'My Pictures' etc.
As for the missing start button - try one of the many replacements available. Mine is "Classic Shell".
As for the hidden shutdown, make a new shortcut on the desktop and write a short command like 'shutdown -s -f -t 03' as the command. Put it in the lower right corner of the screen.
I don't have a M$ account and the machine runs very well.
I don't like the metro theme or the lack of small games like solitare (you sort of need the M$ account to download from the M$ Store), but that's no big deal. However, my wife mainly uses the Win8 machine, while I mainly use Puppy (Precise 5.7.1 atm) on this laptop.
Puppy is more high maintenance than Win8 in my experience, in that I have to do more internet searching for solutions to small problems than I do for the other machine.
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
darrelljon

Joined: 08 Apr 2007 Posts: 555
|
Posted: Mon 30 Sep 2013, 07:44 Post subject:
|
|
Ended up using the following tutorial though not officially supported
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/4275-user-profiles-relocate-another-partition-disk.html
works perfectly.
Moving My Documents is not sufficient
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
linuxbear
Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 623 Location: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
|
Posted: Mon 30 Sep 2013, 14:46 Post subject:
|
|
Colonel Panic wrote: | - but Puppy is fun to play with.
I'm not going to argue - Mint or CentOS it is then |
I disagree, Bodhi Linux will outrun Mint or Cent. It runs faster and boots faster on my machines
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
Colonel Panic

Joined: 16 Sep 2006 Posts: 1970
|
Posted: Tue 01 Oct 2013, 09:03 Post subject:
|
|
linuxbear wrote: | Colonel Panic wrote: | - but Puppy is fun to play with.
I'm not going to argue - Mint or CentOS it is then |
I disagree, Bodhi Linux will outrun Mint or Cent. It runs faster and boots faster on my machines |
If speed is the main criterion, I agree - Vector, ArchBang and CrunchBang would also be faster than those two, and probably a few others too. However, I'd imagine that if someone could run Windows 8 on their machine, speed wouldn't be a problem when running either CentOS or Mint on the same one.
_________________ Acer Aspire M1610 (Core 2 Duo, 2.3 GHz), 3 GB of RAM, 320 GB hard drive running Devuan 2.0.0 Beta, Slackel 7.0 Openbox, Bunsen Labs Deuterium, VLocity 7.2 Final, X-Slacko 4.4, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Budgie,Stella 6.8 and Gecko Mate (rolling edition).
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
linuxbear
Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 623 Location: Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
|
Posted: Tue 01 Oct 2013, 14:57 Post subject:
|
|
I use Win 7 to connect to machines at work, so my laptop is capable of that. I run Ubuntu/E17 about 80% of the time because Enlightenment (or Bodhi Linux) is very fast. Anything but Unity. I also like Cinnamon for speed, but E17 is a lot faster.
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
bark_bark_bark
Joined: 05 Jun 2012 Posts: 1935 Location: Wisconsin USA
|
Posted: Tue 01 Oct 2013, 18:31 Post subject:
|
|
Slackware is a good option.
|
Back to top
|
|
 |
|