Melvin's blog

A few months ago my PC died, well to be honest, I didn't care about it. It was old, slow, ugly and the worst part, it was running Windows XP. I don't know, I really want to bash on Windows today, does someone here actually loves Windows? Because Windows doesn't love you, so I'm going to be free and tell the world "I've hated Windows my whole life".

A few week ago, I was planning on buying a new PC, because, well I needed one. I didn't want to run Windows ever again so I started to do a little research. Just before starting my research I visited an old friend. Guess what, the first thing he told me was, "Dude I switched from Windows to Linux" so he showed off his new OS. While he was showing all the eye candy and all the crazy Linux stuff my jaw was on the floor. I said, "you can do that on Linux?" he replied, "yes, and it's free, look I have the CD here, want a copy?". "I said off course!!!" But let me buy a new PC.

I went on with my Linux research and I discovered the power of the Linux kernel and all of it's flavors. Ubuntu, PCLOS, Fedora, Mandriva, Open Suse, etc., etc., etc.Here you can find more distros (or Linux flavors to make it easier) Everything for free!!!! Free of viruses and spyware, Windows close friends!

I decided to go for PCLinuxOS, I'm currently using "Mini Me" which has been great for me. You can find more info on PCLOS here. I've become a Linux fan, but it's not perfect (who or what is perfect anyway? Only God.) I've had some problems with it, but the people on the forums have helped me a lot. I got rid of all the problems I faced by doing some simple steps and, viola I have the almost perfect OS for me!

My "new" computer is not really new but, I bought it for $60 so I can't complain. Here are the specs:

- AMD Athlon 1.2Ghz
- 256 DDR RAM @ 333Mghz
- Nvidia GeForce 5500 256 Video RAM*
- 80Gb HDD
- DVD ROM, CD ROM Drives
- 8 USB Ports
- Soyo Motherboard, SY-KT333 Dragon Lite (I can upgrade the RAM up to 3GB)

*I bought the PC with an ATI Radeon with 64Mb RAM and my father gave me his not so old Nvidia VGA card.

I'm using Compiz-Fusion, for the eye candy, Take a look at this small demo, of two Compiz-Fusion apps, and remember it's free.

My only gripe with Opera running on PCLos, is that I feel that this great OS is left in the cold by the Opera team. It doesn't integrate well on PCLos and it's kind of choppy. I hope it ends when 9.5 releases. Please Opera do something if you read this!!!!