RE: Computing memories: Being on the cutting edge of technology
I remember those Macs well. I Couldn't understand why anyone would buy them at the time. They were relatively underpowered and certainly overpriced. But looking back, I kind of wish Apple would reintroduce similar designs today. Everything is just so boring now. The transparent color designs of the early iMacs and iBooks were extremely popular but relatively short lived. The early powerbooks (black) were pretty awesome but you had to sell your first born to be able to afford one.
In any case, I build my own PCs so Apple's have always had limited appeal to me anyway...at least everything after the Apple II. Do do have a dual CPU Xeon based Power Mac that some one just threw in the traschan though. I put Linux on it.
Speaking of Linux, while there are probably more distributions than stars in the sky, there are really only a couple that have any significant degree of popularity. The most popular is probably Ubuntu. There are variants of Ubuntu such as Xubuntu and Lubuntu but the differences are only which front-end they are packaged with and what the default application software packages are. The entire Ubuntu family is based off of Debian and you can just do an install of that distribution too. Ubuntu just adds a few things to be slightly more user friendly. Linux Mint is another popular option that is also based off of Debian.
The other family that is popular are those based on Fedora. Red Hat is the commercialized release based on Fedora for enterprise use. CentOS is basically a free version of Red Hat without the support.
Ubuntu is probably by far the most popular distribution these days. I prefer the Xubuntu variant as it is a bit lighter. If you want a 32-bit distribution for a really old computer then Debian is about your only choice (at least if you want an up to date distribution) as they are the only ones still releasing 32-bit distributions that I am aware of. I used Fedora long ago but haven't tried any recent versions. On Mac hardware I usually put Linux Mint but for no particular reason except to be different.
This made me laugh because ME TOO!
I really enjoyed Ubuntu before the Unity interface took over. I really hated that and it was clear they were trying to make an OS that could be used on everything. The work around was too complicated for me and I didn't have time to figure it out so I just walked away. When I buy a new gaming laptop I will likely turn the one I am typing on now into a Linux machine of some sort. I'll probably end up using Mint because it is simple.
Yeah, I really hated Unity too but I think they dropped it several years ago and went back to Gnome as the default desktop environment. But the workaround for me was simple. Install Xubuntu instead of Ubuntu (for the XFCE desktop environment). It's not any harder to use than Mint. I think Unity was trying to be Windows 8 and nobody liked Windows 8 to begin with. I guess Xubuntu and Mint are my current favorites...
Thanks for the information. I think the reason I don't mess with it for now is because I would need a dual boot environment and I am afraid to try that on my one and only computer. When I do get a new PC I will not be buying a $2000 one and I think Linux would be perfect for that. Not dual boot, just a one and only OS. Glad to hear that Unity got bas boot. It needed to because I don't recall anyone really liking it.