I played extensively with that beta version of Vista and finally decided that not only wasn’t I going back to Windows XP, I was going over to Linux entirely and I deleted all versions of Windows from my hard drive on my main computer.

I do have a couple of laptop computers with Windows on them, but I started playing around with installing Puppy Linux on a USB drive, and it is getting rarer and rarer for me to ever run Windows.

Along the way I discoverd Sidux after trying many, many distros, and I have stayed with Sidux for about six months, which is a long time for me. I run it from an 8-gb USB drive and as the main distro on my desktop. I keep a second partition open on my desktop computer for experimenting with different versions of Linux; it has usually ended up with Linux Mint on it.

But now I just bought a $200 Shuttle computer and am now running Sidux on it from a USB drive; it comes with something called Foresight Linux which also seems very good. This computer may become my main desktop computer, so the 512 MB limit will finally be gone!

But it’s too late to go back to Windows anything. I’m sticking with Linux.

If you get upset because there’s different NAME on the label, how do you make it trough life? I think renaming Firefox and Thunderbird into Iceweasel and IceDove was a perfectly reasonable decision to tackle the situation the Debian team saw itself confronted with, they dealt with it, can you?

Ok, enough with my little rant. Sorry about that. *cough*
As for links opening Konqueror first, well Konqueror is KDE’s standard browser, and a pretty good one at that, no one should be surprised if on a KDE distribution, the original setting is that some stuff opens with Konqueror.

You can of course, with very few clicks *change* that setting, just right click on a file, in the /general/ tab, click the /edit the file type/ button, the one with the small tool picture, and in the /application preference order/ text field below, change the settings which application should open the file. You can even put several applications and move the one up which you use most often to open a file. For example, I put Kate on the highest postion to open text files for me, then KWrite and lastly Kword. So if I want to open a simple text file not with Kate, I just right click it and select /open with/ ~Kword. For example.

SO. Now please let me say something about the actual issue. I use Sidux myself because it is the fastest and slickest KDE distro out there, and KDE gives me personally the best Linux experience. I also really like the smxi tool for hardcore administration tasks, which is Sidux exclusive. While it has to be used on the konsole to ensure that no graphical quibs get inbetween, it’s not really complicated because it was written with the regular user in mind. The real power of sidux is that with smxi, you can continously upgrade your system without the need of ever reinstalling the “new release”. In Sidux, there is no new release because it *is* the newest of the new for regular users, always and continiously. It’s not a Debian branch, it IS Debian Sid and Apt will use the regular Debian repositories alongside with the Sidux repositories or any other repro you might want to add.

I don’t want to sound like a marketing fool, but I suspect Sidux will become very popular -top 5 spot on Distro watch- very soon, especially once people have lost their scepticism about having to use the command line for smxi for system upgrades. But it is actually less scary than doing upgrades through the graphical user interface, which very quickly can result a flaky experience. In the past, I’ve therefore always made a completely new install which is a lot of work even if you have a separate /home partition.

My only complaint about Sidux, and it isn’t really a complaint, is that the responses in chat can be rude at times, this is an old problem of Linux. Coders and Nerds should not do support, it is not what their brain is structured for. They should code, that’s what their good. Dealing with the insecurities of windows refugees is not what they’re good at.

However, in Linux, it’s mainly the hackers who know how stuff works, so they are forced to do the support until the project is broad enough for the experienced user to take over that job. Hackers are rather be back in the work shop, fumbling with engine parts so to say, but in new projects they have to come in front to the counter and crack a smile as well. The old saying that the technically adept are the socially inept has some truths. Well that’s not really an old saying, I just made that up. But as the popularity grows, so will the user base and also the regular users willing to support others in the forum. This will take a lot of stress away from the developers who don’t have really the will nor the mental capacity to figure out weird esoteric things like empathy or projected perspective. Eventually the support will be a self-sustaining type, users helping other users as we see in the Ubuntu forums for example and the hackers will do what they’re best at: writing code.

If you are an experienced user and you are using Sidux, check out the forum and help a Newbie if you can and if you’re enjoying to give a helping hand to those who are more confused than you are.

You ask “Why use Firefox and Thunderbird, rather than their Debian equivalents.

My objective is helping Linux grow. Since that is mostly a matter of converting Microsoft users, that tasks is so much easier when those users already are Firefox and/or Thunderbird fans.

I have been using Icedove and Iceweasel for about four months and I find that the integration is not tight enough so many times an applications wants to open Konqueror instead of Icedove. Those are the type of issues I wish to eliminate before switching Toy Time to Debian.

If I can’t hook up with you via a Google search, please contact me hbkeultjes at earthlink

Henry
when

as a keen sidux user who has even made vsti-instruments work on a notebook interfacing to my amplifier via S/PDIF, I wonder why some of You here do not even mention wine as a tool to get windows applications to run.

Wine has improved a lot over time, and I guess that most applications for which there is no linux counterpart yet can be made to run on linux that way.

But even if most average everyday things seem to run well on linux we should not yet forget the fact that some things have been made to run only just and still need finetuning.

That is one reason why I still cannot kick windows from my notebook because I need the windows drivers to make my WLAN run on linux. And there are compatibility issues between OpenOffice and Excel which prevents me from working on my spread sheets I have at my job using linux.

@Henry Keultjes
You are free to ‘roll your own Sidux’ if that is what you are asking. It’s actually quite simple with fll-builder. More info here: http://sidux-underground.net/
By default fll-builder will build a kde-lite version. What other applications are included is up to you. Although I do not understand this requirement for Firefox & Thunderbird (instead of their Debian equivalents ) actually getting Thunderbird & Firefox into your own live Sidux should not be a problem as long as there are .deb packages available. Sidux adheres farily strictly to the Debian ways (wherever possible) so you WILL need to provide Debian packages for those applications.

Processor AMD Athlon-64
WM KDE
Browser Firefox
Mail Client Thunderbird *not* Icedove and Iceweasel

Henry Keultjes
Toy Time Computer Project
Mansfield Ohio USA

PS: Toy Time , unlike Toys for Tots, is a totally volunteer organization that has given refurbished computers with Microsoft programs to kids at Christmas time for more than ten years. Because these kids cannot learn computer “mechanics” when the “hood” is welded shut, I am driving the switch to a year-round teaching Linux and programming based project.

However, while I have a great deal of knowledge about computer and software basics, I am not a techie so I need volunteer help carrying out this important mission. I need those volunteers who are willing to do this my way first so that they may understand the advantages of doing so. When that has been accomplished I will be only too happy to work on alternatives.