thanks everyone for your inputs. I've decided that I'll keep windows and a linux distro on separate drives (like last time) but will only use windows when I absolutely have to i.e. when I just can't get a particular work done on linux. That will, I hope, keep my windows installation clean for a good long while, since I'll be using it sparsely and also save me unwanted rides into the world of windows' troubleshooting. ---------- After reading around a bit and keeping my needs in mind I have narrowed my choices down to these three: 1. openSUSE 2. Mint 3. Ubuntu in that order. I am poised to download open suse and plunge into a whole new desktop experience. any last minute suggestions before I jump off....
I've not personally experienced the problems you mention and I quite often get Windows laptops from friends/family which need fixing which haven't had this problem (although I myself am a Mac user). If you do chose to move away from Windows, do keep compatibility issues in mind. On my Mac I often find myself booting into Windows using Parallels. As for example, the Arabic support on Office Mac is very poor compared to Windows. One thing I'd definitely vouch for is a SSD - I recently upgraded my normal HD for a SSD and the performance improvements are incredible.
I had ubuntu and windows installed on two separate HDDs (not dual boot, that was another pain) but I don't remember logging into ubuntu except a few times. 1. every 5-6 months or so it begins to feel so contaminated and rickety (though I use ccleaner regularly) that I have to do a fresh re-install and what with having to re-install all the other propriety apps it takes a good deal of time. This is the no. 1 problem. Try as I might I just cant keep my windows installation fresh and new for long. 2. this time round a one of my logical drives' MFT got corrupted. I tried retrieving it using testdisk only to find that the mirror MFT was corrupted as well. I mean how inefficient is this - there's GBs worth of data on the drive and windows tells me that it's a new unformatted drive which I should format before trying to use it, just because ONE table is missing? Thankfully, I managed to find a recovery tool that rescued 100 GBs of my painstakingly accumulated data. System restore was in the drive that got corrupted.... mine was Islamic books, media and software gathered during 7-8 long years. I have been using a pc since 2007. MAC only runs on a few select hardware boards right? I don't want to tie myself hardware-software (read, head-foot) to one specific vendor.
after many years of windows problem after problem I abandoned it for MAC OS Maverick never had any problems since.
the last time i lost it, was because of hardware failure - hard drive crash. anyway, looking back it doesn't appear that big a loss now. --- what exactly is your problem with windows? (i am a very old linux/FOSS enthusiast, btw). i find it good enough for my type of work; your mileage might vary. it is bearable unless of course, you are still using winME http://www.osalt.com/
This is the third time that I have barely escaped losing lots of important data in one fell swoop all because good ol' windows likes to hiccup and upend the table every now and then, for no apparent reasons. I have tried switching to ubuntu a few times but just kept rolling back to windows for reasons of convenience and the number of handy apps to choose from. This time round I am really fed up and am seriously considering ditching windows permanently. I found the following articles useful: 1. http://tinyurl.com/n56jjas 2. http://tinyurl.com/q6w54zr 3. http://tinyurl.com/kdkunzz 4. http://www.goodbyemicrosoft.net/news.php what do others think? Is there anyone here who's been using a linux distro exclusively and for long? Those who recommend linux, which of the distros would you recommend for a desktop?
