When examining an OS, do you........

piranha · Post by **piranha** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 6:57 pm

Which do you prefer?

I like to test it out myself......Harddrive or CD (or floppy)

-JL

binutils · Post by **binutils** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 7:03 pm

os and bash shell on another partition
HDD/CD image: no
grub/lilo : yes

AndrewAPrice · Post by **AndrewAPrice** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 7:03 pm

I look at screenshots (I'm sure it's the first thing most people would look for), and if it's really interesting then I'll download the CD or floppy image.

I don't like it when people put a few binaries in a zip file and say "put this on a floppy and boot it with GRUB" because that requires work

.

frank · Post by **frank** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 7:14 pm

I prefer to download a live cd or a floppy image.

piranha · Post by **piranha** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:26 pm

Who said "Testing a What?"?

-JL

pcmattman · Post by **pcmattman** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:46 pm

I'll always want to see some screenshots before I decide to download the OS.

It's probably the main reason why, before I release my OS, I take screenshots of cool things that will get people interested before I put it up for download.

Another advantage to screenshots is that you can show off twenty features of your OS in the bandwidth it takes to download a disk image and view them for yourself.

Zacariaz · Post by **Zacariaz** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:48 pm

piranha wrote:Who said "Testing a What?"?

I did, i dont think i have ever "tested" an OS.
It has allways been like: "hmm, what linux dist should i install... nah ill just pic at random"

Dex · Post by **Dex** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 9:01 pm

See screenshots, then download floppy image. but i think Youtube will be just as important, if not more, within the next year or so.
I am buying a camcorder, just so i can show my OS running on real PC.

Solar · Post by **Solar** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 10:35 pm

I voted "I don't care", because none of the options really fit.

First, I believe screenshots tell you zilch about an OS. I can do perfectly well without eye candy, and actually haven't derived from an OS' standard looks except for killing time (and I didn't have time to kill for a loooong time...).

If interested in an OS, I read user reviews, and bug reports / pleas for help in forums (and how they are answered). If I like what I see, I do a parallel install and see how the OS fares serving my everyday needs for a couple of days. No LiveCD, no "demo image" does tell me what I need to know.

These days, openSuSE is failing dismally to impress me. Installing from DVD fails because it cannot find some packages (after installing for half an hour), trying to install from internet overnight (because it takes several hours over my relatively slow DSL connection) resulted in my computer being shut down this morning, the installation only half done, and no information as to "why". I am sure the SuSE LiveCD looks nice, and there are many nice screenshots of SuSE desktops around, but for me this thingy doesn't even get through installation stage.

JamesM · Post by **JamesM** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:58 am

I'm running on a work-standard SuSE9.1 image here, and it sucks big time. They're testing a new standard image now -- roll on debian! whoop!

inflater · Post by **inflater** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 8:33 am

My OS and DexOS would use the java environment, you just run the OS directly in your browser without clobbering something, and if you like it, you would download the binaries/floppy image etc. Also, screenshots would be provided too (if e.g. GUI would work in the java very sloww)

Regards
inflater

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