The Linux thread

I started with Mandrake (9.1, 9.2, and 10), all failing miserably due to my abilities. That is, I used wireless, but no driver seemed to support it--as it turns out, ndiswrapper was required, but lord only knows a newbie using that isn't much possible.

After a year or so beyond that, getting tired of Windows I take the plunge and format it, installing Ubuntu solely. That was alright, but the bulkiness of Gnome bothered me--two reinstalls later, I finally figured out that reinstalling doesn't do much (as compared to Windows reinstalls).

Finally content to stew in GDM-land, I used it for about four months without too many hiccups, though the repository thing quickly got on my nerves, especially with breakage between universe and the standard repos.

Anyways, it's at this point I back everything up, nuke Ubuntu, and (with much due to Arainach) plunge into Gentoo land. At this point, Gentoo was 2005.1. It impressed me with how easy to install it was... no, really! The documentation was superb, and ndiswrapper seemed to work fine. Granted, the fact I knew how to download sources and make Portage aware was very helpful.

To this day, I use that installation, though it's changed a lot. I run Openbox and Pypanel now, no DE like KDE or XFCE at all. Nice and snappy, too, which helps my various servers and mpd. I have since put Windows XP on a second, smaller drive for gaming, as my computer is a bit weak to run Guild Wars through Wine.

Also, LA, tried using epsxe under Gentoo? It works fine for me, the only quirk I had to deal with was the compiled plugins not working--downloading them from the net worked fine, though.

Jam it back in, in the dark.