Is it possible to modify my video driver?

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Possibly so, and there is certainly some room available here!

I have some machines I plan to "refurbish" and sell or trade after my wife and I get moved in a few weeks, and maybe I will try that with one or two of them and see how it works. I have certainly never heard anyone complain about Linux. I have been doing so much doing and re-doing here that MicroSoft actually called me this morning to see how I am coming along!

Out of curiosity, is there any particular reason to install 2000, XP and Win7 on the same machine?

Why have three machines?!

2K is my favorite, but I have to use XP for my iPod and 'tunes, and I am actually a bit impressed by Win7's smooth ride.

oic.

btw do you have any battles with Win7? Personally I like the new taskbar but not the non-cascaded Start Menu (since Vista).

I have only used Vista just enough to know I do not like it, so I do not really any specific experience with its cascading menus. I am on my notebook with Win7 at the moment -- now I need a new hard drive for my triple-boot -- and I sure like this a lot better than XP. When I finally get my primary machine back togther, I will likely spend most of my time in Win7 if it lets me do what I want at any given moment. The other day my XP told me I did not have permission to do something and I quickly found a way to let it know who is really in charge here!

... and now I gotta press the start button to stop this thing and go get some sleep.

Thats great to hear that you got excellent customer service. Never let it be said that nobody at MS gives a damn.

Normally I would suggest starting with Ubuntu for Linux, but you might like mint better. Its going to come with a lot of codecs installed and its based on ubuntu. You'll have lots of help around here of course, and the mint and ubuntu forums if you really need help.

If you give it a try, let me know if you need anything, ok?

You might enjoy this story ...! !

Several days ago in a nearby place -- right here in my own little world, actually -- IE8 kept rejecting Microsoft's Update page ... and I began trying to resolve the matter. After a couple of browser resets and trying some MS suggestions, I came across a phone number for free support for IE8. I got through fairly quickly, and two of us soon went to work.

I admitted right up front that I had likely caused the problem by deleting stuff in "User Accounts", but I was soon told I had a virus blocking anything from being downloaded ... and I eventually rebooted down into my 2k so I could download the file needed for a remote hookup. But when I got back up into XP, I could not execute (run) that file! I again mentioned the deletions I had made just prior to all of this beginning, and I was again told I had a virus ... and that I would have to do a clean re-install ... and all of that took just about two hours.

Along with a phone call from a supervisor, here is what I received from MS after that initial encounter:



I have slept too many times since then to remember all the details as to what I did next, but I ultimately ended up doing a re-install of XP ... and then I got this from MS telling me the very same thing I had said at the very begining:



But in the meantime, I had difficulty getting the XP installation started from the only disc I have available, so I called back and asked what I might be able to do with what I have ... and I was told that problem could be solved if I was willing to pay $59.00 for some premium support. So, I did that and was transferred to someone else ... but then I was told nothing could be done unless I had an original disc! So, I got a refund and went on my way, then got this in the mail:



During my time on the phone with that particular individual, he kept asking the same questions about my drive and partitions and sizes and all of that over and over again while taking long pauses in-between ... then a day or so later MS called about 30 minutes after I had finally completed and activated my XP re-installation all on my own ... and people wonder why I sometimes wear a foil hat!!



You bet, and I thank you!

Last night I bought a couple of *new* 160-gig drives, and I will be right back here talking with you and whoever else before I do anything with them. I am in no big hurry here, and maybe we can get something really neat going. I like just about anything beyond boring-ordinary!!

Thats exactly how I feel about Linux. It's really neat and beyond the ordinary. A great adventure.

The first time I booted into Ubuntu, I must have sat and marvelled for 5 minutes. It felt like being the first person on mars. I had a whole world to explore and schedule. I must have opened the application menu after that, or a browser, but I don't really remember! I mustn't forget that feeling ever.

Okay, I just took a look at the Mint site and downloaded the manual and saw "Main Edition" suggested for newbies, but that must be called something else at the download site. So, what might you suggest there?

Since I do not have bit torrent set up, I will likely just order a disk.

Try this one for the 32 bit version. http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/linuxmint.com/ ... Mint-8.iso

Here is the 64 bit version. http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/linuxmint.com/ ... -8-x64.iso

I assume you are not using dial-up, right? I find the direct downloads to be just as fast as a torrent most times. The only time I would torrent a Linux iso is when a new version comes out. Ordering a disk is fun too.

To create the boot disk you can either use a dvd or cd, or even a 1 or 2 gig thumb drive, if you can boot from that. The thumb drive is a little more forgiving of course. I used unetbootin(which is free for windows) to render the iso disk image into a bootable thumb drive. If you go with a 2+ gig thumb drive you will have an operating system in your pocket.

wow, M$ called you back. I would be impressed if not for their less than helpful suggestions.

Fuzzy showed you the links for the 64-bit version; I'd highly recommend that if you have a processor that can handle it.

You might also like to give BSD a try. BSD is even faster and more stable and secure than Linux. PC-BSD just released a new edition, and it's very nice. It also runs KDE instead of GNOME.

Oh yes, and all of the five fine folks I have talked with there have been very friendly ... and just this morning I got another e-mail asking me to let them know when everything is resolved! Either they really care or I am on some kind of watch list.

I can only imagine what it must be like to sit there trying to help people resolve their system or software problems!

Fuzzy and Orwell: I will read a little more in the Mint manual before proceeding, and please know this is the first I have evere heard of Gnome being anything other than a city in Alaska ... and that reminds me of the old ET joke about a cure for all disease:

Eat tea and phone Gnome (where the doctor who takes over from that point is located)!

Or they are making supreme efforts to retain their jobs in the face of lay offs.



They are just they are both decorators for the windows, much like vista has aereo and classic(like win2000) view. on top of that you select themes.. millions of them out there. as well, they are loose collections of software. You'll see things with K names.. those are associated with KDE, but they will run in gnome too.

You said you like messing with stuff. Well, you are going to be able to. Everything. and if it buggers up, you can just reinstall.