Open Source OS's

[Jorsoft]

The last time I looked at ReactOS was at least a year ago, not a whole lot seems to have changed yet as it's very early in Alpha still. Very promising but it will take a LOT of work and projects like this have a nasty habit of fizzling out. We shall see...

 

[Brinson]

No one has yet mentioned Sun's OS Solaris so I'll just throw it into the ring.

I use Ubuntu and love it. Just don't get into it thinking "I need this program", but rather think "I need a program that does this". Ubuntu has alternatives to programs, but you won't run things like Microsoft Office, you'll run OpenOffice instead.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

Lol, the whole "I need a program that does this" thing applies to Windows too...I just got a Windows Vista laptop, and here are the first things I installed:

Pidgin (open source IM client)
Firefox (open source browser)
OpenOffice (open source office suite)
VLC Media Player (open source media player)
...and Folding@Home, since my new comp can burn through work units really fast

And I'll definitely install Ubuntu in a dual-boot when 8.04 comes out in a few days (hp dv9700t laptop has pretty much all Linux-compatible parts)

 

[leonardmp92]

All, thanks for all the great input, sorry I posted in wrong location. I will look for Ubuntu on Google. What is "wine"?

 

[Jorsoft]

WINE stands for like "Windows something something Emulator" I think. Anyways, it's basically a program that lets you run Windows programs on Linux. They're constantly updating it so it actually works well with a lot of programs. Check out their site for their compatibility list.