I Was Already Sold Before! But this is amazing.

I was talking today with Dr. Vojsak who got me into Linux. We had a long discussion today about it.

He uses Fedora (core 3). But I can tell he is impressed with Knoppix. He was quite surprised when I told him the Knoppix found my Mad Dog USB dual layer external USB 2.0 DVD drive. I told him I was also surprised myself.

He suggested I do an experiment playing a DVD when we got to talking about if Linux can play them. YES!

His experiment:

Play a DVD in Linux while doing something else to see what would happen. Play the same DVD in Windows XP and start doing something else.

I know now that he already knew what was going to happen. I also knew already that while playing a DVD in XP I can't do ANYTHING else or the DVD starts to skip. In fact, I sometimes get hiccups even if I'm not doing anything.

So, now as I write this, I have a DVD playing in the background. I'm on line. And I'm doing an "Apt-Get Update" downloading all the latest updates while on line.

AND JUST HOW IS THE DVD PLAYING?

Perfectly. Not a hiccup. Now THAT! is impressive!!!!!

Gotta get back to the DVD :-)

Later,

sakiZ

Your windoze DVD playing might be inhibited by all the rescources windoze uses. Since linux will run relatively faster than windoze on similar hardware. I have a windoze setup on a 3.4GHz P4, 1GB of ram and i can play games on one monitor, and watch a dvd on the other with no problems, however, now that i have a Knoppix 3.7 install on another computer, i use that one for all my multimedia. I have found out since my first linux install 5 months ago, i'm getting more and more comfortable in the linux environment... if i could only play Everquest 2 in linux i wouldn't need windoze anymore =) just really waiting on better graphics drivers and then the 'ol 21 gun salute to windoze.

<<Your windoze DVD playing might be inhibited by all the rescources windoze uses. Since linux will run relatively faster than windoze on similar hardware.>>

My system is pretty ordinary by today's standards. It's a P3 Tualatin overclocked to 1689 mhz. It's got 768 mg of ram. Snappy, but not mind blowing performance. I ditched the Kyro II card in it and put in my old Voodoo 3 when I was trying out Knoppix. That's what is still in it. Ordinary.

Knoppix does a much better job of allocating it's resouces for improved and balanced I/O using this DVD test. I've come to trust Knoppix to do multi tasking better than Windows XP.

Another example: Right now I'm ripping an audio CD while I type this while on line. In Windoze I would never do that, being afraid I'd get noise on the CD.

Yeah, I know what you mean about certain things making in impossible to ditch XP. I backpack a lot and recently got the DVD version of DeLorme's Topo 5. Nice! It is a Windoze program alas.

But the ironic thing is I originally got Knoppix to be the adjunct OS to XP. And at first it was. I used it just for secure online web browsing and email. I was very happy with that.

Then, I discovered how good it is to rip CDs and such. And Kaffeine to play them back. After that, I discovered Abiword a terrific word processing program, etc. etc. I could go on and on. There is a LOT of good software for Linux.

Now...XP has become the adjunct OS to little ole Knoppix in my dual boot setup. I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that when I first started playing around with it. If DeLorme would just come out with a Linux version of Topo 5.... :-)

sakiZ

i know. i started out a while ago (slackware3.5 iirc) and used that as a "fun thing" on the side to my win 95... after a few months it kind of just overthrew win, or should i say defenstrated;-)

That's it! I've had it. M$ just announced another big round of patches. Patches to patch the re-patch of the previous patch and some new patches that will undoubtedly have to also be patched later on to fix what the patches broke.

No more downloading security update patches to the most patched OS in the history of the world. If I'm going to be spending time on line, it will be on MY time, downloading Linux apps.

This morning I booted into Windows XP and disabled my modem.

WoW! That was soooo simple. I can still use the OS for the few things I can't do in Knoppix. I'm hardly using XP anymore so, no biggie.

Whew! I feel so much better.

sakiZ

I already "ditched" Windows, but, I too had gotten tired of all the downloads... If not for the "security" patches, it was for the virus sig updates... ( not that I ever got any viri, but, you learn not to take any unnecessary risks, when it comes to your data, your OS, or your system )

Another test: If you are running ALSA for your sound system, in Linux, a simple included file in your /home folder, can make your sound card do more than one source at a time, thus, you can play a game & play a DVD, at the same time ( again, no hiccups ).

If I remember my days in Win98, a game and a DVD is "unheard" of, in that OS - not to mention that I am running a nice AMD 64 bit processor, and windows doesnt have a OS for that yet ( 32 bit max. as far as I know ) -=- Linux has a few that can use the processor at its full potential, already :)

Ms. Cuddles
-=- Sometimes, when saving the "known" Universe from evil attacking spawn, you gotta take a bathroom break -=-