Can Anyone Reccomend A Good (non linux)...

[Ric_Price]

Can anyone reccomend a good, non linux replacement for Windows? My folks are giving me their old desktop and I am looking to fix the thing up. (Old being an Athlon 800 mghz system) I want to get away from using Windows and microsux products. Prefferably an OS that there is a version of Open Office Available for.

[dwin]

Doesn't exist.

[Ric_Price]

In general or one that is compatible with open office?

[PhoenixGeek]

Not Linux... OK.
FreeBSD, there ya go, just ask anyone it isn't linux.

[adamjaskie]

All I can think of besides Linux on an x86 system are FreeBSD, BeOS and Solaris. I don't know if OpenOffice is working on BeOS yet, but IIRC they are working on it. But Linux is going to be far better for general use than Solaris or BeOS. BeOS is nice, but quite limited. Solaris has... issues, and I have no experience with FreeBSD.

[edge]

I was looking at "Amiga Research OS" yesterday, and it sounds cool just for something to clunk around with. I don't know a lot about Amiga, so I have no idea of it's *nix based or what. Just sounded neat, and the interface looks relativly slick. Should be able to find it via a quick Google, but if not I'll dig up the URL again.

[billf]

Amiga only works on PPC processors the last time I checked, and it is in no way based on Linux. Most modern GUIs use some of the same elements Amiga was using back in the early 90s.

[edge]

This particular distro was ported to x86. They have a bunch of various ISO's and floppy disk images you can use, as well as a bunch of software (included on some of the disc images, I believe).

Found the site...(don't ask me how I forgot this...I've been very tired all day)
Amiga Research OS

If nothing else, it's something nifty to mess with.

[billf]

yeah, I just looked at it. It's still in Alpha, so I wouldn't have any use for it at the moment.

I used Amiga OS years ago back in high school and thought it was great, but that was... oh gee, now I feel old, damn near 10 years ago.

[edge]

When I was in high school, we had the wonders of Mac OS 7 and 8 on a few machines, and before that we had Apple ]['s and similar...and 486 boxen running NT in the library.

Ofcourse, by the time I was a senor, Win2k rolled around and they ditcched the macs and PII systems we were using...my HS was far from technologically advanced.

Their domain admin password was "admin".

But we got 2000 as soon as it rolled out...so by the time I graduated in '01, they had been working with it for nearly 3 years and had it *mostly* working right. In a "kind of" sort of way.

If you're just looking for something to fiddle with, although it's windows you could mess with an old NT version...or DOS for that matter. Now those were the days

Or if you are daring....BeOS.

[Infin8Cyn]

Windows.

[Ric_Price]

Windows blows and Microcock is a company I no longer want to be associated with outside of the 360 when it launches.

[sintekk]

Beos is pretty sweet. It has an awesome interface and is very speedy. You can find the ol' Beos Personal Edition floating somewhere around the internet, and if it catches your fancy, I'd look at the Zeta version (http://www.yellowtab.com/) of it; while not free, it comes with support, patches and all that jazz

Edit: One more note on the Personal Edition: it's somewhat unique in that it doesn't require a seperate partition. It can run along windows on the same partition, which makes it great for a trial. All other versions of Beos require their own partitions, though.

Edit Dos: If Beos PE doesn't work on your computer, give this one a whirl:
http://www.beosonline.com/

[adamjaskie]

May I ask why you wish to avoid Linux? It IS pretty much the accepted standard for non-Windows x86 machines at the moment. If you have an x86 that isn't running Windows, chances are it's running Linux.

[TopCat]

I'm hearing Zeta sucks because it's VERY LITTLE DIFFERENT from BeOS R5. get haiku when it comes out.