We have control of more than your TV. Cylon the O.S.

[GoldCylon]

We now offer free upgrades to all tin can's, and toasters.
http://cylonlinux.weebly.com/

[RavenLX]

Ok...

I'll try not to get too critical. It looks fancy and interesting, but there are a few things keeping me from trying this out (even in a virtual machine)...

The biggest one is Gnome / Unity. I'm not at all a big fan of either. I would probably immediately install KDE, which means that alot of the cool eye candy in the video won't be there because KDE 4 has it's own stuff. So why KDE? Unity is to Linux what Windows 8 is to Windows. Furthermore Gnome forked to MATE (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MATE). So they are basically distributing their distro with a depreciated window system. I've tried MATE. I wasn't crazy about that either. For me, I found Gnome, MATE and Unity all very buggy. Seems KDE always worked quite well for me, so I been sticking to KDE for a long time now.

I been a Linux user (desktop and servers) for many years off and on. I started with Slackware 1.0 just to see what it was all about. I gave up Windows completely and went exclusively to Linux mid-January and never looked back! Linux rocks!

But I think I'll stick to Linux Mint 14 KDE for now. I've got quite used to it and it runs nicely and has a few things I like.

However, that's not to say if I ever have time I may try other distros in a virtual machine (VirtualBox).

Another thing I noticed is the lack of a BSG/Cylon "theme" to it. I don't know but I don't see any Centurions. I didn't see it start up and then say "By Your Command". They have no indication on their site why they call it "Cylon Linux".

If they made a KDE version with a BSG Old Style Centurion theme, then I'd installing it in a VR today!

The two things I do like about it is it's Debian based (I'm used to that as the servers at work that I maintain are Ubuntu and Linux Mint is Debian/Ubuntu based) and also Cylon Linux looks really cool, eye-candy-wise!

It's a distro to watch though. If anyone does try it, please do report back your impressions. Hopefully maybe this distro will take off and become popular as well.

For those interested, keep watching distrowatch.com as that shows how the most popular distros are doing and where to download them, etc.

BTW, my Linux Mint installation is raw, not in a virtual machine. I currently don't have Windows on any of my computers!

[GoldCylon]

I haven't tried this O.S. and I won't be, and it isn't because anything that has been commented about here, and other places. I have used Red Hat in the past, and did enjoy the performance, but wasn't thrilled about what I was able to use. Seemed to be geared more for programmers.

[Cylon-Knight]

Like my clunky old 1978 Cylon that can't shoot the side of a Battlestar, I'll keep my Windows Vista! HAHA!
...now, I have to go rewind some VCR tapes - LATER!

[RavenLX]

Oh snap! You guys are delightfully old skool! You guys rock. You know what they say: If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

I'm one of those curious types and yes, a programmer / server admin / web developer by profession for years now. I guess that's another reason I'm drawn to Linux as well as the geek factor.

But times are changing! In fact, I too stuck with Windows (until this past January) for the same reason GoldCylon said: lack of applications and support for hardware I really needed/wanted to use. Well, when I tried out Linux Mint in a VirtualBox virtual machine on my Windows 7 (and then upgraded to Windows 8) on my new laptop, I found it was far better than Windows and it would (even in the virtual machine) work with nearly all my hardware! The stuff that didn't work was due to limitations of the VirtualBox emulation system. So I went and wiped the hard drive and took a dive into installing Mint raw (I have bought the restoration discs from my manufacturer so I can always reinstall it to factory Windows 7 system anytime). Well, after installing Linux directly to the hard drive as the only OS, and googling for a couple drivers (build-in SD card, all-in-one WiFi printer, graphics tablet), everything worked great! I even got bluetooth running and even my NXT Mindstorms robot kit! Also I was able to find great quality replacements for a video editor, digital audio workstation, programming text editor, programming IDE, graphics editor. All this stuff with better features than I had in Windows!

I'm going to be working on a site to help those switch over to Linux and show how to set things up, get stuff working, find programs and set them up, etc. I want to help make it real easy to switch to linux. I'm kinda still working on backups but hopefully soon will get started on that (and back to work on my Cylon Robot project too).

I had Windows Vista on my old laptop and recently wiped it and installed Mint. That worked out perfect as well! So much easier to install than Windows, actually! Nothing went wrong!

So for those curious, you can try it. Be sure to back up all your data first and be sure you purchased a restore CD set from your computer manufacturer (most should have them available by contacting customer support. Prices range from around $5 shipping to up to maybe $20 plus shipping/tax, etc.) If it cost more, you can always google and find a hard drive image/backup program to back up everything to some other media (be sure your computer will boot using that media). And be sure you have a bootable restore setup as well. There's also options for dual-booting in most systems that are not Windows 8 pre-installed.

Or you can stick to the old Windows. Though MS will be dropping support and updates for Windows 7 in the near future and I am not sure but didn't they stop on XP already? I think they are providing updates for Windows 7 and Vista yet? So there's still time.

Oh and I forgot to mention, Linux Mint 14 comes with Play on Linux and Wine though you'd probably want to go to the Play On Linux site and grab the newest version. I've been able to get Windows programs running in those too! Stuff like Mixcraft 5 (digital audio workstation), games from Big Fish Games, Oberon Media/Pogo, PopCap, SpinTop, and some old stuff. I also have DOSBox and a gui for it so I can even play old DOS games!

This system runs everything! LOL!

[RavenLX]

Like my clunky old 1978 Cylon that can't shoot the side of a Battlestar, I'll keep my Windows Vista! HAHA!
...now, I have to go rewind some VCR tapes - LATER!

Just as long as he/you/the computer doesn't do this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=aNG58wd3Zys[/youtube]

(Someone want to teach me how to do these youtube things?)

[GoldCylon]

Like my clunky old 1978 Cylon that can't shoot the side of a Battlestar, I'll keep my Windows Vista! HAHA!
...now, I have to go rewind some VCR tapes - LATER!

Just as long as he/you/the computer doesn't do this:



(Someone want to teach me how to do these youtube things?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=
Remove this section on the YouTube, and leave rest.

[RavenLX]

Thanks! I hope I don't forget next time.

Though I'm sure I'll get more practice in the future as I like browsing YouTube for stuff.

[Cylon-Knight]

Just remember - only put the stuff after the equal sign inside the youtube codes.

[RavenLX]

The hardest part is the actual act of remembering. Bad memory doesn't help no matter how easy something is.