Your computers and Operating systems

[z31fanatic]

Lately I have been running all Macs. Sold most of the laptops and desktops I had and bought a maxed out late 2015 27" 5k iMac to do the heavy lifting and a late 2016 Macbook Pro 13". Sweet machines

[mariad_10]

Previously had a pentium 4 quite basic. Currently using the Lenovo G50 i5 for both work and home. Running windows 7

[AlanIhsan]

Yikes I feel like the youngest kid alive on this thread haha. Don't really remember much from this period, here's what I remember.

First time I used a computer was in 2001, my brother had gotten a Pentium 2, 32 MBs ram and 16 megabytes graphics card, pretty sure my hard drive was a 20 gig something. ran 3d Max on it for a couple of days and couldn't believe I could make stuff appear on the screen! Played quake 3, age of empires 2, Max payne when it got released. It was amazing. Spent tons of time figuring out how to use paint, broke the OS a couple of times and had my dad take me to fix it, got windows millenium on it because before I had win 98. (this is roughly the order of the event, it's all jumbled up so might be a little wrong chronologically).

After that we got a pentium 3 that could actually run quake well, tomb raider, hitman, half life 2. Metal Gear Solid, all of that good stuff. We had a 32 megabyte graphics card that actually managed to run silent hill 3 pretty well, a 128 ram that we later expanded into 256 megs. A 40 gig hard drive. Then we moved, I got a pentium 4 (at 2007 so that's not exactly new, but we live in Iraq so you can imagine why). 4 gigs of ram, 500 gigs hard drive, a gig of graphics card (albeit a rather lousy one). Used that pentium 4 till 2015 when I got this laptop (a macbook that I recently uninstalled windows from and got mint running on because I love open source). I've been using mint for a couple of days the eyecandy is amazing Needless to say I love the terminal and the package manager is just gold!
I still have the pentium 4, I actually have a couple of components for a build I never finished (an i3-4130, a gtx 750, and a gigabyte lower end motherboard and some hynix ram). Still need a PSU though.

I love computers, and if I had some sense in me I would've gotten into compsci instead of mecheng, I still remember the first time I saw a laptop, computers are the best thing ever.

[Pat D]

All I can say is that I feel privileged to have been witness to it all.

[ColdBoot]

The first PC rig I have assembled single-handedly had a powerful PII 233MHz CPU inside and the first distro I ever tried on it was SuSE 6.

[KBD47]

These days I'm using Android much more than I would have thought a couple of years back. I retired 3 computers over the past few months--one actually burned up--two of them were 11 & 12 years old and still ran but it was time for them to R.I.P. We now have three Chromebooks: 3,4,5 years old. Two of which run Linux as a second OS. And I have a desktop acting mostly as a server an HP Elite 8000 running Mint 17. I have room for another computer and may pick one up in the coming months.

[adamer]

Hello! I am using HP 250 G4 Notebook and I am currently working on Windows 10 but seriously considering switching to Linux Mint. Could you give some pros and cos of the eventual switching?

[Lysander666]

Hello! I am using HP 250 G4 Notebook and I am currently working on Windows 10 but seriously considering switching to Linux Mint. Could you give some pros and cos of the eventual switching?

I'll give this a go. Would be interesting to see other responses too.

Pros:

You will have a faster, less lumbering computer with Mint
Lack of constant, pushy updates and restarting/no nagging
No major corporation spying on you
Free OS
Stable
Helpful community
Looks beautiful, great digital enviroment to work on
Lots of customisation choice
Learn more about computing
You make the choices, not the OS

Cons

Fewer games, fewer drivers working for games [esp if you are on ATI they won't be as good as the official ones]
Not all the software you need may be supported in Mint
Sometimes TOO much choice of distros in the Linux world, can be distracting if you want to get real work done
Learning curve, some command line use is necessary
Simple mistakes can lead to big problems if the user does not know what they are doing
Can take longer to get things set up to the point where everything just works for you
Not BETTER than Windows, just different, can lead to expectations being high and disappointment

The second con is important, it's the main reason my wife did not move to Linux. A vital piece of software she needs is not supported.

[MurphCID]

I am saving my coins for a new build with a Ryzen 1700X system that i am going to build. Right now it looks to cost me (including case and monitors) right at $2300.00 so I have a ways to go.

[CoffeeFiend]

I started out in the mid-80's as a child with some kind of a behemoth my mom bought from Radio Shack. I don't really remember much about it since I had an Atari and was much more interested in that. After that, not a whole lot of anything until the very early 90's. My mom bought another computer that had Window 3.1. Call me crazy, but I loved 3.1! I joined the Navy in '93 (still in to this day) and got to work since then with mostly HP and Compaq desktops starting out with 3.1 and then Windows 95, Windows NT4, Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows 7. I also used HP-UX and went to a few Network Security and Network Administrator schools where I used RedHat Linux as well. From a personal computer standpoint I have had HP, Compaq, and Packard-Bell desktops and HP, Toshiba, and Asus laptops with everything from Windows ME (yeah, yeah), Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 10. Recently I have also gotten into Raspberry Pi's and have SD cards with Raspian and Kali. Lastly, while getting my Master's in Cybersecurity I have used Kali a lot in virtual lab environments.

[MurphCID]

Got the Ryzen 1700 build done, and it is great, fast, and buggy as heck. BSODs every day, it is too unstable for me to feel comfortable installing Mint. Once I get it stable, then I will install MInt.

[DAMIEN1307]

hi folks...does anyone remember the tandy (radio shack) trs 80?...well i bought one in 1977 or 1978? not quite sure lol...i remember the manual that came with it with how to write the code that made things work...lol...the best i was ever able to do with it was to write the very, very, very long code sequence that would turn it to a super load alarm clock to wake me up for work in the morning...boy have we come a long way since then...DAMIEN

[jimallyn]

hi folks...does anyone remember the tandy (radio shack) trs 80?

Of course I remember the Trash 80.

[BG405]

Deleted as not relevant to this thread! Sorry

[Portreve]

All things considered, I think *this* explains quite a lot...

[sarge816]

Did someone mention Rat Shack? Worked there from 1987 -1991 and specialized in computer sales, where I really cut my teeth. My first "PC" was a Radio Shack Color Computer (Co Co) with an external 5 1/4 floppy that hooked into the TV as the monitor. Ran cartridge games mostly (looking at you, Dungeons of Daggorath) and was basically just an exotic toy. Got my first PC compatible in 1988, a Tandy 1000 EX with 3 1/2" disk drive, no hard drive and 384k memory (i paid like $150 for the 128k chip upgrade). Anyone remember Deskmate? 1991, Eventually moved up to a Tandy 286 system with 1MB of RAM and a 52MB HD with a 13" VGA monitor. Fondest memories were playing LucasFilm Games "Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe." Man, good times.

Radio Shack was my first introduction to Linux, as we sold Redhat. Never really messed with it much though.

1997 saw me upgrade to an amazing Cyrix (Pentium equivalent) CPU based PC (133Mhz?) and saw the purchase of my first Voodoo 3D Graphics card. Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Blood (the best game, EVER), Windows 95. Built almost all of my own computers and starting building them for friends and family. Spent way too much time and money learning, building, breaking, fixing.

Finally broke out into Linux proper in 2008 when I ordered a Dell Netbook which was loaded with Ubuntu. Hated Ubuntu but was intrigued, went online and discovered Linux Mint. Downloaded, installed and it was love at first feel. Great AC/DC song, btw.

Fast forward to present and the only computers I have Windows installed on are for my wife's Real Estate business. The majority of my computers run nothing but Linux Mint and I do what I can to turn others onto the charms of open source and Linux. Fight the good fight.

[MintBean]

1997 saw me upgrade to an amazing Cyrix (Pentium equivalent) CPU based PC (133Mhz?) and saw the purchase of my first Voodoo 3D Graphics card. Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Blood (the best game, EVER)

Blood was and is AWESOME. Did you know you can play it on Linux for a few quid? They have shadow warrior for Linux FREE on there too.
https://www.gog.com/game/one_unit_whole_blood

[sarge816]

1997 saw me upgrade to an amazing Cyrix (Pentium equivalent) CPU based PC (133Mhz?) and saw the purchase of my first Voodoo 3D Graphics card. Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Blood (the best game, EVER)

Blood was and is AWESOME. Did you know you can play it on Linux for a few quid? They have shadow warrior for Linux FREE on there too.
https://www.gog.com/game/one_unit_whole_blood

Nice, but I still have all my CD-ROMs of all those old games, just never bothered to try and see if they would run in WINE. I may have to give it a go. There were also some projects I used to follow that were updating the games with real 3d engines and textures but no idea what ever happened to them.

[MintBean]

Nice, but I still have all my CD-ROMs of all those old games, just never bothered to try and see if they would run in WINE. I may have to give it a go. There were also some projects I used to follow that were updating the games with real 3d engines and textures but no idea what ever happened to them.

You may be better off trying Dosbox. That's what the GoG Games versions run in IIRC and they work perfectly.

[sarge816]

Nice, but I still have all my CD-ROMs of all those old games, just never bothered to try and see if they would run in WINE. I may have to give it a go. There were also some projects I used to follow that were updating the games with real 3d engines and textures but no idea what ever happened to them.

You may be better of trying Dosbox. That's what the GoG Games versions run in IIRC and they work perfectly.

Will definitely try Dosbox then, my nostalgia and ocd are now in control. Here is one of the fan remakes of Blood:
http://www.moddb.com/games/blood-fan-remake

There are others for some of the same period games but no idea if they are worth a spit.