Linux

[Bob2004]

Though now that I've seen this, I kind of want to try it out, just because it's based on Hikaru no Go, one of the best series of ALL TIME. <3

Things like that are why Linux is great. It's so customisable, and you can make it do pretty much anything. For just general use, I think it's inferior to a closed, more stable system like Windows, but if you just want to mess around with computers, or you have some specific task you want to accomplish, it can't be beaten.

In a weird coincidence, I literally just finished watching Hikaru no Go a few minutes ago, and I'm kinda tempted to give Go a try now, so maybe I'll download that Hikarunix live cd. It sounds interesting.

EDIT: Or not, it doesn't seem to have been updated since 2005, and even finding a good download of it is troublesome. Knowing Linux, if it's that outdated it probably won't even work fully on my PC anyway.

[shikitohno]

There's go programs out there for just about any major distro.  I know gnugo is available on Fedora, Arch, and Ubuntu, and I'm pretty sure there's a few graphical frontends to it floating about.  I've stumbled across various other ones here and there that you may need to build from source if you want them, but you should be able to play it pretty easily.  Yahoo also has go in their games section as I recall, though be prepared to get your ass handed to you by a lot of people until you get the hang of it.

Concerning the compatability issue, I'm kind of apathetic on that one.  For data and stuff, linux makes it pretty easy to get at your windows and OS X stuff provided you've got the right packages installed, which quite a few distros include out of the box these days.  Mint and Ubuntu work right away with NTFS drives for me.  Microsoft goes out of their way to make it a pain in the neck to interact with Linux filesystems from Windows.  For programs, I feel like people should really have to dual boot if they still want to be able to run all their windows games anyway.  After all, nobody complains that PS3 can't play Wii games, right?  Different systems, can't expect them to mesh up 100% of the time.  Wine will ease some of your pain in this area, but it won't work for all programs, and it's not really meant to.

[Bob2004]

Yeah, it just seemed like a good collection of beginner's resources conveniently bundled together. I found a few websites explaining how to play, as well as GNUGo for Windows instead, which works well (tends to crash a lot though), but it turns out Go is a lot harder than you'd think from just watching Hikaru no go, so I don't think I'm likely to get into it.

[shikitohno]

Go is a pretty tough game.  I'd say it's a lot more difficult to play well than something like chess.  It can be quite satisfying once you finally start managing to pull off good moves every once in a while.  Of course, I'd like to learn how to play it better myself.  I think go may be one game where it's probably best to find someone else who's interested (and preferably already familiar with how to play), and learn by playing with them for a while until you get better.  It can be disheartening to simply get slaughtered by AI all the time at a game you're just trying to learn the basics of.

[Bob2004]

Go is a pretty tough game.  I'd say it's a lot more difficult to play well than something like chess.  It can be quite satisfying once you finally start managing to pull off good moves every once in a while.  Of course, I'd like to learn how to play it better myself.  I think go may be one game where it's probably best to find someone else who's interested (and preferably already familiar with how to play), and learn by playing with them for a while until you get better.  It can be disheartening to simply get slaughtered by AI all the time at a game you're just trying to learn the basics of.

Yeah, the advantage of playing against the AI is that if you make an enormously stupid move and lose a load of territory, you can press undo and try again, which is nice - it lets you experiment a bit, and see the result of different options. But GNU-Go has a tendency to get confused and crash if you do it too much, so playing with a friend would probably be better.

But my main problem with go is that you need to spend lots of time thinking, and frankly, I can't be arsed to do that. I much prefer games which require lots of strategy, but don't require lots of time spent thinking, so I think I'll be sticking to mahjong for now. I'm too lazy for go.

[from]

Back on topic, much as I love Hikaru and Go, both.

I started out with Debian back in the late 90s. While studying computer science, it remained a highly useful tool for server use and general programming.

However, what Debian lacked was speedy updates. It is highly stable and secure, which are its primary benefits, but it accomplishes this by (among other things) a very careful (read: slow) update schedule. From potato (version 2.2) onwards, there was a release every two or three years. Once a release was made stable, a new "snapshot" of then-current software was made. If, say, a new version of Mozilla was made available soon after a snapshot, it would propagate into the next snapshot after two-three years, and then finally hit the stable release another two-three years after that. After a THOROUGH vetting of the software and its code.

This made me install things outside of the package management, which made upgrades sometimes wreck "everything". Luckily, I've always tended to keep backups.

Anyway, when I switched from hard drives to an SSD in my current computer, I decided to make the jump to Ubuntu. I haven't regretted it since - everything is (almost) up to date and even older versions get new software releases. I'm using Firefox 10.0.2 right now, which was released a couple of weeks ago, and which will not reach Debian stable for another two-three years, minimum.

I still use Debian for my server, though, but apart from software versions (and some consequences thereof) they're virtually identical from the command line point of view.

As for specific Ubuntu version, I would recommend either Kubuntu or Xubuntu for a Windows user wanting to "dip his toes". Either "feels more" like Windows than current (Unity) Ubuntu, Kubuntu is probably better for a newcomer, while Xubuntu might be better if you have slow hardware.

Why not Arch/Redhat/whatnot? Well, really, my primary reason at the time I made my definite choice (I fooled around a bit with RPM-based distros) was APT, which nowadays isn't as big a deal. However, as has been mentioned by others, the support is rather nice, even if it can be a bit difficult to find the "best" answer in a flood of well-meaning pseudo-solutions.

BSD? Not Linux, but still a valid option. However, if we consider "free desktop operating systems" a very minor subset of all desktop operating systems, then BSD-derivatives are a very minor subset among those. In other words, it's a minority within a minority, and support might be a bit harder to find or understand.

Hurd? Now we're talking...but not yet. Microkernels are a very, very interesting alternative to traditional ones, but it's not exactly stable, by anyone's definition. Feel free to test it, though. It's bound to be an interesting experience.

Anyway, there's my five cents.

TL; DR: I recommend either Kubuntu or Xubuntu, they look more like Windows than vanilla 'buntu and Xubuntu is considerably faster though perhaps not as user-friendly.

[moe_imouto]

Back on topic, much as I love Hikaru and Go, both.

I started out with Debian back in the late 90s. While studying computer science, it remained a highly useful tool for server use and general programming.

However, what Debian lacked was speedy updates. ...

TL; DR: I recommend either Kubuntu or Xubuntu, they look more like Windows than vanilla 'buntu and Xubuntu is considerably faster though perhaps not as user-friendly.

Debian doesn't lack speedy updates. It depends on the repository you choose. If you choose Debian stable, it is rather slow in updates. It only receives major/security updates. But if you choose Debian testing or Debian sid, you will have the most bleeding edge updates. And Debian stable is released every 2 years.

Ubuntu actually have somewhat similar release schedules. LTS(currently 10.04) only receives major/security updates, and is released every 2 years (the next LTS is 12.04). Non-LTS (eg. 10.10, 11.04) is just as new as Debian testing. But Ubuntu provides some non-free software and some is pre-installed, which makes it easier for new comers.

I recommend you use Ubuntu LTS because
              1) Debian-based distros have the most convenient software package management system.
              2) Most software out there are available in the repository.
              3) Even if some small projects do not make their way into the repository, they provide .DEB files.
              4) Debian-based have many manual pages.
Debian Stable is also an option but choose with care as you need to install some non-free firmwares at the beginning.

I do not recommend Debian testing, Debian sid, Mint Debian, Ubuntu non-LTS, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Arch. They are not stable and do crash (on some not-frequently-used packages). I especially dis-recommend  Fedora, OpenSUSE, Arch and any non-debian based distributions (they are equally good, but...), except that you know what you are doing.

=============Linux game recommendation=============
Kenta Cho's games are small but interesting. Do install 'Gunroar' and 'Tumiki Fighters' (they are in debian repository).