Hi Stephen,<div><br></div><div>As an electronic musician, audio editing geek, and hardcore gamer by default it is difficult to run Linux as my main system.</div><div><br></div><div>I started out with <a href="http://tr.im/jUeM">SuSE 6.0</a> which, back in 1998 was a bit of a bitch to get going (text mode install, lack of immediate internet connection hence choosing SuSE's 6 disc install). After the computer running that died in 2003 there was a big gap in my Linux usage until openSuSE 10.0, and then more recently trying ubuntu (and still hating GNOME), trying Crunchbang Linux (falling in love with openbox) and over the next few days after recommendations from Andrew and Graeme I shall be giving Arch a try.</div>
<div><br></div><div>As a side note, I have had an avid interest in operating systems for a long time now. Unfortunately my allegiances are varied depending on what I want to do! Making music, my only preferable choice would of course be Mac OS X. Regardless of the open source tools out there for MIDI and audio sequencing, waveform editing etc... Mac OS X still has the tools I need and has out of the box support for many audio interfaces. I'm sure I'm going to get lynched for this, but as a discerning gamer my only choice would be Windows XP. Fact of the matter is that game developers target systems that are prominent. Yes, Wine exists but I'm not prepared to take the framerate hit. anything below 50fps and I'm an unhappy gamer!</div>
<div><br></div><div>Above I mentioned Crunchbang Linux. I love this distro as it combines the ease-of-use ubuntu-style package management, with a system that has been tailored for the lovely minimal openbox window manager. I do feel a little guilty, as I have yet to reinstall this to one of my machines.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Regarding other devices, I've been a long time Symbian user which harks back to my love of Psion handheld devices. More recently I've become ensnared in the Android revolution, having purchased the developer version of the G1. So at least I can still say I run Linux full time on something ;)</div>
<div><br></div><div>I've also tinkered around with some other operating systems purely from an inquisitive perspective...just to see how you can interact with them. Stuff like BeOS, NeXTSTEP, OPENSTEP, etc. Desperately wanted to get hold of Zeta, and I still really want to have a play around on OS/2 Warp v4.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Sorry, this kind of turned into a semi-rant about the history of my computing experience!</div><div><br></div><div>-- Andrew</div>