canardlover wrote:I have considered Linux but after consulting with my son who uses it he said: "Sorry dad, but that´s nothing for you...lol...". What would the real advantage for me be vs. Win 7...???
I dual boot Win7 and Xubuntu actually, but Xubuntu is my main system. I prefer Linux over Windows mainly because of the freedom. The easy stuff; surfing the net, email, personal office work etc is pretty much the same on both Windows and Linux. Windows is better at games, I keep Win7 beside Linux mainly for that reason. But I feel that I'm being held back by Windows. Tinkering and looking under the hood is not encouraged. With Linux you get the feeling that you can do anything with the hardware you have. The knowledge gained by tinkering with a Linux system is also quite timeless imo. A bit like math.
Not that you need to tinker with the system just because it's Linux. Install the latest version of Linux Mint or Xubuntu and you're good to go, no leet haxxor skillz required. If you have a problem but access to Internet there's great international support for all the big distributions.
The reason for you to use Linux would perhaps be to learn. On the other hand, if you have better things to do and if Windows serves you well, perhaps your time could be spent better.
canardlover wrote:The DVD-RW is a cheap one with ball bearings and not very quiet but I have searched the SPCR and other sites without finding an alternative which is documented to be really quiet. Please help me if you can...!!
There was a little talk on the forum a while back about Pioneer DVR-216. I got one and it's pretty quiet but I think it's discontinued now. Perhaps the recent Pioneers are as good, I don't know. But how often do you use the DVD-RW? They are usually silent when not in use.