Try downloading the Ubuntu live CD, you can try booting it from the CD itself with speech enabled and check if the sound and any other critical devices work for you.

Small note, unless you have something very strange in the way of a connection hard drives don't require special support since they all use the same drivers for the interface. Also ram and processor are similarly not driver based.

Hi:

You can also try running a distro of Linux under VMWare Server. VMWare server is pretty accessible and if you have enough ram, Ubuntu or another distro of Linux will run fine uder it. VMWare server is free and you can get it at
http://vmware.com
and to get Ubuntu you can go to
http://ubuntu.com
You need to download the live CD.
Hope this helps.

How do you enable speech after  it is downloaded it and put on disk.

If I deside to install it on a VM, is there anything I should be aware of, like jfw not reading the menus of the VM software of choice? I guess if I ran it live from the cd, then i would be better off wouldn't I? I would like to do some exparementing sometime soon without messing up. Anyway I just took a listen to that dood setting up the OS and it hard to believe that a VI person could do that, but then again, I know you couldn't do that from windows.

When I say VM, I mean virtual machine, like running windows from the desktop of a mac so that you don't have to reboot to get in to windows. It's where the OS of choice thinks that it is on a computer to it self, but it is really being ran with another OS. If I choose to run windows on a mac, I would get a piece of software that would act like a PC, and install windows in to this piece of software.

Ah yeh, wouldn't dream of doing this on vista. I have an XP box for my main machine. Wish I gone with a mac for my laptop, seeing that they now have bootcamp, but I bought my laptop before leperd came out. I'll try running it from the CD when ever I can find a Wifi area for long enough time and enough band with to get Ubuntu. The thing is, I want to try as many operating systems before my machines where out wich should be around five to eight years from now and who knows what will be out by then. I'm also tired of alot of Microsoft's licening crap. I'm not saying that they shouldn't get paid for their work, but when I buy something, I own it, no ifs ands or buts. Anyway, what drivers come as default with ubuntu? One of the main reasons why I'm thinking about linix is because it is free, and I like the idea of taking the screw driver to it if I so choose. I also heard about how much cleener the interface is. If firefox is anything to judge by, then I might like it. I have already took the screwdriver to firefox once or twice already. I enabled the pipelining of webpages and disabled the prefetching thing. I'm shure I will have more questions when I try it. Oh yeh, I heard that you will have to go out and get the laim incoder for the media player before playing mp3s. Is this true, and where do you get it?

Hi:

In regards to the accessibility of VMWare Server, I find it quite accessible. The menus in the menu bar do read. You just have to access it by using Alt+F or Alt+E. The menu bar doesn't come up when you just hit alt. It's kind of strange. You can do most things with hot keys like control+N to launch a wizard that will help you create a new VM. Also, all the dialogues are completely accessible.

Runnig vista inside of a VM, lol, but I guess that's the only version of windows that you can buy. Seeing that I'm running the 32bit version of XP, I guess three gigs is the line. As for the mac on the lisens deal, they do appear cleaner. One of the reasons I am thinking about switching to linix is do to the fact that I want to deal with licenses as little as possable. I guess I'm the type that if I pay for something, I better own it and beable to hold it in some form or fashen. I wonder when I will be in range of a broadband connection, lol. Does linix come as a 64 bit OS? I'm asking do to the fact that I have a 64 bit processer in my computer. I know I can run a 32 os on my processer because that is what I'm doing. I guess i want an insain amount of memory if I switch.

Small point again, even Linux (not Linix) has a license. It's just a lot more open, and as I said no software can ever be owned by you in such a de facto way unless you made it or you bought the rights which would be absurdly expensive.

Yes Linux comes in a 64 bit version, it beat Windows to this. The reason you can still run 32 bit stuff is that your processor uses the "extended" instruction set, which can run either 32 bit stuff and has the ability to handle 64 bit stuff tacked on the end. You don't get any advantage though unless you're using an actual 64 bit application too. There are also dedicated 64 bit instruction sets, but these are only really used by servers in special environments... or are if they're still around.

I also believe XP can handle up to 4gb, but I did hear performance actually suffers above 2gb due to a glitch. Not sure how accurate this is though.