Converting from Windows Xp to Linux- how hard?

Question

OK, this legal stuff from Microsoft is getting out of hand- they want everyone to convert to Windows Vista, and to help Microsoft will intentionally place bugs into the software on Xp service pack 3. (www.Fark.com on 01/31/2007) Windows Vista will only be allowed to be installed on a computer 2 times- that is, you first buy your computer and the second time when you have a hard disk crash. (See Vistas EULA if you don't believe me)

Because of this excessive, flat out garbage I'm thinking about transfering the whole computer system to "Open Source" Linux/Red Hat. My Quesiton is how hard will it be, and will I be able to find software thats Linux but similar to what Windows can do? I'll need to "Microsoft Works" and MS Word as my "core"- will I have to change Yahoos Messenger also? What all will I have to change?

Thank you- Larry The Orc

Answer 1

Its not that hard converting to Linux. You can even get linux distributions that look very similar to windows (eg Lindows).

Under Linux you can run Open Office, or Star Office both free, which althought isnt as good as Microsoft Office, does a good run for its money (plus Open Office and Star Office are free!). I use Gaim (even under windows) free util to to connect to yahoo/msn etc.

The problems you will face is a lot of stuff is command line, so getting used to type/script everything (although nowadays a lot of Linux has been gui-fied if such a word exists! :-) Plus getting used to new file structure etc. One of the downsides is you wont find a wizard to do a lot of stuff, you have to google, and go through man or appropos pages! (man/appropos are linux/unix help files)

Also most (popular/good) games only run on pc, so your out of luck on Linux. If you had the luxury I would dual boot so you can get a feel of Linux before you get completely into it.

Some good distro's are Mandrake, Ubuntu, Red Hat etc. The more hard core ones include debian etc which you really need to know how to navigate through Linux to run properly. BTW You can get most Linux distros free as long as you can download the large iso files and burn your own cd's.

My favourate used to be Mandrake, you can do a normal installation - boot from cd - and it (as will other distros such as Red Hat etc) give you the option of installing a boot loader such as lilo or grub. Using this you can boot into Linux or your existing windows.

The other area you might have a problem is with old or very new pheripherals i.e the drivers for them, although most of the popular stuff if covered nowadays.

The one great thing about Linux is you can completely tailor it from the ground up and recompile the whole kernal if you wanted too, but it requires a lot of experience and programming/scripting knowledge to do a lot of the stuff, and there are a lot of free/open source stuff available, but the inital learning curve can be quite steep at times depending on what your trying to do - epecially if you try and compare it to how you would do it in windows

Love or hate Microsoft, theres no doubt, they really have made computing really really easy, available to the masses; using Linux will make you realise this - dont get me wrong I love Linux - I even have it installed on my microsoft xbox (!), but I dual boot at home and run windows as primary.

One of the main thing holding me back (my personal experience) is the majority of games are not available on Linux, and the problems with doing simple networking tasks that are a doddle in windows.

Also if the system completely craps out, most of the time I end up simply reinstalling Linux, whereas Windows I actually diagnose and sort the problem out - but thats more due to my vaster experience with windows than with Linux - Im sure Linux gurus have no problem sorting out even major Linux problems.

One of the things I do love about Linux though is the minumum requirements for Linux are extremely small (especially when compared to Windows) you can run Linux comfortably even on really old hardware.

Also if you do become more proficient in scripting you can do some really powerful stuff, the downside is there are so many shells you can script in within Linux, that you cant always do the same thing in hte same way if you are forced to use another shell.

Again Windows comes in by having loads of free open source /freeware tools (third party ones not written by microsoft) that do same thing but as a gui (ironically a lot ported from the Linux/Unix side).

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

First of all, you can partition for linux, and there are versions of Linux that let you use Live CD's in order to test the operating system out, without even installing it, and you need a program called image burn, and then to download an ISO file of whatever version. Second, Linux needs no more than 10 GB, any distribution, even if just to try out, so a partition is nothing. There is even linux versions that run from pen drives. Ok, now to the next part. Most files won't work with Linux, movies, and music, and general filetypes will, but not documents, most of the time. I would go with any drive that can format to Exfat, or Fat32 is fine. Ntfs is Windows only. You drag, and drop. Linux has a process that invoves mounting the drives connected by USB, and then you can use it as an internal, because Linux has no registry. To move it all back, drag, and drop.

Answer 3

There are some fundamental differences between Windows and Linux, but there are a surprising number of applications which mirror their Windows counterparts very effectively.

For office type stuff, OpenOffice is a great free application suite comparable to MS Office or Works.

All sorts of instant messaging clients are out there, including Gaim, Jabber and various others.

One thing I've always thought is cool about Linux is that you can, if you want, roll your own complete system from the source code. Very nice because if you're so inclined you can examine all the code and see exactly what's going on, something you can't do with Windows since we don't have access to it other than in its compiled form. Plus, you can mold Linux to your system more closely than with Windows by tailoring it to your system. You can compile with optimizations enabled that are specific to certain CPUs and hardware.

Arguably Linux in general isn't quite as easy to set up as a desktop platform, but they've made a lot of progress, and you have a lot of choices among the Linux distributions and a wide range of applications. Free, to boot.

Answer 4

Not that hard if you are using Linux such SuSE, Ubuntu and Xandros.

I've tried them and it's very easy for tasks such word processing and spreadsheet with open office which is generally integrated. Photo editing can be done on Gimp. Just click the mouse on the icon for which softwares should run just like windows.

I see Novell Linux Desktop which is called SuSE is the alternative of Vista. Maybe you can try that and the price is not as high as Vista.

Answer 5

Step 1) Don't download service pack 3 (or any patches from Microsoft for at least a few weeks after they are released, otherwise they may very well break more things than they fix).

Step 2) Don't upgrade to Vista - Bill gates doesn't need any more of your money.

Step 3) Linux is pretty nifty, but I keep it dual-booted - I don't really consider it a replacement for windows.

Answer 6

It's not hard to switch to Linux. The real deal is that you need to study a lot to get familiar with Linux commands. Most of the user interaction with Linux involve "command lines". Even the basic troubleshooting of Linux require solid knowledge on your part. This knowledge becomes even more evident when you have to deal with networking and connectivity. While such functions are easy to do in Windows, they are complicated in Linux. Unlike Windows, troubleshooting with Linux is more than just clicking icons.

Answer 7

My oldest son is a linux fan and he switched me over a year or so ago and I love it, I never crash and have to reboot, and the security is better too. I wish I knew all the technicalities that you need to know, but once you get it all figured out you will never regret switching over. Of course I'm not into gaming, which my youngest son has a dual boot due to not being able to do some things in linux.

Answer 8

Make the switch. If you are not playing the big time games, make the switch.

download

http://fedora.redhat.com

Install it a few times if you can not get it right the first time. It can run on an old clunker (old computer) while you get detached from your need for windows.

Free yourself from the Microsoft grip baby you won't regret it.

RJ