I'm thinking of switching to Linux

[porsch1909]

I'm on vista home premium just now. I like vista. But I've heard and seen (Richard_cocks;) ) lots of nice things about ubuntu.

I am just looking for any adivce about this. It's new terratory for me. I've always used windows.

Will I still be able to use software such as AOL, MS Office and install all my hardware easily?

Will I easily be able to network through my router to share an internet connection?

Also any links about information on linux and this new release of ubuntu would be much appreciated. I think it is called fiesty fawn.

Thanks in advance guys!

[richard_cocks]

Internet sharing is way easier on linux than windows. If you're sharing your net with a router it'll make little difference which OS you use.

There are seveal nice (in many cases nicer) equivalents to windows software.

for AOL, there's GAIM, you can try it on windows first if you want to get a feel for it, it also handles msn and other IM services.

There's some other AOL clients too, the thing about linux is that there's far more versatility and choice than windows, instead of there being "the email software" there's about 20 different ones and you can chose your favourite.

For web browsing and email firefox and thunderbird make a pretty formidable team.

For office there's openoffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org) which (since v2) is very good indeed, if you set it to default to ms office file formats it's often hard to tell the difference. Again, you can try this on windows first to see if you can handle it.

If you really can't, there's WINE. Wine is a windows API layer for linux, basically lets you run windows applications on linux. Not everything works but a lot of stuff works ok. If you're most interested in office then there's crossover office which is a fork of WINE customised to run office as well as possible.

Hardware detection and installation in ubuntu is probably the best of all the linux distributions (a strong reason to chose ubuntu right now!). Some features can be fiddly such as wireless/wifi cards, although mine worked out the box.

Ubuntu can also be run as a live CD, which although can be slow (as any live CD is) you can poke around and see what it has to offer. There's far more free software out there on linux than there is free software for windows, there is a huge amount out there.

[porsch1909]

Great post thanks.

So you got links to all those fancy graphics to download richard? Compiz you called it?

How well does adobe photoshop work on ubuntu. I know I can use the WINE(you just told me). But will it work without that?

Would you recommend I do a dual boot with vista and linux or just linux?

Thanks again

[richard_cocks]

You'd need wine to run photoshop, there's no linux port of it.

Depending how much you use it, you might get on with Gimp. (People seem to either love it or hate it) Gimp is a free open source image edittor that aims to be as powerful as photoshop. http://www.gimp.org/

Dual booting is easy to set up. (Linux uses a great bootloader, unlike windows, that makes it easy to dual boot) I dual boot linux and windows 2000 at home with no problems.

If something runs through wine without problems it won't be slower, it's not actually emulation, it's ported libraries and system calls so typically stuff runs the same speed.

As for compiz, I'm fairly sure it was installed by default for me, but otherwise there's programs that add/remove software from a repository (actually, being linux there's many programs; the default add/remove program from ubuntu, "synaptic" a slightly more powerful version, and "aptitude" a third frontend, and then apt-get a command line tool to do the same)

There's just a section under preferences called "desktop effects" and it's quick and easy to enable them.

The only trouble is if your video card isn't supported that well and you might need to get better drivers. There's loads of info on the ubuntu wiki (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/) to help with that though.

If you have a NVidia card then you should have it working perfectly at install-time since there's good linux support from nvidia.

[porsch1909]

Thanks for the help, so far ;)

I can't wait to go home and try and download it now :D

I want to dual boot so buying vista isn't a complete waste of money :D

[porsch1909]

Okay....I fell at the first hurdle.

I can't work out how to install the darn thing :confused: :(

[Midknyte]

Ubuntu (and others) have a LIVE CD. You can just boot from the disc to try it out first.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

https://help.ubuntu.com/6.10/ubuntu/desktopguide/C/index.html

[porsch1909]

I've downloaded it. I just can't work out how to install it. There are lots of Icons and folders. I just don't know where to go from here :confused:

[Midknyte]

so you downloaded the .iso and burned it to a cd?

did you read the installation guide?
https://help.ubuntu.com/

[richard_cocks]

There's an icon on the desktop called Install. Double click it :)

(At least there was in the previous version of ubuntu!)

[porsch1909]

:confused:

I downloaded it from the ubuntu website. I got a rar file. I extracted it and got this

http://uploader.ws/upload/200704/Untitled_7.jpg

in the folder. I can't find any ISO file to burn it to a bootable CD :confused:

[Midknyte]

rar file? are you sure that's the right download? something is fishy there. download the iso.

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

[richard_cocks]

You could try that "burn" icon but I don't know if that can burn bootable discs, which you would need to do.

[porsch1909]

The 'rar archive' is a darn ISO.

Problem solved. Silly me.

Thanks for the help! Will install it tomorrow now though!

[richard_cocks]

Whichever guy decided it was a good idea to hide file extensions should be named and punished for crimes against humanity :\

[bonz_dragon]

I downloaded and ran Fiesty from the CD yesterday and I'm liken what I've seen. Am going to actually load it today, I hope. If time and the wife permit.

Working this 2nd shift stinks. Can never remember if it's today, yesterday or tomorrow yet.

Best of luck and let us know what you think of it.

[porsch1909]

I'm running it live just now and it seems nice.

I will go for the full install wiht a dual boot with home premium.

As soon as I work out how :)