Hey i was wondering if it was really worth changing my OS to lunix. Right now i am running XP, and i was wondering if it is worth doing this! How does Linux work, is it the same has XP or is it different....can i run all of my hardware components on linux, is it plug and play? And can i use all my other software that was for XP for linux? Can Y'all people give me ur advice and tell me what i should do...Do y'all think i should try it out? And also is LINUZ HARD to operate...isi t user friendly? thanks if u reply? Jon Ps:is linux stable? Can i network through linux or do i have to use program like novell

well Here is what I tell you ... I am at work using windows 2000\ I have just written you an enourmos message telling you Why linux is good... where you can find help and all And guess what just before I posted it... The browser restarted... lol So do try linux Make a dual boot so you will stil have your xp and when you run into problems just ask Good luck

in a nutshell, IMHO, if a person has trouble running a windows PC, they will have trouble running a linux PC. Linux has come a long way in the last few years but it has not reached 'toaster' status yet (plug it in and go). It's not any closer to being a 'toaster' that windows is. I have both a linux box and a windows box at both home and work. For the last 3 months or so I've been working mainly on the linux box and keep the windows boxes for 2 reasons; 1 - to run essential to me software that I can't get for linux, 2 - for testing web pages using IE since some 90% of the people that use the web use IE browsers (and despite my fondness for linux I must say, IMHO, that linux browsers suck). I downloaded Mandrake 9.0 and have installed it on 3 machines (and we've installed it on 4 or 5 others at work) with no major problems. If your hardware is halfway current you shouldn't have much problems. One of the machines that I've installed on is a Pentium 233mhz and it didn't have any problems. Linux is as different from XP as XP is from an Apple Macintosh. Linux is similar to unix, so if you do non-gui stuff you'll have a different set of commands to learn (as compared to DOS commands). Windows software basically doesn't run on Linux except with an emulator which is not the way to go. The upside is that there is a lot of software available for free. OpenOffice is a MS Office look alike. I use Ximian Evolution in place of MS Outlook. I'd love to have Quicken on Linux, but isn't available. There is a program called GnuCash but I haven't been able to try it yet. So, options are available. Networking is built in to linux and isn't any harder to setup than with Windows. If you expect to replace Windows with Linux and have it be "easier" I expect that you'll be disappointed. If you have been able to run a Windows machine reasonably well, then you'll probably be able to run a Linux machine well also. BEGIN RANT If you are one of those people who (your tone didn't sound this way) hates every version of windows that they've tried because it doesn't work, then I expect that you'll feel the same about every version of linux that you try. Neither windows nor Linux are perfect, but the major factor in the reliability of someone's computer (IMO) is the capability of the user to run/configure the computer. If you want something that you can plug in, push a button and never think about again, then buy a toaster (or a TV, it'll be more interesting, tho not by much), but not a computer. END RANT Hope this helps some.

Wow... lots of questions here but i'll do my best to answer a few for you. To start, you will have to decide for yourself if it is worth changing over. I think it is :) Linux is a completely different OS from XP though and you are going to have to dedicate some time to learning how to use it. If you choose a distro like Red Hat or Mandrake things are going to be fairly easy to set up and you are going to find a lot of support for it on the web. I think that's important when you're just starting out. You can experiment with other distros later on. Your hardware *should* all work under Linux. probably the biggest issue you may have is if you are using a dial-up modem. I won't go into detail here but you can post another message if you do use dial-up and I can address that question too. Setting up high speed internet is a snap. Check out Red Hat's site for their hardware compatibility: http://hardware.redhat.com/hcl/ (I use Red Hat 9 and yes, it is basically plug and play). As for using your XP software, the short answer is no. However you can almost definitely find comparable open source software (free to download, source code free for the editing and often less buggy). Check out http://sourceforge.net/ ALSO: you can use a program called WINE to run a lot of software written for Windows on Linux. I don't use it myself so I can't address questions here. You can look forward to less worry about computer viruses (i think 1 has been written for Linux) and joining the open source movement. I suggest doing a dual boot to start (ie XP/Linux). use Partition Magic. Oh yeah... Linux is stable, fast and networking is a snap with Samba! hope this helps i'm out of space! :)

Regarding dual-boots (and I say this without every having used/built one), it sounds to me like they are a pain to build and maintain, plus you have to reboot to move from one OS to another. I believe that if you do it correctly, you can set it up so some harddrive space can be accessed from both OSes. If you can afford it, I much prefer to have two single OS PCs rather than a dual boot. It's more expensive so it's not for every one. At home I have two PCs (one linux, one XP) and two monitors and run a program called 'synergy' that acts as a virtual keyboard-mouse switch, so I can move my mouse from my Linux system to my XP system just by moving the mouse to the appropriate edge of the screen. If you are new to linux and can't afford two PCs, then a dual boot is probably a better option than dropping windows and installing linux.

That depends on what you want to do. I have two boxs set up with one monitor/keyboard/mouse run through a kvm switch. I have RedHat 9.0 on one I started with RedHat 7.3 I have XP Pro on the other. I use Linux for web browsing. I think the browsers are great. I even use mozilla on my windoze PC. I also use linux for ripping MP3s and burning Cds(All of which I can do in windoze). In XP I mostly play games. Though I can play unreal 2003 on my linux box my GeForce 2 is no match for the radeon 8500 in my XP box. When I am not playing games I am mostly running updates to XP and Virus defs.Not to say you wont be running updates and a few security updates as well to linux. As far as photos I can do them in either OS. I decided to start using GNU/Linux after M$ locked me out of my own PC when I upgraded my video card. It was the best decicion I have ever made about computing. I suggest you buy a book with the distro included like one of the RedHat Bibles. I think if you can use windoz You can learn Linux. Linux is much more stable than any OS from M$ is period. You can configure everthing much more. You can configure the web browser to delete the cookies when you close it. Try that in IE. I say get an old used PC and go for it. As far as hardware you will need a hardware modem if you are on dailup winmodems wont work. There are linmodems but winmodems suck in windoz I use a hardware modem in windoze as well .I use Linux about 90% of the time

I vote you should "go for it." But start with a dual-boot. When (if) you find you no longer boot XP, then switch completely. Most modern hardware will work with Linux. There are exceptions though. Windows software can *sometimes* run in Linux using an emulator, as suggested above. But emulation is much too slow for commercial games. There are a couple of ways to check out Linux without even having to create a partition. The first is to download one or more of the CD-based Linux distributions. They run entirely from a CD! You can find a list at Distrowatch - Knoppix is one example. The seccond is to find a Linux version that actually installs within Windows. Mandrake had one such version known as "Lnx4Win." I recommend purchasing a retail boxed version of Linux to get started. You'll find the hard-copy documentation vital for first-time installation. Is Linux User Friendly? That depends on may things. First off your definition of "user friendly." Compared to Windows - no; compared to Oberon - yes. Second, it depends on the disto. Gentoo is for pros that want a completely customized system. Lycoris is for Windows-users who want to be up-and-running in the shortest time. Mainstream distros like RedHat and Mandrake are in-between. Best Luck, Bob