Hi, I was wondering if it is possible for me to fully switch from Windows to Linux. I used to have RedHat installed in addition to XP Pro, but now I'm thinking about juat switching. The thing is I need to be able to run Win applications. I saw some software that will run Photoshop, very important to me. But I also need to be able to play fairly high end games, use Photoshop, Reason, BitTorrent, DC. What distribution would you recommend and what additional software would help me in achieving what I want? P.S. I also like messing around with the looks of my OS, so adanced customization options would be a plus. Thank you.

I'd go for Mandrake. I use Mandrake, Fedora, and Suse, and my opinion is that Mandarake has the best balance of usability /configurability. The distro also includes more software for audio/video, and out-of-the-box MP3 support. For your windows stuff, you can use crossover office (codeweavers.com). I use it to run Photoshop, MS Office, etc. It's a pretty slick little program based on Wine. I've used Wine as well (it's free), but the fact is that Crossover is better and worth the 50 bucks. Forget games though. Some work with Crossover...most don't. There's a project on Sourceforge called WineX that promises to allow windows games to be played on Linux, but they haven't released anything yet. I'd be interested in knowing if any of you other folks know more about gaming on Linux.

I'd try Knoppix. It can be run from the CD (no installation) and has the best hardware detection of all the distros (widespread compatibility).

Ubuntu loves you and will make your poop smell nice. It's also a great desktop distro :)

Cedega (formally known as winex) is available and can run a number of games. If they are opengl then chances are that they will run very well (quake3 etc) but directx only ones tend to run a little slower. I have successfully installed and run many windoze games such as GTA3, RTCW, Black & White etc....and these only with an older version of winex (I haven't tried cedega yet, don't really play many games any more). Lokigames (http://www.lokigames.com/) provide ports of certain games too, eg SOF, UT etc. There are more and more becoming available too....check out some linux gaming sites: eg http://www.linuxgames.com/ and http://www.linux-gamers.net/ I have made the swap from windoze to GNU/Linux and have found that I no longer need to run windoze apps with something like wine (which is still in alpha/beta and a bit buggy) and have rather found native linux equivalents to my favourite apps. I use gimp instead of photoshop, open office instead of M$ office etc

I gave Ubuntu a try this weekend and my poop now smells like honeysuckle. It's a pretty nice distro, and I usually don't care for Debian-based distros.

MEPIS is my current favorite, it's hardware detection seems to be as good as knoppix.