I'm sure I'll get a torrant of abuse for this but here goes. I am a reasonably competant Win2K user and have never had the need to look at Linux. However, I have heard so many people rave about it, I feel I'd like to try it. I know bugger all about it and so this means I know have a few questions to get me started. 1) What advantages does Linux have over Win2K 2) Can it communicate with Win2k machines over a network ? 3) Which version is the best to use ? 4) Any recommendations of a good Linux book ? 5) I'll probably install it on my laptop and I would like to multi-boot it with WinME, Win2K Pro and Win2K Server. I've a 20GB drive. Should I just instal on four separate partitions or use Partition Magic. 6) Does it matter what order you install the OS's. 7) Are there any things that I can do in Win2K, that I cannot do in Linux ? 8) Any further advice on getting started. Thanks guys and do your best to convert a Win2K fan. Nathan.

1. Linux and Win2K are very similar. The Win2K security are class C, like Linux. But you can make security to files and users individually in Win2K, and other permissions like "take own" that Linux don't have. Linux has a very well security. You can install dictionaries of passwords to advise at the users if a password are crackable. One of the most important advantage of linux are it's FREE... Win2K are very stable (without the "page web windows" feature). More stable that NT40. 2. You can connect Linux with a emulator called "SAMBA". You can tell it that Linux are a PDC or BDC, also you can configure it like a "NT Server" or like a station more. 3. I recently install Mandrake 7.0 and it seems good. I had troubles with Mandrake 7.1 4. You can make a multiboot system with LILO, a program in the MBR that can choice the SO to start the machine. Mandrake installs it automatically. 5. Order to isntall SO: Win 9x, Win2K, y finally Linux. If you install first other than Linux it will overwrite the MBR loosing your Linux isntallation. 6. Win2K are a very well SO... (more than any other of Microfoot). It can shutdown y updown a service like http, that NT40 can't do. (Linux can do it). When you create a user it create the user in Exchange (mail server)automatically. Linux can't do it. This SO are very diferents in its ways to make things, because Linux are a POXIS compliant, and Win2K not. Linux can talk with others SO's like Mac, Unix, NT, Windows, OS/2 in networks or disks. In Win2K you have to pay for patches to have comunication with other SO's. Like you I think that Win2K are good, but I can pay it, and I don't have a good computer to run Win2K. I use only Linux and I can say "I don't need any Microsfoot product to use my computer, I don't pay for my software, and it's good for my wallet."

FYI : Samba is not an emulator. Samba is server software that serves the smb protocol on top of TCP/IP. It works great. My Linux server at home serves my /home smb when I boot to windows and NFS when I boot to Linux. I also use Samba to smbmount windows shares here at work. I run Linux as my desktop now and have for about a month. My NT machine was stable for about 9 months but then dll hell had me going down everyday after that so I rebuit it as Suse7.0 from linuxiso.org. I use wine for Notes so I really have no need for NT. 1. Price $0-$70 (I will buy a $30 distro now and then just to support it but for a business on a 100 seat network the savings can be incredible and in the area of $50,000) 2. Stability. We had two Sparc boxes running Linux at over 400 days until a power outage. My home server running Linux is running on 105 days or since the last power outage at home. 3. Configurabilty. Even if Windows2000 were the equal of Linux it could not be built specifically to my hardware. On older systems or PDA,s this is critcal and Windows2000 frankly cannot be used. For an office mail or DNS server Windows2000 on a PIII is silly when a 486 would run the whole shop on Linux. 4. Scales down better than Windows as I have stated(to PDAs and cell phones) and Linux will likey go 64 bit intel first and already does 64 bit Sparc, Alpha and PPC. smp seems about a draw but z900 mainframe emulation can put Linux on the very high end as a European Telco has already deployed. 5 OSS. You can change the code as well as maintain binary compatibilty with a smple recompile. 6. Open standards . No vendor lock in EVER 7. Faster . Linux bench marks have shown to it to be faster than Win2000 8. remote access is far easier and the GUI is built into the TCP/IP and a Linux desktop could be streamed accross the network. 9. Loadable modules . Linux does not need to be rebooted to load drivers. 10. Better multiuser capabilty that allows X-clients to launched anywhere to multiple locations with separate user environments. 11. Far superior scripting environment that allows light wieght programs to automate tasks. 12. Works perfectly with Unix datacenters 13. Better file systems such as ReiserFS, XFS and JFS 14. Better security. Linux knowledge easily translates into openBSD knowledge which makes Windows2000 laughable. Even so NT has 3 times the exploits as Linux by deployment percentage and again openBSD completly wipes out Windows 15. Support. You can find support in Linux news groups within hours. Commercial support can be had from Linuxcare to Redhat, to IBM. 16. Linux uses less disk space to basic operations and uses far less for swap. 17. There is a lot more to it. I used to be a DOS/Win95 user in 1998 but after getting burned too many times I thought there must be a better way. Windows2000 is not your OS(read the EULA) but Linux is a community OS. It is your OS.

Why would you run Win2K server on a laptop?

Windows can get a little boring too. Here is that ulgy CLI everyone talks about(sarcasm) http://gtk.themes.org http://kde.themes.org/ http://wm.themes.org/

James, what the hell do you mean Windows is ugly. I've taken a few quick snaps of My Win98, each to their own opinion but they are hardly ugly. Kinda like The themes you mentioned, only better intergratted, less memory hungry, and they look much nicer. geocities.com/robk1982 Robbo

Robbo, I guess I don't know "what the hell" I mean when I say Windows is ulgy since I never said it. I said Windows is boring and for me it is. You are not a skilled computer user and I understand that. To fully benefit from Linux you need computer skills and just plain logic and the ability to read. Linux is just getting around to the masses and will do so without insulting anyone's intellegence. If you give a baboon the Great Books collection it will not know the difference between Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Tacitus but I do. The piano takes years to learn so I suppose someone like myself should tell everyone to just get rid of it. You are a foolish insipid huckster selling nothing profitable. The anti-Linux list of yours was originally taken from the MS website itself(that I recognized immediatly) and it was out of date and error prone two years ago. Unix has as its underlying philosophy pheonetic language much like English. We have found English is complimented by imagery like pictures in a book but the pictures cannot replace the written language. How appopriate that McDonalds has the burgur button on the register and I consider Windows the MickyD OS. The GUI works with the CLI for those who know. But it is clear that you read infrequently or you would have understood I said boring.