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pHaestus · 12-09-2004, 12:41 PM

Here's my opinion as a long time Windows user who had to set up a Linux box to do some work-related coding/data analysis.

There is a free office application www.openoffice.org that is good enough for most casual users of spreadsheets and word processing. I tried to switch over to using this on Windows too, but it completely garbled a lot of my Word docs made in office 2003 so I quickly switched back. If this isn't good enough for you then there are programs like WINE (Windows emulator) that let you run common windows apps within Linux. There is some performance hit doing this but no huge deal.

Graphics packages: There's the Gimp for Linux (photoshop clone) and it isn't horrible by any stretch of the imagination but it isn't nearly as intuitive, user friendly, or full-featured as Photoshop. Ok for general/casual usage but not really for "pros" (sensing a trend here?)

Normal apps: Browsing, e-mail, chat, etc: Firefox is what I use in Windows so no IE is no big deal to me. There is no program like Outlook 2003 available if you need a complete package; you can cobble together a mix of calendar apps and Thunderbird e-mail client but it's not ready for prime time compared to Outlook 2003. It's a fine Outlook Express replacement though. You can use GAIM for all your chatting needs and it works quite well. There are plenty of "good enough" media players for Linux and all the codecs are available. I haven't come across a burning application I like nearly as well as Nero for Linux.

Gaming is something I am not too familiar with, but presumably having no DirectX support, very minimal driver support, and no concern from developers makes gaming a mixed bag. If it runs in OpenGL then you should be fine; if not then you may have to run a Windows Emulator to play. Others may be more familiar than I am with this.

I initially set up the work machine to dual boot Linux (Mandrake 9.1) and Windows 2000, but with all the RPC exploits and service packs and patches that come out daily I had some security issues. Students would dual boot it back to an unpatched Windows box every few weeks and then get hit with trojans and exploits and spyware from the network or the web. For this reason I think I would prefer a separate Linux box to a dual boot scenario. Plus you learn a lot faster this way.

Install is pretty much painless. Mandrake detected my NIC and network and went to the web to update all its packages prior to install and everything detected fine and "just worked". This was an older generic TBird 1.4 box running pretty standard hardware though.

As far as my overall feeling goes I think Linux is great for servers, ok for specialized work apps, and not worth the hassle for a desktop of a windows power user. For someone not familiar with Windows or modern computing (a grandma) it's probably just fine though. If I wanted to mess around with *nix seriously on the desktop, I'd buy an Apple and get all the advantages of BSD with a slick and easy to use interface.

12-09-2004, 12:41 PM	#2
pHaestus Big Player Making Big Money Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: irc.lostgeek.com #procooling.com Posts: 4,782	Here's my opinion as a long time Windows user who had to set up a Linux box to do some work-related coding/data analysis. There is a free office application www.openoffice.org that is good enough for most casual users of spreadsheets and word processing. I tried to switch over to using this on Windows too, but it completely garbled a lot of my Word docs made in office 2003 so I quickly switched back. If this isn't good enough for you then there are programs like WINE (Windows emulator) that let you run common windows apps within Linux. There is some performance hit doing this but no huge deal. Graphics packages: There's the Gimp for Linux (photoshop clone) and it isn't horrible by any stretch of the imagination but it isn't nearly as intuitive, user friendly, or full-featured as Photoshop. Ok for general/casual usage but not really for "pros" (sensing a trend here?) Normal apps: Browsing, e-mail, chat, etc: Firefox is what I use in Windows so no IE is no big deal to me. There is no program like Outlook 2003 available if you need a complete package; you can cobble together a mix of calendar apps and Thunderbird e-mail client but it's not ready for prime time compared to Outlook 2003. It's a fine Outlook Express replacement though. You can use GAIM for all your chatting needs and it works quite well. There are plenty of "good enough" media players for Linux and all the codecs are available. I haven't come across a burning application I like nearly as well as Nero for Linux. Gaming is something I am not too familiar with, but presumably having no DirectX support, very minimal driver support, and no concern from developers makes gaming a mixed bag. If it runs in OpenGL then you should be fine; if not then you may have to run a Windows Emulator to play. Others may be more familiar than I am with this. I initially set up the work machine to dual boot Linux (Mandrake 9.1) and Windows 2000, but with all the RPC exploits and service packs and patches that come out daily I had some security issues. Students would dual boot it back to an unpatched Windows box every few weeks and then get hit with trojans and exploits and spyware from the network or the web. For this reason I think I would prefer a separate Linux box to a dual boot scenario. Plus you learn a lot faster this way. Install is pretty much painless. Mandrake detected my NIC and network and went to the web to update all its packages prior to install and everything detected fine and "just worked". This was an older generic TBird 1.4 box running pretty standard hardware though. As far as my overall feeling goes I think Linux is great for servers, ok for specialized work apps, and not worth the hassle for a desktop of a windows power user. For someone not familiar with Windows or modern computing (a grandma) it's probably just fine though. If I wanted to mess around with *nix seriously on the desktop, I'd buy an Apple and get all the advantages of BSD with a slick and easy to use interface.