Linux and Open-Source
So if I try Linux, won’t I have to relearn everything?
No longer! Not only are many software packages available for Linux that mimic common Windows applications, and lots of apps have both Linux AND Windows versions! Firefox is a great example. This doesn’t look too bad, does it?
KDE actually uses anti-aliased fonts, which look smoother and crisper to the eye. Try comparing the picture with what you see on Windows. The text of my blog is softer and more appealing.
Thunderbird works great too:
But those are both applications that have versions made for Linux. Another application I rely on heavily is Macromedia DreamWeaver to develop web pages. There is no version of DreamWeaver for Linux… what to do? The answer is to use one of the dozens of applications created to fill the gap on Linux that DreamWeaver holds in Linux. I use Quanta+, a powerful development environment that works just as well as DreamWeaver.
OpenOffice is so close to identical to Microsoft Office that it’s scary. The icons even appear in the same places! If you’re an Office user, you’ll have no problem switching to OpenOffice (which can read and write MSOffice documents, and even runs on Windows).
K3B sports a nice-looking and easy interface. Look familiar? Yeah, like Nero!
And Kopete replaces Trillian quite handily, though not as well. Yes, all ye who are in awe, this is how I know when you’ve opened my window and are about to start talking.
But Linux even has some applications that are so-called “killer apps”, with no real comparison on Windows. I would use Linux just so I could have some of these programs, like Kompare, a CVS diff’er:
So unless you’re using specialized software, such as that for realty or medicine, there’s no reason you can’t find programs to do your work on Linux just as easily as on Windows.
Very nice review of Linux for the Windows/Mac users. I have been seriously considering switching over to Linux (SuSE). I’ve been reading up on it, and think it would be brilliant to change. I do have a couple worries if I switch over.
I have a network connection with another computer in my household. This computer runs on win2000. Is it still possible to keep the connection to that computer after making the change? I constantly run programs from the other computer, and it would put quite a dent in what I can and can’t do if I didn’t have it.
My other worry is how many extra add-ons needd to be installed after the basic kernel. I’ve read that after installing your version of Linux, you will probably need to download LOTS of other things to get everything you want. Would this be a factor in changing?
I’ve thought that I could partition part of my hard drive from Linux. How much should/will this take up if I was to partition my hd?
Ugh, sorry for all the questions, but my final one; I currently use adobe photoshop, and from some people I hear it works with Linux, some say it doesn’t. Does the use of PS become apparent between kernels? Does it only work on certain kernels?
Linux is fantastic at networking. Zero problem.
You’re not going to want to be recompiling your kernel. At setup, you pick what you need (NVidia driver, sound card, etc.) and you’re good to go.
Linux won’t need more than 10GB for a HUGE installation. I have a fairly massive one running on a 20GB partition of which only 6GB is used.
Photoshop might work with WinE… but doubtful. Try the Gimp?
you see, now i want to try it… but am already confused… do you have to pay for SuSe? or am i being dumb? (lets be honest, most likely te latter :))
Nope Rory, it’s a free download.
ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.suse.com/i386/9.2/
Grab the boot.iso from there, burn it. Boot from it and it will ask you for a server IP and directory. So make sure you ping http://ftp.mirror.ac.uk before booting into the install, then put in that IP and the /sites/ftp.suse.com/i386/9.2/ directory and it should detect that you want to use SuSE 9.2 and install it.
If your Internet is dodgy, you’re in for a long wait. I was downloading at almost 1MB / second and it took several hours.
Nice work Seth! I’ve been considering a dual boot for a while, but have yet to take the plunge. I need to read up more on dual booting and linux partitions. Your setup looks really nice, how about some info on your themes and what not?
Desktop (erebus): SuSE 9.2 running KDE 3.4 Beta 1. Theme is Plastik, widgets are Liquid Weather and Fantastik from SuperKaramba. Wallpaper is a render in Maya with some Photoshopping (done by Nate) It’s almost completely the vanilla installation as I don’t know how to tweak things very well yet
Laptop (eos): Ubuntu Linux running Gnome Desktop 2.8, more info coming as I get it tweaked.
I’m going to blog about my computers and their setups sometime when I get a chance
Suse rocks and err Im with Seth, I’ve pretty much got the default setup. I switched from Yoper oo ’bout 4 months ago.
Fascinating work, Seth. I’m sure it’ll hep people realize something about Linux and other Open Source programs