*Linux, bring it on baby!

[statetech]

I did not anticipate to begin porting myself to linux any time soon but recent discussions on various aspects of linux has gotten me. I've read through (scan the non-important ones) this recent thread and have found some useful info. Seems like Mandrake will be the path I'll be taking. Below are programs that I use in the Windows environment and I need to know if linux, specifically Mandrake has a substitute for it. I would really appreciate some help from you linux gurus

1) The Bat!. The best email client I've ever used, hands down. Very important features to me are threading since I subscribe to a mailing list, ability to manage multiple POP accounts, no frills.. just very functional. Sadly The Bat! isn't compatible w/ linux.

2) office suite. I'm not a power user but I use excel to manage my address book..hee hee. Word just to type essays. I sometimes use Frontpage to fool around w/html (I know, that statement is in itself an oximoron)

3) WinKey, which is a small program that allows u to use the keyboard to launch apps. Since I use a laptop w/out a mouse, its a gem.

4) kazaa lite for downloads, sharing... well, u know. It seems that a user utilizes "VMWare" to run kazaa when he needs to. Is VMWare an Windows emulator? I dl a few movies

5) trillian to centralize management of icq and msn and aim if possible. I'm not a heavy user of either but do "need" them since a few friends are on them.

6) dvd viewer program. I use winDVD right now.

7) burning program for external USB burner. Mainly to back up data but will eventually do convert mp3 for "regular" audio for cd players. Also need a mp3 player program. Love winamp btw.

8) winrar. I still use a old version Works for me. Need some kind of tool to compress and decompress various popular formats. Manly zip and rar. I've never ran into any other format.

9) screen capturer program. Needs to be able to determine how much and what part of the screen to be captured. I've been using for the longest time a extremely simple capture program call Screen Capture v1.4.7 from Nestegg Software.

10) player to play all those media files. avi, etc.

Hardware Considerations:
I have a Dell Inspiron 4100 with GForce2Go 32mb card. My main concern is with all the drivers. Especially modem and nic drivers. Well, they're all important Can't forget the battery meter. I checked Dell's site and they literally have nothing.

Right now I'm running XP and I must admit I really like it. But for professional and personal reasons, I'd like to move myself toward linux and possible to unix eventually.


PLEASE LET'S NOT HAVE A WINDOWS VS. LINUX HERE. This is not theme of this thread. As I noted, I really like XP, and now I want to "really like" linux and eventually unix as well. More love for all OSes

Thanks everyone who can contribute.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

um, ok. accidentally hit the post button or something?

and whats with the *? first *nix and *bsx, now *linux? linux is all the same!

 

[TheOmegaCode]

*BingBongWongFooey is 100% right...
wow, you were right... he did hit post on accident...

 

[TheOmegaCode]

<< 2) office suite. I'm not a power user but I use excel to manage my address book..hee hee. Word just to type essays. I sometimes use Frontpage to fool around w/html (I know, that statement is in itself an oximoron) >>



Download StarOffice, don't know much about FrontPage..



<< 4) kazaa lite for downloads, sharing... well, u know. It seems that a user utilizes "VMWare" to run kazaa when he needs to. Is VMWare an Windows emulator? >>



There was a kazaa for linux... but it doesn't seem to be availible from kazaa anymore...
VMware is a piece of software that will run linux ontop of windows, or visa-versa...



<< 5) trillian to centralize management of icq and msn and aim if possible. I'm not a heavy user of either but do "need" them since a few friends are on them. >>



No trillian, but gaim and icq...



<< 6) dvd viewer program. I use winDVD right now. >>



There's alot of software for viewing DVD's...



<< 7) burning program for external USB burner. Mainly to back up data but will eventually do convert mp3 for "regular" audio for cd players. Also need a mp3 player program. Love winamp btw. >>



There are burners, none of which I've really messed with...
XMMS for mp3's...



<< 8) winrar. I still use a old version Works for me. Need some kind of tool to compress and decompress various popular formats. Manly zip and rar. I've never ran into any other format. >>



Theres winrar for FBSD, so there probably is for linux...



<< 9) screen capturer program. Needs to be able to determine how much and what part of the screen to be captured. I've been using for the longest time a extremely simple capture program call Screen Capture v1.4.7 from Nestegg Software. >>



Wow, this is getting specific... I think gimp will capture screen shots, and then you can EDIT them...



<< 10) player to play all those media files. avi, etc. >>



XMPS...

Then again, I'm no guru. However, most of your questions can be answered at www.google.com/linux

 

[marat]

1.
Kmail - way to simple
Mozilla - like O. Express
Evolution - MS Outlook. Can have your calendar, sych with your palm and read email from Exchange
There are way more, but these come standard

2. StarOffice 6.0. Complete MS Office portatibility (well ~99% ). Work, Excell, PPT on linux.

3. khotkeys

4. Use MLDonkey. It is the same thing as Edonkey but works way better than Windows version. There is Audiogalaxy and a few napster clones

5. There is no TRILLIAN for Linux yet, but there is a bunch of AOL/ICQ/IRC/Yahoo clients

6. XINE . Let's you view DVD, VCD, DivX, AVI, MPG etc.

7. If you like winamp - you can have it You can also have XMMS - looks the same, works better and even let's you run Winamp plugins and use Winamp skins

8. There is rar for linux. Archiver will let you create/unpack zip/rar/lha/arj and other archives. There is unace too.

9. ksnapshot

10. Video - Xine. Images - there are 20 viewers - you choose.


Enjoy it.

 

[EHobaX]

I'll just go over the questions I have answers too.

1. You can try using WINE for The Bat!. Or just use the ones the other guys listed.

2. CrossOver Office is availble from Codeweavers. You can use MS-Office in Linux.

3. I don't use this kind of app.

4. Limewire is available for Linux.

5. Gaim. Has AIM, Yahoo!, ICQ, MSN, etc.

6. I haven't gotten to the DVD part, yet.

7. I dunno.

8. Built in CL stuff.

9. Ksnapshot

10. Lots.

 

[Nothinman]

1) The Bat! . The best email client I've ever used, hands down. Very important features to me are threading since I subscribe to a mailing list, ability to manage multiple POP accounts, no frills.. just very functional. Sadly The Bat! isn't compatible w/ linux.

I use Evolution, it's made to work like outlook and does have thread sorting and multiple accounts.

2) office suite. I'm not a power user but I use excel to manage my address book..hee hee. Word just to type essays. I sometimes use Frontpage to fool around w/html (I know, that statement is in itself an oximoron)

Gnumeric works like Excel, Abiword may do what you need in Word. I think there's a WYSIWYG HTML editor called BlueFish, otherwise you could use Mozilla's editor.

3) WinKey, which is a small program that allows u to use the keyboard to launch apps. Since I use a laptop w/out a mouse, its a gem.

Pretty much every WM will let you reassing keys to do things.

4) kazaa lite for downloads, sharing... well, u know. It seems that a user utilizes "VMWare" to run kazaa when he needs to. Is VMWare an Windows emulator? I dl a few movies

VMWare is a Virtual Machine for an alternate OS, I run Windows inside of VMWare on Linux. It requires a decent machine to run since you have 2 OSes running at once. And it's commercial so the cost might be too much for you.

6) dvd viewer program. I use winDVD right now.

I use xine for movies (it can use Windows codecs if you put the dlls in the right places) and it will do DVDs too.

7) burning program for external USB burner. Mainly to back up data but will eventually do convert mp3 for "regular" audio for cd players. Also need a mp3 player program. Love winamp btw.

All the front end burners (GCombust, XCDRoast, etc) all use the command line cdrecord for the real burning. You can use a GUI front end or burn them by hand.

8) winrar. I still use a old version Works for me. Need some kind of tool to compress and decompress various popular formats. Manly zip and rar. I've never ran into any other format.

There are rar and unrar comand line versions for Linux.

9) screen capturer program. Needs to be able to determine how much and what part of the screen to be captured. I've been using for the longest time a extremely simple capture program call Screen Capture v1.4.7 from Nestegg Software.

I always just grab the whole screen, but I think the Gimp can do what you need.

10) player to play all those media files. avi, etc.

xine.


For your hardware, the NIC will be fine, it's a 3c905c look-alike. The modem is the only thing, it's a winmodem.

 

[skriefal]

The modem appears to be a common PCTel controllerless modem (aka a "winmodem"). There is a Linux 'driver' available for PCTel chips, and this page specifically references using that driver with an Inspiron 4100. That page also offers other information that may be useful for running Linux on an I4100.

 

[NorthenLove]

1.) Evolution, Kmail, Sylpheed, Pine, etc.......

2.) Sun StarOffice 6.0, OpenOffice, Abi-word, KOffice, etc......

3.) All window managers and including both GUI's KDE and Gnome allow for that via editing of certian config files, etc....

4.) Gnutella, LimeWire for Linux, etc.... do a Google search and you will find what you need.

5.) Gabber, LICQ, GAIM, GNOME-ICU, EveryBody, Kit, etc...

6.) XINE, Ogle, Mplayer, etc....

7.) X-CD-ROAST, Eroaster, Gnome-Toaster, GComBust, etc....

8.) ZIp, GZIP, Compress all come by default on Linux and command line versions of Rar and Unrar. You can even get a CLI version to extract Mac Stuff-IT files but you can't create Stuff-IT files for legal reasons that Apple can only answer. Also KDE's Archiver comes in handy as well for all Linux compression formats when using a GUI.

9.) Ksnapshot, along with other tools for this you can even do it via CLI if you like do search on Google as well for more info.

10.) Mplayer or XINE for most M$ file types and Linux Real Player 8 for real-media file types and CrossOver's Plugin application so you can install windows QuickTime and ShockWave, etc..


P.S. If you have a need for new-readers in Linux then you can use Pan ( Agent like reader but much better IMHO ) or Knode ( simple and easy to use ) in any window manager or in Gnome and KDE. Or you could use slrn, tin, etc.... for the CLI. There are others but you can look them yourself up if you want.