Might be moving to Linux

SagaLore

Elite Member
Dec 18, 2001
24,036
21
81
I was very happy with Windows 2000, great replacement for NT. But now XP is like ME chewed up 2000 and spit it back out... with a Macintosh interface...

I've gotten use to XP, but only because on first install I tweak everything to pretend to be 2000. But the final straw is not the interface or the usability. It's the spyware. Both my work and home machines reached a point that I had to reformat them because the OS just turns to goo.

I'm just disgusted. Fed up. Windows is too expensive to degrade like that.

Okay rant over - which Linux distro should I try?

What is a good alternative to MS Office - and can it be compatible with the file formats?

What about Adobe - are there versions for Linux? I guess I'm out of luck with Frontpage. I know that VMWare will create an environment to run Windows - can I easily run the Windows products I'm accustomed to, through VMWare?

so frustrating...

edit:
Okay, to defend my XP'ertise... I am well versed in spyware defense and cleaning. It is one of my primary tasks. Perhaps my rant was a little strong not so much because of my own computers, but because I support 450+ other computers that users whom are spyware magnets. I'm cleaning something up every week, and there is a new variant that I can't figure out how to clean, it is frustrating me.

And yes in my rant yesterday, I'm blaming XP for spyware but it really is the Internet Explorer. I shouldn't have lumped them together. I would love to use an alternative to IE at work but too much relies on it at this time - we have discussed it as a possibility in the near future.

As far as my home computer, I did get spyware once but because I was testing out Kazaa, which won't run with out it. I effectively removed it when I was done, no problem. The reason my home computer died was because of an overheating video card and a fauly power supply. So it wasn't fair of me to lump XP into that either.

But my work computer... yea Spyware killed me. I keep up on critical patches for the company, I handle our web proxy, our antivirus, personal firewall, etc. But because of troubleshooting and product evaluations, I have a proxy exception for my machine, and sometimes my AV is disabled or not installed, and I look through suspicious sites in our proxy reports - and recently, apprently my IE still had an exploit and BOOM I was infected - no prompts or anything. And it was this same spyware that is showing up on other machines, that I'm having trouble finding a solution to (none of the mainstream spyware cleaners can detect it). A few weeks ago I had to reformat because my machine was becoming unusable.

So that's my story... my biggest gripe, is not that I personally have a problem with spyware, but that I have to go through all this effort just to keep it off my machine and everyone elses. For $250 a license, this OS shouldn't have this problem (again I'm lumping in IE, but IE is part of the OS now...)

Okay carry on with your Linux arguments.
 

eigen

Diamond Member
Nov 19, 2003
4,000
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move this to OS.
Then look at the sticky at the top of the page
Then do a search for linux distro
Read the billion returns
 

JDub02

Diamond Member
Sep 27, 2002
6,209
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reinstall windows and just use an antivirus and some anti-spyware software (adaware and spybot S&D are 2 good ones).
 

JDub02

Diamond Member
Sep 27, 2002
6,209
1
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Originally posted by: eigen
move this to OS.
Then look at the sticky at the top of the page
Then do a search for linux distro
Read the billion returns

or that. :)
 

pulse8

Lifer
May 3, 2000
20,860
1
81
I use XP every day on 2 different machines and I never have a problem with spyware.

Although, I have taken precautions by installing Firefox and Spyware Blaster.
 

eigen

Diamond Member
Nov 19, 2003
4,000
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But to answer your question

1. Choose Fedora or Gentoo. nothing wrong with others just these are easier for newbs
2.Open Office
3.Yes there are plenty of pdf viewers for linux about a 1000 come with fedora
4. Yes you can do that. Is that what linux is about no.
 

Klixxer

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2004
6,149
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0
Mandrace, Fedora core 2, SUSE, OpenOffice works with MS office documents and it's pretty easy to go from MS to OO.

Vmware will work as a separate computer, if you install W2K on it it will run all the programs W2K run, Wine runs a lot of programs if you are not willing to spend the money for Vmware.

If i were you i would go to the OS forum and read the stickied thread about different distros, after that, do a search for posts from Drag on the subject, there are plenty and as always with drag, they are very informative.

I have been running Linux for a long time now, these days i only run Linux and Free/OpenBSD and it does everything i want it to do.
 

csyberblue

Senior member
Aug 1, 2002
808
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Originally posted by: eigen
But to answer your question

1. Choose Fedora or Gentoo. nothing wrong with others just these are easier for newbs
2.Open Office
3.Yes there are plenty of pdf viewers for linux about a 1000 come with fedora
4. Yes you can do that. Is that what linux is about no.

is debian also very user friendly?

I've been wanting to switch over to linux as well, I've test out red hat, and it's complicated to install programs. I just want a distribution that can install stuff as easily or almost as easily as you can in windows.

as a sidenote, open office kicks butt.
 

ironcrotch

Diamond Member
May 11, 2004
7,749
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Suse is my favorite distro, you should look into that. But the spyware and virus' isn't Windows fault, it's someone else's. ;)
 

Klixxer

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2004
6,149
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0
Originally posted by: csyberblue
Originally posted by: eigen
But to answer your question

1. Choose Fedora or Gentoo. nothing wrong with others just these are easier for newbs
2.Open Office
3.Yes there are plenty of pdf viewers for linux about a 1000 come with fedora
4. Yes you can do that. Is that what linux is about no.

is debian also very user friendly?

I've been wanting to switch over to linux as well, I've test out red hat, and it's complicated to install programs. I just want a distribution that can install stuff as easily or almost as easily as you can in windows.

as a sidenote, open office kicks butt.

No, Debian, Slackware and distributions like them are not as user friendly, the text based install scares many people away from even installing it.

Installing programs is easy in most distros, you just use the package manager that comes with your distro.

In Arch i can type "pacman -S mplayer" to install mplayer in other distros it is just as easy, in fact, it is a lot easier than in windows where i have to find a place to download the program and then install it with it's installer.
 

edmicman

Golden Member
May 30, 2001
1,682
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don't click on all the spam links you get in your hotmail account. id-10-t errors aren't the fault of the OS
 

Klixxer

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2004
6,149
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Originally posted by: Nik
If you're going to try linux, I would suggest starting with either Mandrake or RedHat.

RedHat costs money these days, the free distro is called Fedora.
 

randomlinh

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
20,846
2
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linh.wordpress.com
good luck :p I personally woudl move to linux, but i think i'm too set in the windows environment. Hell, I love OS X, but I don't think I could use it as my main OS. And I've had 0 problems w/ spyware on my system. It comes up, but only some tracker cookies.
 

DnetMHZ

Diamond Member
Apr 10, 2001
9,826
1
81
If your tired of frustration, your not going to be too happy as a first time Linux user.
It takes quite a bit of getting used to.
 

Epoman

Platinum Member
Apr 15, 2003
2,984
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If you want a taste of linux without having to do an install try "KNOPPIX" LIVE BOOT CD.
It's great I love it. It will load all the right drivers for your stuff and it includes lots of programs.
I love it.