Operating systems other than....windows.....
Are they as simple and easy to use as microsofts version?
Do they contain all the things I take for granted, ie word, powerpoint, excell etc, or do you have to search for programmes that work within a particular operating system?
Are some better than others?
Would love to hear opinions on which is best, and the whys and wherefores.....
Thanks so much Guys.
Yeah, the whole better/worse easier/harder question is a bit hard to answer. What you can guarantee is that Linux is *different*. What you can also be sure of is that you'll have to learn more about your computer and what it does.
I shy away from recommendations as Ubuntu can be a bit flaky and there are plenty of other options to try.
Have a look at these articles, they highlight a lot of things worth considering when making the switch.
-M
The Links have been great.. will keep reading up on the subject,
I just dont feel confident enough at this stage to make a switch.
Thanks all for your input.
You'll be sweet, just run a live CD and have a play around, you can't do anything permanent without knowing it and you can get a feel without having to dive in. Honestly, once you do you will never look back...
I agree with Whaka. Try out a LiveCD. It's a version of linux that runs off a CD. You burn linux onto the cd from windows, then reboot your computer. Your computer will then load from the cd into a linux desktop. This does not touch your setup in any way, and once you remove the CD and restart the computer everything will go back to normal.
My preferred flavour of linux is Fedora and you can download a Live disk image (.iso) from
http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora
If you need any help with burning the image just sing out here and someone'll give you some pointers.
LiveCDs come with a small selection of applications due to size limitations. We can offer suggestions to applications that are available for free download (or you can browse the list on Add/Remove Software in linux).
Ubuntu would be your best bet as an open-source alternative. They provide free CD's if your bandwidth is... limited. It has mostly good support and is the most 'Windows-user friendly' of most the linux distributions. Comes with openoffice as an alternative to Microsoft's Office suite so you should be right. You might want to search the Wiki for help with general linux setup. It does require a bit of commitment to get used to so try not to get too frustrated as you will lose any interest in using a non-Windows product.