I am slowly trying to migrate from Windows to Xubuntu.

I hope some applications similar to Word, Excel, Power Point are available under Xubuntu? Kindly suggest? Suppose an application similar to Word is available, can my friends still using Windows be able to open this document under windows? Kindly suggest how & similar for
Excel, Power-Point etc?

Another applications which I use to be in touch with my friends & family are gtalk & skype (in voice mode not in text chat mode). How can I install & use these under Xubuntu to converse with others who are still using these
under Windows?

Thanking you for your help & suggestions.

Best regards,RAKESH

For office stuff, there's OpenOffice.org. Skype has a Linux version and as for Google Talk (which I assume is what you're referring to by "gtalk"), I guess you could try running it with Wine.

Gaim/Pidgin is compatible with google talk, so you can use that if you wish.

Thanks for replies.

Where can I get Gaim/Pidgin & are these installabe just by apt-get install command under Xubuntu (or only under Ubuntu/Kubuntu)?

Xubuntu is basically Ubuntu with XFCE as the default, so you should be able to install any of the software in the Ubuntu repos using apt-get or synaptic.

Thanks Reddazz.

I checked Ubuntu Desktop & Xubuntu Desktop & found differences
in Desktop menus. For example Ubuntu Applications Menu has an
sub-menu called Internet which is not available under Xubuntu.
The articles which I read about installing Skype (and possibly it will be applicable to Gaim/Pidgin too) talk abouy Internet sub-menu for starting Skype. So I don't know where will Gaim/Pidgin be installed & how to start these under Xubuntu? Are these Graphical or command mode programs? Any information on this will be helpful.

Recently, I did apt-get install gtalk underXubuntu (possibly not a genuine Google Talk Program as we know under Windows --- seems some version of GNU talk program which works in command mode only & no graphic interface?) but I don't know how to use it? Any information will be useful.

Thanking you. Best regards, RAKESH

Pidgin is a graphical program (and is actually the same software as Gaim, but they had to change the name). If it's not in the menu somewhere after installation, you'll be able to run it with "pidgin" (or "gaim", depending on what Ubuntu's calling it) in the terminal.