Ok I am finally fed up enough with Microsoft to actually consider making my primary computer system a 100% Linux system... I build a really nice system about a year ago and got Windows 7 64 bit edition (all software is legal and legit) and my computer frequently freezes at random times... I'm pretty sure its not the ram or the motherboard and I run two hard drives with raid0 striping... I have used various Windows OS's on here and they all randomly freeze up during operation.. sometimes during heavy gaming and sometimes right when my system starts up... I dont think its a heat issue since I have a huge and efficient $75 heatsink/fan combo designed specifically for my cpu...

If I make this move, it will cost me a lot since I use a lot of Music and applications such as Ableton Live and Reason, and 3D software like Cinema 4D and zBrush.... Photoshop CS4... and games like Call of Duty MW2....

Will I still be able to use all my apps? I have heard of Wine but have never used it and I dont know how much you can do with Windows apps on Linux these days...

My system: i7 Quad Core/6GB ram/EVGA X58 mobo/GeForce9800GTX...

I guess what I am looking for here is assurance that I will be able to run most of my major applications on Linux with out losing much system efficiency.

I wish I could say otherwise - I love my Reason and it is the only reason why I still dual boot at home. I do like Ardour + rosegarden + zynaddsubfx though...

At work however I was comfortably able to switch to linux full-time. Then again I don't spend too much time trying to get stuff working with wine - only Office and some dev tools. In this environment its easy enough to rdesktop to a win server and work there. For some proprietary vpn clients I just use an XP virtual box on my linux host ...

the MS windows .exe programs ( "can" ) sort of run on linux
through a program called "wine" but not all

However there are many linux versions
for photos i use "The Gimp" ( and a few others)
i make maps
http://celestiamotherlode.net/catalo...?creator_id=10
for 3d i use Blender

games well that is what windows is for "playing games" ,Linux is for REAL work .

but search any forum for "games" and you will find them.

For a very new Linux user i would recommend starting with Ubuntu or Mint ( or both)
then in 6 months to a year something a bit more technical( if you want) arch,fedora LFS,Gentoo

Some folks around here might call it "heresy" but...

... I very cordially but very seriously suggest that you should not do this.

Microsoft Windows 64-bit is (of course) a very solid, professionally designed system that should not, under any circumstances whatever, "randomly freeze up." If it does, then you've got either a hardware problem or a software problem; most likely hardware. You need to find it and fix it, even if you need the assistance of a service shop.

Every application program is built to run in a certain environment, and even if you succeed in "getting it to run" in some other environment, I would quite frankly argue that "you are missing the point." Your goal is to run the apps, in order to obtain whatever benefit|pleasure|money you customarily derive from doing so. Therefore, you should also run "the operating-system environment that those apps expect." Period.

If those apps were Linux apps, or OS/X apps, then I would be arguing that you'd be silly to try to run them in Windows. But they're not: they're Windows apps. Furthermore, they run now. If something's broken, try to fix it. If you can't, then find|hire someone who can.

---

Meanwhile... Linux.

Y-E-S, I strongly encourage you to learn all that you can about Linux. And... I just-as-strongly encourage you to dig that "previous" laptop out of whatever closet it's now in and to use that machine to do it!

Don't "throw the baby (and your applications) out with the bathwater." And, don't "dual boot."

What you want ... is what I've got: a Linux machine, a Windows machine, and for that matter a couple of Macintosh (OS/X) machines, all very happily co-existing side by side. Each one running the apps that I purpose for them to run; each app running in its intended native environment.

Welcome to Linux! Yes, "do it!" Just do it wisely. Which (IMHO) means... "n-o-t in this way."

An operating system (like every other piece of computer software) is "a means to an end." (Which is, in your case, "to run certain apps.") It is not, never, "an end unto itself."

sundialsvcs: thanks a lot for your reply!

Yeah it makes sense that it most likely IS a hardware issue that Windows is having problems with. I have a lot of experience with computers but right now I dont really have a way to test my new hardware very extensively because its new and expensive and I only have "one of them"... lol but I guess I will try harder to pinpoint the problem. I'm sure it is hardware... im guessing its my ram or my mobo or a combination of something like that...

I also have plenty of experience with Linux, but just for networking... I've just never used Wine or tried using windows apps on it.

Thats a good point that Windows is mainly for gaming... lol thats evil of you.

Thanks for the input guys.

I'm trying to figure out why you would say this. Not everyone has the luxury of having server farms in their home. FWIW I think dual booting is a painless way to access multiple OS's AND their apps (albeit somewhat inconvenient - you can't run both at the same time)

maybe I can run vmware with Wine and then install vista on that and then run my windows apps that way =_+

jk

I dule boot ( well triple boot)
XP-sp3 , Arch , and CentOS 5.4

H&R Tax-cut will NOT run in wine ( built on MS visualStudio 2005 and has IE calls HARD CODED into it
Arch - my every day OS
CentOS 5.4 -- i have some things that will not run on arch .They were built for REHL5
( NASA Ames StereoPipeline , and cyclops)

Why don't you download something like "memtest86" (free) and test your RAM? A memtest program occasionally comes with a live Linux CD as well. At least you will know if your memory sticks are any good.

I agree 100% with sundialsvcs and have nothing to add to what he said.

I also agree about not dual-booting.

But, then, I run a Linux workstation, and I have VMWare Workstation 7 running in that workstation, and I routinely have one copy of Windows 2000 and one copy of Window 7 Pro loaded in VMWare. So I not only don't dual-boot, I actually have a complete LAN running inside one box.

My Windows 7 installation has full Aero effects and is smooth and fast. I *think* you'd be able to run some pretty demanding games in it with the right video card, though I'm not a gamer.

This way, when I need windows (and I do...) there it is. Multiple versions of it, even. When I don't need Windows, I have Linux.

There is nothing wrong with dual-boot.....except maybe waiting for the machine to reboot.

virtualization is also a good option.

For many people, Linux-only works

WINE (AKA CrossOver, if you want to pay for it) is also very good

My laptop is dual-boot XP and Arch Linux, has XP also running in VirtualBox, AND has MSOffice and few other things running using CrossOver. It has evolved into a bit a of mess, and I'll probably have to start over one of these days. Meanwhile, it spends 98% of its time just running Linux with native apps.

I use Linux exclusively.

If I ever come across a situation where I need Windows and there is no choice, I would install it in VirtualBox under Linux.

Our home machine is Linux only. One interesting paradox is that my wife (who know less about computers than our cats) has used nothing but Linux for many years now.

On the laptop, I have to have Windows installed to handle the occassional work issue. As an aside, they DO support Linux, but the official distro is RHEL, which I detest. This said, their Linux specialist often tells me things about Arch that I didn't know....

I'd like to know what you detest so much, I like the fact that I can open a ticket with RH and they'll get back to me. I'm sorry its not all about ham radios and model trains....

Perhaps "detest" is a bit strong. RHEL tends to be bogged down with things like SELinux, I find the package management slow and clumsy, and a few other items of personal taste.

I don't claim to understand all the details, but any RHEL install that I have had has been **significantly** slower than most other distros I have tried.