Hi I am thinking of going linux but i need help in choosing the correct one lol .Since I only have windows apps i.e. reason (music creation)and football manager07 (the only game i play realy),Ithink im gonna need a windows emulator or somthing to?.Also im gonna need it to look ok as im gonna try and get my wife to use it too.She only uses the web,e-mail and plays alot of java games and the real arcade games.also i need advice on firewall and antivirus but as i have read so far im not quite sure i need em.Also i want 64bit

my specs are
amd opteron 165
dfi ultra-d nf4
nvidia 6800
2x80gig raid0
2gig ram

thanks for your time and efforts,and sorry if i posted in the wrong forum.

Hi, vcas5. Welcome to the club.

A good place to start is by taking the test.

Can't really say about football manager, but there are several emulators / "compatibility layers", such as Wine. There is also a wide range of software available for Linux including Audacity (an audio editor) and Muse "a MIDI/audio sequencer with recording and editing capabilities", which may meet your needs.

Most distros come with a firewall, and Ubuntu ( which doesn't) makes it easy to download and install Firestarter. Anti-virus software is a contested issue, but the consensus seems to be that you don't actually need it in Linux as such, unless you want to ensure you don't pass on Virii to your Windows-using friends. If you wish to install it, though, there are several packages including a free version of AVG for Linux.

Email and web browsing are well catered for, and not that dissimilar to Windows apps. Many distributions will include Java, or make it easy to install (especially now that Sun has released an open-source version). There are also several 64-bit versions.

Have fun,
Rob

LOL the amount of "I don't want Vista" threads is increasing

If you want an easy start to Linux try Kubuntu or Ubuntu, depending on which Desktop Environment you like more, KDE or GNOME.

I don't think you will get reason to work under an emulator though but I haven't tried that myself (I don't emulate Windows, I don't use it at all.) Same goes for your football game.

So you'd probably want to have a dual boot system. This is not hard to set up with Kubuntu as well.

For java games they run under linux as well. Realarcade doesn't AFAIK.

I would't recommend 64bit right now as there are unsettled issues with that.

thank you robhog for the test link i never knew that existed i am currently downloading pclinux os and am gonna give it a try thanks again

Very good choice...
Some advice: Don't expect Linux to be like Windows. At the GUI level, many things are similar, but you will find real differences. Patience is the key.

With respect to other users: What I have found is that if you show them what buttons to push to get Web, e-mail, etc., then they are happy. My wife--the ultimate anti-geek--is now 100% Linux. I am the only one that ever fires up the computer in Windows mode.

PCLInuxOS is a good distro to start with.