I did some searches to see if this topic was covered, i was able to answer some but not some others... here they are
im considerineg, fedora or ubuntu.

1) microsoft office 2003 on linux is it possible?
2) games like - world of warcraft :P is it possible on linux?
bear in mind im tired of the blue death screen on windows. I have little programming ability as of yet. I want something thats cheap and works better than windows.

3) what about virus protection- do people even write viruses for linux??

id prefer if you could email me the responses at medievalman86@gmail.com. Please have liniux in the subject line

That's a very selfish approach to this, some might even
say it's rather rude to sign-up to a forum and ask for
individual support via e-Mail.

Welcome anyway.


Cheers,
Tink

yea your right, just realized that. I dont know how active some forums i post on are so ive found that i might get a response if i leave an email.. but apparently there are real people on this one!!!!!

so feel free to disregard the email part.. Ill take any advice and help here also...

1) http://wine-review.blogspot.com/2007...inux-with.html

2) http://www.wowwiki.com/Linux/Wine

no email as I am transparent....so live and die with what I post....end of rant.

Your q....fedora or ubuntu...fedora tends to be bleeding edge.....ubuntu is guaranteed to be always free, I believe. I prefer Mandriva.

You may need to search the HCL to make sure linux (any distrubution) can handle your hardware. See the link on the right hand pane.

> I want something thats cheap and works better than windows.

This answer is not the least bit intended to be offensive, but...

If you want Windows, there is a monopoly supplier of that product. Linux is not cheap Windows. If your only goal is to run MS Office and Windows games, my advice is to stick with Windows. Windows programs on Linux is a hack, not a solution. Linux is an entirely different OS, and the cost of learning Linux is nontrivial.

This might be a good place to post a link to the Linux is not Windows article. Sniperhunter, I think you should read it before deciding to take the plunge. If you're looking for Linux to be a drop in Windows replacement, you'll most likely wind up disappointed. However, if you take the time to learn it and look into the great free software available for it, I think you'll find it very nice to use. I've not yet found a better general purpose OS (caveat: I don't game, which is one area where Linux is admittedly weak).

Viruses are written for Linux, so anti-virus programs also exist. No program (or OS) is safe from code exploitation. However you do not typically need to run anti-virus software on Linux. The system design is more robust than windows and it can be tweaked to enhance security.

The following is good measures to help reduce your vulnerability regardless of your OS:

1. Never connect your system directly to the internet. Use a Router
2. Use a Firewall
3. Never run as root / Admin
4. Disable any unnecessary services
5. Stay up-to-date with security patches
6. Use strong passwords
7. Review security logs

Why not try dual-booting? Resize your Windows partition to leave about 10 to 15 GB free space, download and burn a few distro .isos, and away you go. The best of both worlds.

Feel free to correct me but afaik linux anti-virus programs only exist to guard windows accessable shares from windows viruses and to rescue windows systems.

It's almost impossible to write a reproducing Linux virus as all linux systems differ too much. Also, a linux virus could only damage the system if it's specifically allowed to run as the root user.

AFAIK a linux virus can infect the local user account which is why newbies are not recommended to run distros that run as root.

but if you detect it, you just delete /home/yourname

using root powers adduser and create a new user, but it might be useful to know how you got it in the first place.

AFAIK I have never been infected from 7 yrs of being an angel, heh heh

Thanks, ill try the dual boot thing..

okay, another newb question.. I have 2 hardrieves..

one is a 120gig, IDE connect
the other is 250gig Sata connect

XP is on the 120..

should i attempt to move xp over to the 250, or put linux on the 250..
i dont suppose there is a way to actually copy xp over with out having to insert disk, format, and complete resinstall is there??

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with the office equivalent software on linux , does it compare with MS office? or is it like comparing MS word to MS notepad?

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sorry bout the asking for emal thingy... sometimes i can visit a forum and then other times the internet filter that the school has (SmartFilter DA bess edition) blocks it as "pornography"

last questions

1) Ive basically decided on fedora for now.
how do i determinie which of these i need:
i386 - Install DVD
x86_64 - Install DVD
ppc - Install DVD
2) what are some other major resources and "Lunux for newbs" type of sites- other than this one of course (and a good intro in to programming)

I'm sure an expert could. The dd command in Linux can do a perfect image copy of a drive to a larger drive. The Linux partitioning programs can fix the incorrectly partitioned result, then extend an NTFS filesystem to use the extra space.

When Windows finds itself booted on SATA instead of an IDE, I'm not sure what tweaks might be required to get everything happy again. I did similar things years ago (but not the SATA aspect) and managed to figure out the details. Getting Windows to accept a changed drive letter for its main partition (without reinstall) is hard but not impossible. Getting it to see some arbitrary partition as having the old drive letter (whatever letter it automatically gave whatever partition it was copied from) is usually easier, but that isn't trivial either.

However, if the main partition on the IDE is C: now and the SATA is new. I think you could do the copy, and change the BIOS boot sequence and have Windows automatically accept the partition on the SATA as C. So there may be no tweaks needed at all. If the SATA drive is new and you have a liveCD for Linux (to run DD) and you at least type the DD command carefully, there is no loss to try it and see.

It's easy for you to try it yourself and decide.

Personally, I use Excel for several things that stretch the limits of what Excel can do. I tried OOcalc and was amazed at how much functional compatibility it has with Excel, not enough for everything I do with Excel, but far more than I would have thought possible (since Excel itself is so complicated, kludgy and inconsistent). But OOcalc is also painfully slow. For much of what I do, it is just too slow to use. If you aren't pushing Excel that hard, maybe you won't notice. If something is instant in Excel and ten times slower in OOcalc, that still might not be noticeable time.

I almost never use Word or the other MS Office components. They seem to all be designed to optimize power users and leave occasional users confused. The OO versions seem to have the same power but are a bit more friendly to occasional use.

ahh, since im a college student, i might tend to fall into the power user category as far as word goes..

Anti-Virus software for Linux also protects against Linux based viruses. Although there is a lot less threats when using Linux nothing is safe against malicious code. I would agree that some Linux anti-virus software does look for MS based viruses to help prevent Linux from contributing to the spread.

Replicating a Virus on Linux has proven to be hard but not impossible. Running as root is never a good idea. If you run as a user you are better protected but even then a virus could take advantage of an exploit to access a daemon with elevated access.

2003 DekstopLinux Interview with CEO Keith Peer of Linux antivirus vendor Central Command
http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT3307459975.html

Good info regarding Linux Viruses from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...mputer_viruses