Windoze software and hardware on Linux
 

I am really getting sick of this Microsoft crap, and I am seriously thinking about switching to Linux, but I need a guarentee that i can make all of my hardware work with linux, and a lot of my windoze software work on it too. I am especially concered about my audio recording cards and the recording software. I need a distro, if that makes the difference, that is good for gaming. I also want to be able to be on my windows netwrk. Am I asking too much of Linux? I will go to any length necessary, as lng as it don't cost to much, to completely eliminate M$ OS from my system, I want Linux to be the only OS, therefore it must do everything. If I am asking too much, just tell me, and i will live the rest of my life, a sad loney M$er.

I think this is a big "NO" but, Does Linux have blue screens, illegal operations, or any other scary error message like windoze?

Thanks for the help!!

1. If you can't get a guarantee from Microsoft that all of your hardware will work flawlessly, why would you expect it from a GNU/Linux distro?
(pick a distro, then do a google search for "linux "hardware compatibility" Distro*name")

2. You want WINE to run your windows programs

3. Gaming is, in general, more difficult on Linux than MS

4. Linux is free, the only thing it will cost you is your time.

5. Linux doesn't have blue screens of death, but it does have error messages (If you would consider an error message telling you your printer is on fire, then yes, they are sometimes scarry)

I can't give you guarentee, because I don't know which software/hardware you use. If you decide to post the list of your hardware to the forum, you'll learn about most common pieces shortly (from people who have the same hardware as you, for example). Professional/not common hardware may be a problem and I think that the fastest method is to mail the company that produced it (if they provide Linux drivers).

Software: the same. Most don't have Linux versions, but you may ask. Plus there are Linux programs, but it's hard to say if they have the finctionality you need without knowing what you need :)

Every distro is equally good for gaming. The only thing is how easy is the right configuration of your video card, sound etc.

Windows Network - with Samba and LinNeighborhood it should be easy.

No blue screens. There's 'Kernel Panic', but only if something goes REALLY bad (it doesn't happen during normal use).
There are messages about illegal operations - it's a must when a program tries to, for example, to use a part of memory that it's not allowed to use. It's just depends on a program (if written well, won't produce such things). The messages are different - the program may just close or, more often, you'll see a dialog with an option to send a bug report.
Error messages? There are error messages (from time to time). But it's usually quite easy (alone or with help of others) find out what went wrong and ho to fix it. :)

With CrossOver, US$50, Office, Photoshop, and a few others run just fine. Wine is harder to use but plenty of people get it to work.

Hardware can be a problem. Forget cutting edge. Many vendors won't do linux drivers, so you have to wait till somebody hacks one together.

I'm not a gamer. Most of the gamers I know use debian. Got no idea why.

Understand one thing. Many of the decisions windows makes for you are your responsibility in linux. You not only need to learn how to make them but also, how to tell the machine.

This is sounding good so far! I read about my newest recording card, and it has a linux driver!! (It's a Delta 44 in case anybody was wondering) My older recording card doesn't but it don't work on windows 2000 anyway, so I haven't used it in a while. (Its an Audiowerk2) Is there any good recording software for linux? Can I use Mac drivers with linux?

I would think that mac drivers would only work with mac's. There's a tonne of audio software for linux, depending on what you want to do. You can rip, burn, all the regular stuff. Experiment, because some will work better for you than others. I use k3b for most things. For legal reasons you have to download encoders separately. While you're at it, check out ogg-vorbis.

Can you do audio editing and recording? That what my Delta 44 is made for. Professional Audio Card <--thats what the box says. :) I don't know much about linux, so thats why I asked if Mac drivers worked.

I have another question also, what does the i286, i386, i486....etc.. mean, that is next to the distro description? Is that what processor it is made for? Does that mean linux doesn't support AMD? Does that mean Red Hat 9 will work on a 386 processor? So, that old 486 that I got laying around, that should have been thrown away years ago, can handle linux? Very..........Interesting..........hmmm..........:confused: Is it possible to find linux for that old 286 that had "Norton Commander" on it? Norton Cammander was a whole lot more relieable than any version of windows I've ever used. I feel like I am entering a new world! The world of linux awaits!! It's late, so disregard my weirdness.:D

need a distro that supports NTFS. Is a OS loader required? Or does it automatically give you a boot menu, just like if you put 2 M$ OS's on?

NTFS support is tricky, but if you're getting rid of windows you can just create an ext3 partition, if its just because you want toget data off then reading goes fine from an ntfs partition.

good audio software is ardour, and rezound

have fun :-)

The latest kernels can read ntfs with ease but it's still a little ways from writing to it safely. Some people manage to do it but it's not recommended.

Most Linuxes won't work on a 286, you might be able to find a special version for it. BTW, there is a linux program alot like Norton Commander called Midnight Commander. I think Slackware can run on a 386 w/ ~4mb ram, but most distrobutions are optimized for newer processors (usually >Pentium i586). I think the newer amds (athlon/duron) will run anything with i686 or less on it fine, not sure about older amd processors.
Only NTFS read support is safe, if you do so much as change a filename on NTFS it can mess up things.
Most distrobutions install the LILO or GRUB bootloaders, these can chain-load other os's fine if need be.

Edit: Try Knoppix if you want to make sure you're hardware works. It runs entirely from a cd, so you don't need to install anything. It's great for trying out Linux. www.knoppix.net

So, I guess I better convert my partitions back to Fat32 huh? My CPU is Athlon XP 2100, so I guess I am okay there. I just need some time to find enough places to back up my data before I convert. Linux can support FAT32 fine, right? Or do I have to make some file system that only linux can read?

FAT32 is supported very well in Linux.

Is there any other file systems that I need to be aware of, that are unique only to linux?

ext2, the Linux Native Filesystem; ext3, the journaling version of ext2 (otherwise identical); reiserfs, another journaling filesystem; jfs, the IBM journaling filesystem (think it was originally for os/2); xfs, a super-fast journaling filesystem, I think it was also made by IBM.