Should I give up on windows?
 

I'm sick of windows..really bloody sick. As soon as I get comfortable that everything is setup correctly after a rebuild, and I've been using it for a month or so, something goes wrong.

The latest thing is that everytime I open Windows Explorer to do some file management.....my machine simply hangs.

So talking to a friend on IRC, he suggested that I install Linux instead. I'm already familiar with Linux as I use it on my server, but I;m abit uncertain as to whether to give up on windows and fully convert to Linux.

I;ve got Redhat 9.0 on CD, and I'm very tempted to go ahead.

But should I really do it?

I've done alot of thinking and figured that the only applications I'd miss are Photoshop & Macromedia Dreamweaver.

can someone supply alternatives for these applications :

Kazza
ICQ
Macromedia Dreamweaver
Photoshop

Is there anyway I can use these applications as windows applications within Linux i.e. with a windows emulator?

Thanks
Shaun

it's possible to dual boot
that is, to have both installed and boot into whichever you need

linux comes with The Gimp which is close to photoshop,
there is no app that compares to dreamweaver, though linux ships with screem and quanta which are html editors, there is also NVU which is a tarted up version of Mozilla Composer

icq - no problem, all of the linux chat clients support the icq protocol, i regularly chat to windows users who have icq, i use gaim and sometimes kopete for this

kazaa - can't help you there
though there is a linux version of edonkey

might be worth getting a bootable "runs from the cd" version of linux to try it out
there are loads available
knoppix, mandrake move etc

I think you should make your machine dual boot at first. Use linux, test it. When you feel comfortable enough with linux for your desktop and you notice that you don't need windows anymore than you can wipe it out from your computer without pity. :)
That's what happened to me. When I noticed I'd been using Linux for more than a month without even thinking about rebooting to windows, I saw it was time to give my HD some more free space. :D

<EDIT>
Software:
DreamWeaver: NVU! http://www.nvu.com
Photoshop: Gimp 2.0
KaZaA: giFT + FastTrack Plugin + Apollon
ICQ: You have LICQ, SIM, KOPETE, GAIM... they're all very good clients! I particularly use Licq... very good, resembles ICQ a lot.

I think a dual boot would be the best idea, do some testing and if you're comfortable delete windows :P

What windows are you using btw? i never have weird problems with my xp home .

Windows for one suck. When I made a clean installation of my eXPeriment it was all working great. Now after two months, when I have installed all the programs I need (50 or so of them) it has begun to make problems. Outlook not working. It is working slower and slower and it hangs sometimes for no reason. I have a dual boot to linux and I use it 50:50 now and I also am considering switching to only Linux or to have a minimal win xp dual boot for Visual studio and Flash MX, which don't have alternatives in linux, and I need both for school work. Linux has been on my computer for a couple of months now, with no problems. after I have installed support for all my hardware. I recomend you a dual boot, but try to give linux the bigger half of your HD, so you will be able to work in Linux the way you can in XP and you will love it.

I think I'm gonna just go for the full linux rebuild, I've used linux before, and I don't really use dreamweaver that much to be honest.

I just cant be arsed messing about installing 2 operating systems.