Pointing to a replacement is really tough. I would recommend you do a short google search for each application just "[app name] replacement linux", and if you don't come up with anything, just start a thread for each individual app in the software forum.
For example Dreamweaver is the top of the line web authoring program. Even if you don't even need the WYSIWYG part - the features in the code view alone dwarf the features of the linux equivalents. But it depends on what you need. For my needs bluefish is even more suited because I don't need most of the features Dreamweaver offers (the code completion would be nice though).

If you write full scores - there is nothing that comes close to Finale, and I've given the open-source alternatives a real chance. But again, you might just find something that does the job for you. But without knowing what you want to accomplish it is really hard to make recommendations.
Fedora is also kind of a tough starting point.
I like Fedora, but the latest version is too cutting edge for me. I spend too much time ironing out bugs. Also most documentation will probably more technical than you care for. I think Ubuntu is a good failsafe suggestion that nobody will flame me for. (notice that I'm not even a ubuntu user :))

That was one of the first moments of clarity for me when I switched. The realization of all the needless garbage I had installed on my system; all of which was pirated. I did the math and found out I had about $13,000 worth of software sitting on my system that I was never going to use, including the operating system.
I think you'll enjoy using something like NVU or Kompozer, it has a great CSS editor built in and we use it here at work instead of DreamweaverMX (plus a couple hundred dollars in upgrades to 8 or CS3 for decent CSS support) for our humble little site. Also check out Quanta+, I whole heartedly recommend that proggy for everything web-design based.

Sorry, can't help it, my deal is about promoting Linux for creativity and design. I think it's severely overlooked by people who don't want to take their time to learn about the actual SOFTWARE that makes the Linux desktop so great. And yes, you can in fact have cmyk support for graphics and open Photoshop files in GIMP. Those are lame excuses if you really take the time to look into it and find there are native solutions available.

No freaking joke.

HEY! I've installed Ubuntu on my old PC, and am EVEN NOW writing this post from my heretofore useless old box. I'm trying it out before going full-on with my nifty new machine.

Queries: I think I'll be fine with Kontact, and most of the other stuff is going to work well (holy crap! It took me all of 50 minutes to install Ubuntu, all the apps I wanted, and all the updates! This distro ROCKS HARD). What I need to know is what music player can be used to mimic the functionality of iTunes + iPod? I'm not an Apple fan, but I DO like my iPod. I don't mind hacking it if I have to, but I'd rather not. Also, I would REALLY like to be able to import my playlists from iTunes, as I've got several hundred of them, all very specifically organized (I listen to a LOT of opera, each of which has a separate playlist, etc). Suggestions? I'm going to try them out on this machine before messing with my pretty, pretty megabox.

Regina

I don't have an ipod, but:

apt-cache search ipod

apt-cache show hipo

Although I don't use an ipod myself, I can say that you'll have no reason to ever hack it. (But you're welcome to try your hand at reverse-engineering the protocols between ipod and the Apple software.)

Most of the linux music managers can handle an ipod. If you just connect it to the machine in ubuntu, I think it should start up rhythmbox. - if not, it's in apps-media

I've had better experience with Amarok though. But even Banshee can do it, and Listen (one-man-project - my player of choice) has ipod handling announced for the next version.

When they give you trouble, try gtkpod. It's slightly more technical to set up, but it seems to have a higher success rate.
If you don't mind "hacking" it - you might want to take a look at rockbox and see if your model is compatible.
http://www.rockbox.org/

Ok, awesome on the iPod responses. That should work.

Here's another question: I have dual hard drives in my megabox (the one I'm biting my nails over going all the way Linux on). They're FAT32 formatted SATA drives. If I copy all my data (music, documents, etc, etc) over to my secondary HD and format my primary HD with Ubuntu, can I still access my data on my secondary HD? On my other older machine, Ubuntu recognized the other HD, no problem (both SATA drives in that one too). Has anyone had any problems doing this?

Ooo--also, I'm seeding some stuff in my bittorrent client (Vuze); does anyone think I'll have a problem using Transmission to find, check, and continue seeding those torrents?

Ok, I figured out the drives thing (it was NTFS formatted, so I had to install some stuff on my old machine, and I got it working fine).

Everybody mentally hold my hand; I'm backing up everything right now to my secondary drive (and all docs and work etc to an external USB HD).

Phew! Taking the plunge! Will report back when I've officially gone Linux!

Vuze was formally Azureus, which was cross-platform. I never liked it on any system, but it should be available for linux.
I think you should be able to continue it with transmission if you start the torrent and copy the downloaded files to Transmissions download folder, too.

Ah--I think one final question.

I'm ready to install Ubuntu to my main hard drive. Here's my problem: I have two 750GB SATA drives; one contains all my backed up data, the other is the master drive with the WinXP installation and data. I can't tell the difference between the two drives when I'm trying to install Ubuntu from the live disk. I'm not given the option (possibly because the drives are NTFS formatted) to utilize part of the space on a given drive (cuz then I could tell which drive was which by how much data was on a given drive); I'm only able to do a full install on a disk, formatting and rewriting it completely. How do I tell which one is which? They're sda and sdb (theoretically, sda should be the master drive that I want to install to, but I can't tell).

I used the fdisk command to get the drive identification numbers for each one, but in the partitioning portion of the installation, it doesn't include that identification number to tell the difference between the two, and since they're both identical manufactures (Western Digital 750GB SATA, etc), I'm afraid of simply assuming that sda is the correct drive to install Ubuntu to. What do I do?

Look at the drives contents on the ubuntu livecd.

I already did. The problem is that I can't tell which drive is which in the partition manager. When I look at the contents of the drives in the live cd, they're labeled "Hard Drive" and "Hard Drive_".

Try umount /dev/hda && umount /dev/hdb && mkdir /media/OS && mkdir /media/DATA && mount /dev/hda /media/OS && mount /dev/hdb /media/DATA

I'll presume you can decide which drive is which upon seeing the contents.

Note: This was done entirely from the Ubuntu Live CD. Posting, images, editing, everything.

Disclaimer: DO NOT REBOOT BEFORE INSTALLING. Devices *could* change names after a reboot. Make sure you know which drive you want before letting it overwrite it.

Screenshots of process
http://img129.imageshack.us/my.php?i...htdisk1vr3.jpg
http://img98.imageshack.us/my.php?im...htdisk2dg1.jpg

1. From the taskbar: Places -> Computer

2. Double-click one of the drives you wish to check. In this case, you'll likely have two that seem to be "Hard Drive". (I had some showing "Local Disk", neither was a system drive, but I used them for illustration)

If this is the drive you want to install Ubuntu to, continue to the next step, else hit Back and try another disk until you find the drive you want.

3. Once you've found the appropriate drive, right-click on any file or directory in the right-hand pane. Select properties. Note the line labeled "Location:". This is the mountpoint this drive, write it down. If you wrote it down, you can close the file browser window now.

4. From the taskbar: System -> Administration -> Partition editor

5. Check the "Mountpoint" column for the mountpoint you wrote down in step 3. If you don't see it, choose a different device from the drop-down box in the top-right. Change devices until you find the one that has your mountpoint on it.

6. When you've found the device with your mountpoint, write it down.

i.e. If your mountpoint is "/media/mymountpoint" and you see that on the line starting with "/dev/sdb6", you would write down "sdb"
If it was on the line with "/dev/hda1" you would write down "hda"

The three letters after "/dev/" is the current name of that drive. You can see it at the top of the window if you're on the correct screen and in the selection box in the top-right also. Once you've written it down, you can close the partition editor.

DO NOT REBOOT BEFORE STARTING THE INSTALL. Device names *could* change.

7. Begin the install from the desktop icon. When you reach the partitioning screen, you can now select the appropriate drive.

8. Post to LQ. ;x

Lenard


p.s. this issue is frequent enough, anyone who wishes to hack the instructions/images into a faq or elsewhere, be my guest

Thank you very much, DoomOr, but by the time I saw your post, I had already cracked the box, unplugged the backup harddrive, and installed Ubuntu as a clean full-disk partition on the master drive (I was being paranoid, but hey--once the install was complete, I re-cracked, plugged it back in, and now I have my nifty backup HD working like a champ and all my data is secure, so, good on me.)

I DID IT!! ;-) Windows is GONE 4EVA!! In celebration, I had bought a geek tee off of thinkgeek.com. I am now officially wearing a blue chick Tux t-shirt!!

Ok, onward with the migration issues. Both Banshee and Rhythmbox seem like they'll work with my iPod. Here's my problem: I have hundreds of playlists from iTunes. I have HUNDREDS of operas along with all my other music in a big folder that contains subfolders of artists. In those artist folders, especially in the opera composers--Donizetti, Mozart, etc--there are subfolders of the operas themselves. My opera playlists in iTunes had identical names to the folders themselves, i.e. "Opera-L'Elisir d'Amore (Donizetti) Callas Soprano 1960". Another playlist might be named "Concerto-Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat major (Tchaikovsky) Cliburn Pianist 1971" which would be also the name of a subfolder in the "Tchaikovsky, Piotr Ilyich" folder. Get the idea? In iTunes, each of the playlists pointed to the relevant folder containing the music. I have the entire big music folder containing the artists with its directory substructure unchanged, and the exported iTunes library (in whatever format it was exported in, probably XML).

Though I can import a single playlist at a time in banshee, I can't figure out how to import my iTunes library containing all my playlists. I'm fine on using whatever player that works; any ideas? Or scripts? Or suggestions?

Also, I have another problem. I'm trying to import my contacts, notes, and calendar into Kontact. I have the data from Thunderbird (I imported my contacts, notes, and calendar into Thunderbird before getting rid of Windows, since apparently there's no way to do so with an Outlook file). So I have a Thunderbird addressbook called "addressbook.db", and a set of notes called "note.msg". I imported the calendar fine, .ics was recognized as a file format for a calendar by Kontact, so that's done. There doesn't seem to be an import function for the notes at all, though. How do I do that? Most importantly, how do I get the Thunderbird addressbook.db into my Kontact?