Hello. I am a reasonably experienced computer user, being employed at various times as a programmer, web designer, and graphics artist, on various platforms and operating systems. But for the purposes of this thread, please consider me a complete newbie. What I know of Linux is patchy, at best.

I have used Linux once before, an earlier version of Red Hat, with the intent of learning how to set up my own web server. I successfully set up Apache, but hit a wall with SMTP, so I gave up, and haven't had much exposure to Linux since. That was five years ago or so, and much has been forgotten.

Right now my home computer is using Windows XP, service pack 2. My computer is a couple of years old, and was fine up until recently, but it became noticibly sluggish with the installation of SP 2. In particular, DVD playback has become very un-smooth, I believe because of more overhead from Windows.

My impression is that an installation of Linux would be less taxing on my computer and breathe new life into it. I really don't want to buy a new computer, but I'm a little frustrated with the slowdown. Also, since I already use Firefox and Thunderbird for web and email, and Open Office instead of MS Office, I'm already part way there. The only things holding me on to Windows are some Adobe products.

But my understanding is that I can get away with using Photoshop and Illustrator under WINE.

I'm all geared up to make this big switch, and I'm hoping the people here who I assume are advocates for Linux, and Fedora, will take a look at what I assume to be the process of making this switch and make sure I don't lose anything in the process. Also, if any of my assumptions about performance, as stated above, are misguided, please let me know.

1. First, I'm going to download the Fedora installer DVD and burn it.

2. Then, I'm going to burn all my documents and MP3s and everything I want to keep to DVD ROM.

2. I am then going wipe out Windows with a hard disk format. I've considered maybe going for a dual boot and/or partitioning my one 30 gig HD, but actually I'd rather just be rid of Windows, and start fresh.

3. I'm going to boot from the DVD and install Fedora.

4. Now I'm kind of into unknown territory. I'm going to hope that it recognizes the drivers for my computer and it's peripherals, like my Wacom tablet and my external DVD burner.

5. After install, then I'm going to install Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice. Do I need to isntall a firewall of some kind? For Windows I've traditionally used ZoneAlarm.

6. Will Fedora have no trouble reading my Windows formatted DVD ROMs with all my backed up data? I'm assuming no, but it seems like the kind of thing that could have a "gotcha" in it.

7. Then I'm hoping I install Wine and my Adobe products will fly. If I make it to this stage, I'll be a happy camper.

Is there anything flawed with my approach?

Dave

List your hardware in detail and in total that you want to use with Linux. I applaud you for your effort btw. I'm suprised you haven't used it before since your development job would have access to a whole new world of tools.

a short tip: you don't need to format the drive before installing FC3; the installer will happily just delete the partition table entry, make a new one, and format the new partition.

Of course, if you want your hard disk data to be *really* gone, you could; but then a format wouldn't be enough--you'd need shred (http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/CGI/man-cgi?shred+1) or similar. I believe that PGP for w32 will do something like shred, but I don't know if it'll do it for the whole disk.

If you have a printer, see http://www.linuxprinting.org/

and yes, wine will (probably) work for you. I haven't tried it with your products; I *have* tried it (successfully) with a midi editor and (unsuccessfully--DirectX problem?) with Warcraft 3. Also, for image editing, there's The Gimp for GNU/Linux, which is free software.

Fear not: once you have a backup of all your data, plunge in. We (the LQ'ers) will get you out of the deep waters ... and you still have windows (reinstall) as a safety net.

Wishing you the best of luck with GNU/Linux,

Jonas Kölker

Hi, I am kindof considering doing a big switch eventually but I decided to play it safe and install FC3 along with Windows, so far it works perfectly. I am touching up on my skills for Server Admin as well, plus getting knowledge of Windows software, thus keeping my life intact for job searching. I applaud you for your effort...

Thank you for the advice.

I am a little concerned about my peripherals.

The thing is that I'm in Japan, and most of my peripherals are Japanese brands. So, for example, my printer is a Canon Pixus ip3100.

My scanner is also a Canon... I don't have it in front of me so I can't remember the model.

Same with my DVD writer...

So I'm concerned that support for my devices are very likely to not exist. Does that mean I have to either chuck my peripherals (not desirable, of course) or keep switching back to Windows in order to use them?

Dave

Umm...linux/unix bypasses Harware Abstraction Layer so it will talk directly to your peripherals. In the case of it having trouble ie my hp deskjet 722c. Had to run Kudzu and hit autodetect...took some time doing it but it works perfect.

But yea you might want to play it safe and have Windows as a backup OS.

Being the Linux newbie that I am, I'm a little unclear what you mean when you say that Linux "bypasses the hardware abstraction layer".

Does this mean I won't have to install drivers for each peripheral device?


Also, completely seperate issue... but does Linux switch back and forth between Japanese and English as Windows does?


Dave

You can have Linux install in Japanese. It will detect your peripherals as well as any other countries, because electronics are electronics. If you are buying some Sony exclusive only in Japan crap, then no. You are fucked in the big brown-eye.

Other than that, you will not have anymore problems than any other user. Japan is still a major name in electronics. The problems I see mainly are with Sony- where the "Sony Way" doesn't follow the way of the rest of the planet. They don't sell anything that doesn't have proprietary hooks, and so linux will more than likely not work with it.

Hi Ebisusan,
I just mean Linux just sends digital info to your device. I have been using linux for almost a year but I think it doesnt really matter to it. So you should be fine. So never mind about that HAL thing I described as its not that important, was just comparing it to Windows.

As for your other question about japenese. Thoreau answered that. Thanks to him because I truthfully had no clue.

Actually, I use Japanese and English equally, but since English is my native language, I prefer the interface to be in English.
So I'm wondering if I can switch to entering Japanese text into my text documents, browser, and other software, the same way I use the global IME in Windows.
So is that possible?

Thanks for the assurances about the hardware. I don't have any Sony or other brand name devices that are really particular about drivers. But I'm still a little nervous.

For instance, my printer has a CD printer tray which requires it's own Japanese program to run. I'm a little worried that even if the printer connects, I would be able to establish a connection to that CD tray.

Dave

As for Japenese and English I havent a clue. But I do know your hardware for the most part will be recognizable, you may have to go get third party linux drivers somewhere on the net. So in thew meantime a dual boot is your best option to have a way out. In the worst case scenario youd format the linux partition doing the fs switch and make it a windows partition.

But for dual boot it is best to have two separate HDDs. So Windows is say /hda and Fedora is /hdb. Havent installed both on one before.

Ebisusan,

Yes, it is possible. There are Japanese input methods for Linux, actually many of them, for both console and X, like skk, canna, wnn, xim. I've tried a good number of those without any luck (I don't have a Japanese keyboard though, and I'm able to type in Japanese using Windows, with the ActiveX version of MS Global IME - works only for IE, Outlook Express and MS Word though. The "real" version of MS Global IME will only install in the Japanese version of Windows - but that's Windows. We're in a different world here.) I'd like to be able to use Japanese from Linux too, I already have a set of fonts installed for that, but the input method wouldn't go, and it doesn't seem like it being just a matter of apt-getting them. If you have any success with any of those tell me. You may use Japanese, but if you do please keep it simple, I'm just a low-level student and don't know much more than 1/20 of the current-use kanji yet... also my vocabulary isn't that great, but xjdic is my friend ^^;

Linux de ganbarimashou! ^_~ (hope it's correct, if not please do correct me)

Nitrousoxide,

I'm a little confused by your posting. You seem to be saying that it is possible because there are a bunch of different input methods, but that in reality it's not that possible because none of them work very well.

There is one input method that works fine for me - I use an English keyboard and I can type Japanese fine (except in OpenOffice, but I'm sorting that out...).

Anyone using Gnome in Fedora core 3can use it - you:
open GEdit (Accessories->Text Editor), then right-click on the input window, choose Input Method-> Internet/Intranet. Then right click on the top panel, select InputMethod Swicher and add. Then click on the box that appears in the panel, select Add or Remove methods, then choose the languages you want to use.

how to get your IP3100 to print to the CD tray and to do duplex printing from Linux?

If you haven't gotten that far and simply would like the printer to do a better job than using the BJC-7004 usually recommended (it works... badly), you can find out how to get the Canon Japan Linux drivers and how to install them at:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...oto=nextnewest

and since you're in FC3 (I did this from FC2), you won't have to
follow the Debian-specific instructions, just grab the rpms that correspond to your printer and install as usual... i.e. skip steps 1 and 3... install the rpms via the rpm command instead of doing what step 4 calls for,

Step 5: CAREFULLY add the .ppd patch to add functions... I recommend doing this 1 line at a time, make sure that your highlighting ONLY covers the printed characters, hit enter and patch in the next line. (I think the blog software must have added invisible characters, the above is how I got it to work the second time.)

Step 6 - the libraries didn't need to be fixed in FC2... don't know about FC3.

But what I'm actually hoping is that you've gotten further than I have and you can tell me how to get duplex and CD printing up and running.