Dedicated to dropping my dependence on Microsoft Products
 

Hi. I am writing to all of you for some help. I have been a member here for over two years now and have used linux on and off during that time (more off, since I depend so much on Microsoft). Something happened last night that made me want to drop MS for good. I went to Windows Update to get the updated driver for my Samsung 191T LCD monitor (since the manuf website didn't seem to have it listed). I downloaded the driver from Microsoft and it did NOT work after reboot. Somehow, the driver installation removed my Monitor from device manager and made it IMPOSSIBLE to locate the hardware device anymore. Believe me, this was NOT a dumb user error. I am A+ certified and fix people's PC's all the time. I even called MS to tell them about the problem and they were aware of it!!! Well this just pissed me off even more. Anyway, after a discussion with some people about the Microsoft monopoly and then this event occurring I have decided to stop using ALL MS PRODUCTS (if I can do it). Why use MS when there are great alternatives for FREE? I really want to switch over and was wondering if you guys could help me out. I NEED an OS that can support my needs. I NEED to be able to do website development (was using Macromedia MX and sometimes MS Frontpage), I NEED a full featured email client (alternative to Outlook 2003 - which is nice except for the cost and that it is MS product), I NEED a compatible web browser (Mozilla is nice, but not compatible sometimes), etc... Can anyone help me out? Especially, which OS will be the best for me: OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Gentoo, etc...? I appreciate it much, thanks guys...


Kris Hermansen

Re: Dedicated to dropping my dependence on Microsoft Products
 

No offense meant, but these two are not really
good tools. They make developers lazy, and
frontpage in particular causes what you further
down refer to as "not compatible browser". The
fact is that Mozilla so far could display any website
that I tried against the W3C validator and that was
found good by the tool. Mozilla does, however, have
problems with some MS extensions (which aren't W3C
conforming). It's not Mozilla that plays up, it's stupid
web-developers who do things because they
can, and who care a damn about standards.
Emacs should be all a web-developer needs
besides a browser to verify his page displays ;)

If you mean you need integration of mail
and calendar, go Ximian Evolution. If you
mean "a real good graphical mail-client",
go KMail :) ...

See above. Mozilla is fine, nag the bastards
that make websites that don't work. Try opera,
that sometimes gives nicer results than Moz.


What ever you choose mate, just take you time
and stick around. Free BSD is cool, OpenBSD
is ultra-secure, Gentoo gives you a fast system
if you don't mind waiting days for the initial install.

Personally I like Slack best (haven't tried Gentoo,
only RH, MDK, SuSE and debian so far) ... it's fast,
quickly installed, and gives you pretty much full
control *and responsibility* ...

Cheers,
Tink

You should probably buy a distro that packages Crossover Office WINE from http://www.codeweavers.com. Apparently the latest Crossover product can run Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I believe that SuSE and Xandros include Crossover Office WINE. If you choose a different distro, you can still purchase Crossover Office from Codeweavers.

As far as your application needs are concerned: go with Tinkster's advice. Mozilla and Evolution are far superior to the Microsoft equivalents.

Go for Gentoo
 

GENTOO KICKS ASS!!!!!!

IS FAST, RELIABLE, SECURE, USERFRIENLY!


FAST: Come on people it lets you set use flag for optimization!!
takes to compile sure but in the end it pays off trustme!!

RELIABLE: I LIKE I HAS NEVER NEVER NEVER CRASHED ON ME!!! NEVER!!
and im using some really really aggresive optimizations!!

SECURE: Come on IS LINUx!!!!!!!!!

Userfriendly: you wanna install something? tired of trying to find it on the NET!! esasy
in gentoo all i do is:

emerge <appname> it downloads it compiles it and optimizes it! what more can i ask for!!!


but in the end it ur choice!!

i use bluefish to instead of using m$ frontpage. yeah its not as 'wyswyg' as m$ frontpage, but it helps for small project

Re: Dedicated to dropping my dependence on Microsoft Products
 

I agree that an advanced WYSIWG web development tool is missing from Linux. Personally I use Quanta and vi, but then I only do fairly simple stuff and it isn't everyones' cup of tea.

As a replacement for MS Frontpage, try OpenOffice. I'm pretty sure you can do HTML editing and you can also save presentations directly as flash.

For something more advanced, Dreamweaver now runs under Wine. Not perfectly, but give it a few months and it should be OK. I think Lindows is also developing an Open Source Dreamweaver equivalent so that might be worth checking out.

KMail, Evolution, Mozilla. No shortage of choices here and all with security features that make Outlook seem like some student summer project.

I have started using Mozilla Firebird and have found very few sites it doesn't work fine with. Konqueror & Opera are also surprisingly good. I really think the situation has improved in the last year as the Moz/Opera developers have focused on getting the browsers working with every site, not just following the standards (sad but true - we have to work with the real world). I spend far more time web browsing than I should and really have to use IE only very rarely.

I cannot help you with web development, but I can tell you that I completly moved away from M$ a couple of months ago. Feels good. I use firebird as my web browser and I seriously think it's a better browser than IE. I also use Thunderbird, which is the email client. Also great prog.

Now keep in mind moving away from M$ is not an easy task. You really have to be motivated. I tried at least 10 distros before I found the right one for me, which is Libranet 2.8. Once you've found your distro, you have to find your programs. First you will probably find buggy equivalent, but if your willing to learn, and search a little more, you will find less friendly ones, maybe command line driven, but much more powerfull than their windoze counterparts. And you'll actually learn something beside 'click here and there and your done' . And you'll feel proud.

I would recommend you try first slack or debian based distros, my 2 fav distros are vector linux (slack) and libranet (debian). They are pretty fast, easy to maintain and update.

Gentoo is faster, but I tend to always upgrade and install a whole bunch of progs, and I couldn't stand the compile time to gain a second in load time here and there.

my 0.02$

I've said it before, I'll say it again....You guys are awesome. This community is so helpful. I was so pissed off last night at MS and it felt good to release some steam and hear that others have found a way to drop them completely. I am going to try Slackware or Debian tonight when I get home (based on your recommendations) and check out Kmail/Evolution. Now just one more question:

Is there any possible way to use Visual Studio .NET on Linux?

I am a student and some classes require developing in this environment. This kinda sucks, but just wondering what you guys have to say about that. Is .NET MS's way of REALLY getting developers to depend on them? I don't want to depend on MS anymore...

Kris Hermansen

PS - The problem is sacrificing my productivity right now while dropping dependence on MS products. In the long run it should be a wise choice, but only time will tell...

Good on yah ;)

Well, I haven't tried that in Wine. VMWare would be a safe
bet, but then you'd have the same problem... windows within
Linux. You could look into Mono, Ximians .NET implementation
for Linux. Besides that... .NET is not that new, there was
CORBA before, which does the same things.

Nuh - the right choice is the ethical one, one
the easy one :)

Cheers,
Tink