Long story short, i am very upset with windowsxp, and have formated twice in the past week, and this time i formated, it is worst now then it was before. I can't take it any more.

Now i am thinking of using linux full time, i got some questions though i want answered, if that is ok with you guys..

1) Like a smart man, i keep my files on another partition. It's NTFS, but someone told me if i use linux, it might be hard to read and write to those files. Should i just wipe my whole drive, keep my back up files on my backup drive (40GB) and then copy the files to linux? What should i do?

2) I've bought a ton of *windows* software and games, that i want to use. DreamWeaver MX, Photoshop6, Games, how well does wine work, and how do i use it?

Well, that is it for now, i'll come up with more questions later.

You can safely read NTFS file systems using linux but writing to them is still dangerous. Your best route would be to move the files elsewhere format the partition to one of the linux file systems (EXT3 or ReiserFS I would expect) then replace the files.You mileage with Wine will vary massively. I certainly haven't ever got anything like DreamWeaver MX to run correctly on it, I think it'll be one of those "suck it an see" situations.

cheers

Jamie...

So i should move them to my backup drive, then copy them to my home folder? Will tehy read and write even if they came from a NTFS drive?

Aren't there other ways to use windows programs and games via linux? Or should i dual boot with my second hard drive?


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Here's some more questions:

3) I have a Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard, how will i get that to work with linux? I have a "Mail" button, how can i get those to work if i want it to go to my choice of linux mail?

4) I have a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz and 5.1 speakers, is there an easy way to get surround and virtual 5.1 to work?

Don't know about NTFS, but as for Wine, if you have invested a lot of money in games and stuff, you may want to consider getting a subscription to WineX from Transgaming. It's fairly cheap, and a lot of people have reported good success with games and stuff.

If you haven't already, I'd suggest dual-booting Windows and Linux for a while, until you get comfortable with it and get a grasp on what's going to work in Wine. That way you're not totally screwed if you can't get something working Then, if everything is cool, you can always backup all your Windows stuff to Linux, reformat the partitions and give them to Linux.

Well, i think i'm going to dual boot. All my files (apps, media, personal files) are on partitions, so if i have to format, i can get back up within an hour or less.

How do i dual boot using two hard drives? Any turtorials i can read?

When you say backup drive - do you mean another hard disk, or do you mean a tape drive? If its a tape drive then you'll need to be careful what software you use to backup the files in the first place. If you mean another hard disk then you should be fine.Not really. Its either Wine or VMware (which runs Windows in a window on a virtual machine). Dual booting is my first choice for running windows apps, but that just my preference.
I can't say I've seen anyone bother with those keys but I'd be very surprised if you couldn't get them to do whatever you want.No idea on this one to be honest. I take it that this would be dependent on getting games working correctly first anyway!

cheres

Jamie...

Have a look at http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+Wind...WTO/index.html and all the other docs available on http://www.tldp.org

cheers

Jamie...

Ok, well i'm going to dual boot, when i say i have a backup drive, i mean a 40GB hard drive from my old machine. I just need to know how to dual boot the hard drives using lilo.

Also, i bought a program called Pop-Up Stopper ( http://panicware.com/product_companion.html ) That allows me to save cookies from certain websites when i clear my cache, and a popup stop, are there any programs that can do that via linux?

about wine and various windows apps, including dreamweaver mx, go here.
and if you use mozilla or phoenix / firebird as a browser; they have
built-in popup blockers with an option to exclude sites. also, they
have nice cookie-managing options.

Now that is what I call a useful link!

cheers

Jamie...

But I thought XP was stable, hehe just kidding.

NTSF is sketchy in linux.

Wine, or VMware might be good for Dreamweaver & stuff.

There's no need to deal with popups or unwanted cookies once you get a decent browser, just a few preference clicks'll do it

it's nice how people repeat what i say.. lol