I have been interested in converting over to linux for some time now but never get around to it. I have a few questions.

1. I like the layout of Windows XP as it is no fuss and plain which is perfect for me. What linux can be made to look exactly (ish) like XP?

2. I have an HP iPAQ that, at the moment, is running on WM2003SE. The Familiar Project is still working on the OS compatible for the RX3715 but when it is released I will use it. Is there a version of Active Sync for linux OS for both windows and familiar project pda's? This is fairly essential.

3. Is it true that viruses, spyware, adware, etc... do not work on linux OS?

4. Finally, can games such as Battlefield 2 run on Linux or is it best to keep XP on the computer to play games?

Thanks in advance.

There are definitely styles and themes that imitate XP and OS X and whatever. What is it exactly about XP that you find no fuss and plain? Just curious.

Yes.

My guess is it won't run unless you have Crossover Office, but who knows? I'm not much of a gamer myself.

1. I hear Linspire looks very Windows-like.

2. Not sure about this one.

3. I think you're pretty safe from spyware and adware under Linux, yeah. There are probably some viruses for Linux, but they're rare. You won't be immune from Java viruses, though.

4. Some games can run under Linux, not sure about Battlefield 1942 though. You might be able to get it to work under things called Cedega, or Wine but I don't know about those. Keep Windows XP for games .

1. KDE will do the job
2. I also have an iPaq, and am using software, which I cnt remember the name of now, but I found it easy on google, to sync it to evolution mailn client, although I am not able to install apps (I keep wiondows for this)
3. Never come across one yet!
4. I use windows, as Hardware acceleration is best suported for my card in windows (ATI X850 XT PE). Although cedega is well known, and has been built especially for games.

Hope this helps!

Thanks to all of you.
It's jsut the whole layout really, I guess I have got use to it over the years of Windows. Just the simple layout of the start menu, windows explorer, and the windows media theme (Royal) for XP Pro is really good. It's hard to explain!!
So I'm guessing for software like active sync substitutes is to look around on google.
For playing games its best to keep Windows then.
Can't find anything about an active sync for linux, just about installing linux onto iPAQs. If you remember the name it would be grateful. Thanks again for all your help.

I don't know that much about Active Sync, but maybe this link will help?

http://www.cfar.umd.edu/~arvind/linuxonipaq.htm

As for the Start Menu, etc., both KDE and Gnome have something similar--either a K or a foot. They both have task bars and quick-launchers. There aren't that many different layouts for desktops.

Best part is--they're customizable.

http://www.transgaming.com/


poke around there to see what games they support now, im sure battlefield 2 will be added to the list soon.

Thanks for that, useful to know that some other windows apps will run with their software aswell.
Just another question, I'm thinking of building my second computer using 64bit architecture, will any Distro support this? If not, I'll just improve my current computer.

look at the distro, Linux and its major programs (X, GNU utils, ect) have been 64-bit compatible for years, and there are distros that support 64-bit.

as for desktop, look at GNOME to, people find it faster a bit, but both copy (follow) windows, kinda (personally i like GNOME best out of windows/KDE .... but i hate them all and just use a complete different layout/desktop (for speed, pluss i can, but you sound like someone who just wants to use a computer, and doesn't what to learn the internals to use the OS better, in which case Linspire is a good OS (i found it slower then windows, but in true windows fashion, if you use Linspire, you'll have to pay them to install software, other easy distros are mentioned above ..... if you want to learn about internals, read up about general Linux stuff at http://www.linux.org , and UNIX in general for a good start

and Linux has a good number of games (true, not to many big high-3D games found on windows, but thats because the company that made those games didn't make a Linux version to, but there are a good number of games to keep fun (like those good old 2D games that could be played for hours, or try the text-based game "nethack" (it has GUI fronts) for all those dungeon exploration needs


also: sypware exists, the most popular web browsers use cookies, and those can be used to log your way around the internet, but thats about it, adware is NULL, viruses/worms are possible, but people (should) run at user privileges, so any viruses they get are limited on what they can do to the system, pluss it would have to download itself (a user could do that), then run itself (impossible, it would have to get the user to run it, or get the user to open it then exploit the program that read it into running the code, it would really be hard for viruses to spread to a meaningful level, but not impossible, but if the user doesn't do anything to stupid, even if Linux becomes as popular as windows, it would have a much harder time getting viruses.

Thanks for the reply, I will eventually want to learn more about the OS to get more out of it but I am thinking of starting simple and works with not much work put into. When I become more experienced and a second computer I can use my old computer to play around with things and become more adventurous.

This isn't completely true. Spyware, by definition, is without a user's consent. You have to go to a site to have a cookie set from there. Now, there is a little loophole: sometimes sites will send you third-party cookies (for example, if you visit a particular news site, an ad.doubleclick.net cookie might be set to let ad.doubleclick.net know that you visited that site and did or did not click on a banner ad there, but you still visited the new site). You can always block cookies, though, and a lot of browsers allow you to block third-party cookies or ask every time a cookie wants to be set.

And cookies can be read only by the hosting site. For example, if Amazon.com leaves a cookie on my computer with my wishlist and other preferences, Netflix can't go in there and say, "Hey, what's in the Amazon cookie? Where else has this person been surfing?"

Spyware also has a tendency to be difficult to remove. Cookies can be cleared out at the click of a mouse button. People should be aware of the privacy issues relating to cookies, but cookies are not spyware.