OK don't laugh at me. i've been a microsoft OS user my whole life and I heard some really good things about linux but i was concered about how compatable it is with everything. If i were to buy a game such as world of warcraft would i be able to install it and get it running w/o any problems? or like software such as photoshop and would my dsl modem work w/o changing any properties on it? Thanks for the help and i'm open to any advice i can get.

chris

Linux has great support for hardware, but you have to compile and configure it for yourself, where windows basically does it all for you, as far as photoshop, I dont know if there is one for linux, but Im sure there is an equivalent, and some games are supported on linux, dont know about World of Warcraft

with caldera the game is supported, with wine photoshop is supported.

numone,

Some big-name games now have Linux versions, but you can also run the Windows versions of software using a technology called WINE. There are two commercial packages using WINE that make it very easy to install and run Windows software - Crossover Office (codeweavers.com) for Web plug-ins and "professional" software like MS Office and Photoshop, which can also handle some games; and Cedega that is a specialised system for running popular games.

How well you DSL modem works depends on the exact model - www.google.com/linux can probably tell you what to do.

caldera? Do you mean Cedega?

Most hardware (all but "bleeding edge" stuff) is supported by most major distros out of the box. Your DSL modem should work fine, depending on your distro.

Windows games will *not* run; some will run under Wine/Cedega, some have native linux versions, but mainly, they won't run.

Photoshop will run in Wine, but there are good open-source alternatives to most Windows programs. Check out the Gimp for a photoshop-like app.

Some game sites you might be interested in.

Games
http://www.linux-games.com/ (non-commercial; linux-games)
http://www.linux-gamers.net/ (non-commercial; linux-gamer)
http://www.itworld.com/Comp/2362/lw-12-tengames/ (non-commercial; linux world)
http://www.opengl.org/applications/linux/games/ (non-commercial; OpenGL)

Sheng-Chieh