Hi all,

I'm pretty new to linux.

I am in the proces of potentially migrating windows to linux.

I do not need really anything special (I think)

An Exchange (MAPI) client (similar to Outlook)
Windows network compatibility (logon to active directory and easily access shares)
Office functionality (mostly Word and excel)

Also it needs to be straightforward to add linux to a windows server 2003 domain, preferrably as easy as in windows XP

If these requirements would be met, I am convinced we will definitely migrate and stick to linux

By far the easiest is Novell Suse 10.2
Wizards for joining Windows Domains etc

Install OpenOffice and Mozilla Thunderbird on a windows machine as these will be what your Linux machine offer as the alternatives to Outlook / Office

Active directories might be a bit problematic. You might have to set them up with backwards compatibility to NT on the windows side. But I can't tell you anything specific. Might take one or two posts in the Networking forum.

For connection with outlook stuff you might want to try evolution or kontact. But this is another problematic issue, because the exchange protocol is proprietary, so there might be tons of issues that I can't give you any insight about either. (Just remember: It's microsofts fault. They are probably even facing charges for monopoly abuse on this one also. )

For office try open-office. It can read and write doc files if it needs to.

If this is all you want to do, it pains me to say this, but you probably want to try suse.
And in any case keep your windows installation for now, and make a backup of everything important before installing suse.

good luck.

You can do all of that with just about any new distro. It doesn't have to be SUSE. You can use Debian too.

for outlook, I will suggest you use evolution, which comes with the gnome desktop. Evolution uses ximian plugin that allows you to connect to a Windows exchange server. Kontact
does not work that well.

But if you only want to connect to a windows network share and use microsoft exchange stuff, it really is more comfortable with suse. As soon as you want to install and use anything beyond the supported suse packages, you'll wish you opted for a debian based distro. :P

I have come a long way since yesterday.

I installed openSuse 10.2.
Adding it to the domain was (too) easy, it took less than it took in windows
Logging in was also no problem what so ever.

What I am currently missing is the ability to open multiple mailboxes simulteanously and using the exchange (shared) calendering features in evolution and being able to automaticvally apply settings (group policy style) I also noticed that the system isn't registerd with dns, though it does have an IP address

Except that, "I LOVE IT!!!"

Thank you all so far for all the help, a community like this makes migrating to linux a lot easier

Pray for all newbies to be as courteous and responsive as this one.....