Typical Migration Question
 

Today I just got a virus on my main machine, running Windows XP. This is really the last straw for my poor Windows OS and now wish to transfer to Linux. Below are the progams I use regularly on my computer along with hardware specs. Please could people name the replacement of the software and ultimately suggest which distro I should use.

Programs I use:

- Microsoft Office 2007
- Microsoft Outlook 2007
- Photoshop Elements 2.0
- Windows Media Player 11
- Windows Explorer FTP
- Firefox 2.0 (avaliable for linux?)
- Notepad (for programming)
- Msn Messenger

Hardware:
- Athlon 64 3200+ @ 2.4Ghz
- 1GB pc3200 Ram
- nvidia 6800 128mb
- Sound Blaster Live 7.1 sound
- 2x 80Gb HD 7200rpm
(internet sharing link between a 2nd computer)


Thanks,
Mike

- Microsoft Office 2007 --> Open Office
- Microsoft Outlook 2007 --> Mozilla Thunderbird w/ Mozilla Calendar extension
- Photoshop Elements 2.0 --> The GIMP
- Windows Media Player 11 --> Kaffeine
- Windows Explorer FTP --> I FTP with my browser, but I'm sure there are many options available.
- Firefox 2.0 --> Yes, FF is available, and functions much more efficiently in GNU/Linux than it does in Windows.
- Notepad (for programming) --> Gedit, Kedit, KATE, etc... many!
- Msn Messenger --> GAIM, a multi-client messenger... works with ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, etc.

The options I've mentioned above are just a few of the NUMEROUS choices you have in the GNU/Linux/Open Source world.

Have FUN with it!

~Eric

- Microsoft Office 2007 -- OpenOffice.org (there's a windows port too)
- Microsoft Outlook 2007 -- Evolution
- Photoshop Elements 2.0 -- Don't know what it is, but photoshop stuff is usually the GIMP
- Windows Media Player 11 -- mplayer
- Windows Explorer FTP -- fireFTP extension to Firefox, or Filezilla
- Firefox 2.0 (avaliable for linux?) -- Yes.
- Notepad (for programming) -- Gedit, nano, pico, joe, kwrite, etc, etc
- Msn Messenger -- Gaim, aMSN

Here's some links for other application equivalents:
http://www.linuxrsp.ru/win-lin-soft/table-eng.html
http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/...ndows_software

Hardware:
- Athlon 64 3200+ @ 2.4Ghz
- 1GB pc3200 Ram
- nvidia 6800 128mb
- Sound Blaster Live 7.1 sound
- 2x 80Gb HD 7200rpm
(internet sharing link between a 2nd computer)

You can take the quizes in my signature to find a starting point, but all these programs are available to most/all linux distros. Distro choice is really personal and what I like you may not. If you're totally new to linux, you might go to DistroWatch.com and try one of the ones at the top (Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse, etc). If you want to really learn linux, you should try one of the big three -- Slackware, Debian, or Gentoo. (I personally really like Debian Testing branch, currently Etch).

If you want to make use of your 64 bit processor, be sure to download the right CD. On Debian, it's called AMD64 port. Not sure about the others. For full graphics acceleration, you'll have to install the proprietary nVidia drivers from their website or build them from source. Not sure about SB cards. Internet sharing can be accomplished if needed, but I've never done it (I bought a router instead).

Microsoft Office 2007 - OpenOffice
Microsoft Outlook 2007 - Evolution, Thunderbird, Seamonkey, others
Photoshop Elements 2.0 - The GIMP or (I think) Elements runs on Linux using Wine. Check out the Wine database of supported applications http://appdb.winehq.org/vendorview.php.
Windows Media Player 11 - MPlayer
Windows Explorer FTP - Firefox
Firefox 2.0 (avaliable for linux?) - Firefox 2.0 but some plugins haven't been updated to work with 2.0 yet.
Notepad (for programming) - Kate, Kedit, Kwrite, Gedit, nano, Vi, Vim, Joe, Anjuta, Kdevelop, etc. (Actually the last two are IDE's, but if you're programming they're worth checking out. Unless you can't aford the hefty price tag of zero.)
Msn Messenger - I don't know what this is so I can't say.

Which distro? It's the Energizer Bunny question of Linux. It keeps going and going and going. Don't ask, just search these forums. Pick one, if you don't like it pick another. It's a personal choice. I recommend Gentoo or CLFS for your 64-bit system.

Starting from the top:

If you want to keep windows, without minimal risk of virii, etc., install Linux. Mount the windows partition, and run msoffice apps via Crossover Office; run other apps via wine or winex.

On the other hand, get rid of windows, and use OpenOffice.org, which can do most of what msoffice does.

Outlook: probably have to use (in the Kde desktop environment) something like Kontact, which integrates with other Kde apps to provide mail, contact info, PIM functions, etc.

Photoshop Elements is a stripped down version of Photoshop. The GIMP does the same that Photoshop does, in my limited experience with both, and there is a ton of information on the web, free but for downloading (Grokking the GIMP, GIMP User Manual, etc.).

Windows Media Player: Kaffeine, Mplayer, Xine, with the win32codecs installed will play wmv files.

WE FTP: there are many ftp tools to choose from, some GUI; some command-line.

FireFox: yes.

Notepad: gedit, kedit, nedit, Kate, Kdevelop, and others (GUI) as well as GNU compiler, with extensions for several languages (command-line).

MSN Messenter: several to choose from.

Point your browser at www.distrowatch.com. There are more that 100 distros listed. The side bar on the right lists the top 100. There is a link to get the full list. Some are commercial (usually less that $100). The main difference between Linux distros and M$ Windows, you get all the attendant software along with the OS (it's what windows would be like if you paid the $200? for windows and got Office, Photoshop, and anything else you wanted for the price of windows).

Thanks for all this help guys. In my past experiance I have tried Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mepis, Fedora Core 4 and DSL all of which have not really appealed to my for constant desktop use.

Do any of you have experiance of Suse 10.1 and what you think of it? I have tried Suse 9.3 in the past but I had a load of hardware problems with it.

My main issue with Linux was that it seemed to run much slower than Windows. Is this the case with every distro?

Mike

With your hardware, it should run faster than Windows. Now, it is possible that there are settings that weren't properly installed, like DMA for your hard drives. But for the most part, I've been able to resurrect machines that crawled on Windows 2000 with a KDE desktop and they ran great.

My newest machine runs Debian Etch much quicker than any XP I've ever had.

Well it looks like I might as well switch. Afterall Linux is far more stable.

What is DMA for Hard Drives? Infact is there any guides on the internet etc to show me how to configure Linux to my hardware?

Thanks,
Mike

Here's an old guide to hdparm (the tool for tweaking hard disk performance). Honestly, I've never had to use it, DMA was always enabled by default on DMA capable drives. I was just sort of grasping at what might have been causing the slowdown. Here's another guide to tweaking performance and sleuth your system for why things are going slowly.

Hmm... that's interesting. Linux is greased lightning on all my systems compared to Windows. I agree with the above poster who mentions DMA (and other hardware settings affecting drive performance).

I have OpenSuSE 10.1 on my system... a very nice distro.

Again thanks for all the help.

Yeah, everytime I have used Linux it always runs noticably slower on my machine compared to Windows. Maybe this is because my computer is using up-to-date hardware?

Anyway dispite this im going to switch my main computer to using Linux. Ill most likely do this tonight. I love using Gnome compared to Kde, simply because I prefer the looks. Any suggestions to which distro I should use? I need a distro with good media support.

Mike

Another alternative to PS elements (other than the GIMP): Krita. I'm not sure if PS elements does vector gfx as well as bitmap. If so, take a look at inkscape. Take a look anyway cos it's really great.

For Windows media player, if you're using it as a jukebox, consider amarok. For movie playing consider vlc, mplayer or xine.

Ubuntu or OpenSuSE for out-of-the-box media support.

Luck!