Hi,

I have Windows XP on my notebook and desktop pcs.
I guess April 2014 WINXP will stop support online.
Is linux what I can use to replace XP or am I wrong?

Please help define this WINXP v.s Linux?

Not sure if I am right or wrong at this point...

A bit confused,

Thanks,
Li81

Hey,
You could replace XP with a version of Linux (called a distribution or distro), and there would be quite a few benefits, but it would be a big change. I would recommend checking out this website: http://whylinuxisbetter.net/ It has some good comparisons and explanations of the differences between the two. Remember, you don't have to commit, you can try out Linux without installing it, so you have nothing to lose. A good distro to try out is Mint: you can check it out here. http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php Choose cinammon if your computer is newer, MATE if it's pretty old.

3 members found this post helpful.

A mandatory reading:
http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

2 members found this post helpful.

Thank-you ever so much and I will look into it as soon as I can

1 members found this post helpful.

1 members found this post helpful.

A recent episode of the Going Linux podcast addressed just this issue; you might find it a helpful listen:

http://goinglinux.com/shownotes.html#glp238

The most important thing to remember, if you do choose to go Linux, is that Linux is not Windows. Don't expect it to behave like Windows; expect a learning curve.

Linux is not hard; it is different.

There are lots of persons in lots of places, including LQ, that are happy to help you.

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As an XP user, I'm badly inconvenienced that MS is finally killing XP. I'm going to switch my XP system to Linux.

But as an Intel stockholder, I ought to be happy that MS is dropping XP. Most XP users are not going to be comfortable making the jump to Linux (It is hard for me and I have years of experience using Linux as a second OS). Most computers running XP might as well be boat anchors when you try to run a newer version of Windows. So people will be buying new computers.

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Tell us what apps you need and use.

Tell us more about the laptop and desktop as in specs.

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Yessss fingers are crossed for new computers one day near...

I Like Apps: As in, Google, everything and anything google

(BLOGGER,GOOGLE+,HANGOUTS, GOOGLECHROME, GMAIL etc.) And GNU

Image Manipulation Program(s) GIMP 2.8.10, and Paint,

HelloKitty,MICROSOFTOFFICE,

social medias like facebook, twitter, CHAT Yahoo, MSN,

Instagram, YOUTUBE, ICLOUD

Mail: MSNOUTLOOK,YAHOO, GMAIL, HOTMAIL, ICLOUD

Audio Software: iTunes,

SPECS:The Notebook is a few years old man,
An Acer TravelMate 2480 Microsoft
Windows XP Home Edition Version 2002
Service Pack 3

Intel(R) Celeron(R) M CPU
410 @ 1.46GHz 1.47 GHz, 1.99 GB of RAM
Physical Address Extension

I do not have my desktop computer here at this time so I

cannot really get into detail until I have it back... One day?



I hope this is mainly what answeres your Question >_____

Most of what you listed is accessed through your browser (hopefully Chrome or Firefox etc., not IE).

In switching from XP to Linux, there should be no real problems with Chrome or Firefox (if you use IE, you need to switch, but you won't find that difficult). Getting all your bookmarks and setting and other browser profile stuff moved from XP to Linux may be difficult, but it only needs to be done once (or not at all if you decide it is easier to just set all those things as you use them, similar to how they accumulated in the first place).

Installing plugins for the browser may be a bit trickier on Linux than Windows. But it isn't terribly hard and using plugins is no harder, just installing them.

For your non browser applications: GIMP should be fine (no likely inconvenience in installing/using Linux GIMP instead of XP GIMP).

Paint and MSOFFICE are probably not practical to continue using. You could use wine in Linux to keep using Paint and Office, but it probably isn't worth the trouble.

If you are not a real power-user of Word etc., you likely have only a little to unlearn/relearn to use OpenOffice or similar open source alternative to Office. Even if you are more of a power-user, as long as that applies to programs other than Excel, you should find the open source alternatives allow you to be just as much of a power-user. You just need a bit more unlearning/relearning to get there.

Nothing in open source approaches the performance of the now obsolete version of Excel, you might have gotten when you bought that machine. So if you are a power-user of Excel, you may want to figure out how to keep that obsolete copy running in wine/Linux.

On old hardware, newer Excel versions are much slower, and open source alternatives even slower than that. A casual user of Excel with trivial spreadsheets won't notice.

GNU is not Google. GNU is part of the GNU project which is part of the Free Software Foundation. Google has nothing to do with GNU's development.

I think li81 was saying that he/she uses the gnu image manipulation program, and not implying that it's a google product. Also, look at Kolorpaint as a replacement for ms paint, and libreoffice as a replacement for ms office.

iTunes is not going to work and if you have any file on their DRM locked format is not going to work neither. however there are lots of Music players for Linux and some of them support iDevices.
Once you select the Linux Distribution you want to use it should have most of the stuff you need for a computing working desktop. an office suite, music and video player, web browser, email manager, text editor, graphic design software and a bunch of other stuff.

Some other software is available but due to licensing is not added to your computer at installation time e.g. Flash player plugin, and codecs for media files and encrypted DVDs. however with a Google search you can find the how to install them, or by going to their web site.

If you are planning to use whichever Linux Distribution go to their web site to download the ISO image file burn it into a disk as image and boot your computer from that disk. Do no go a random web site to download anything. Some distros you might want to check out are

Linux Mint ------>http://www.linuxmint.com/

Ubuntu Linux----->http://www.ubuntu.com/

OpenSUSE Linux--->http://www.opensuse.org/en/

If you are installing Linux in legacy hardware don't expect to be blown away by its performance, instead look for a light weight version of the distro of your choice. Perhaps running a graphical interface such as Xfce or LXDE.

E.g. instead of Ubuntu look for Lubuntu --------->http://lubuntu.net/

Pretty much every distro out there is available in light weight version.

Good luck to you and if you have more inquiries just post them here.

Here's a site which enables you to find Linux equivalents to well-known Windows programs:
http://linuxappfinder.com/alternatives?page=3

When you get back with your computer's RAM size, we can look at which distro will run. So long as it's at least 128MB, something'll work.