looking for some info anything would help Im tired of Bill...

 

I'm running it

 

ok can u give me some info

do u need to run anti virus software?
what do u use to browse the net and for e-mail?
are there any disadvantages?
is all your hardware supported?
will it run anywindows software?
are there any childrens games available?

 

I can't help you there. sorry about that. I only run it as a server with no GUI.

 

I'm running Mandrake. I can't remember the version (I'm not at home). I have my hard drive partitioned so that I can run either OS. It is still handy to have windows around. I have my boot loader file on a floppy disk. The way it works is if I boot up without the floppy, it defaults to windows. This is nice when other family members come to use my comptuer (still trying to teach them Windows). If the floppy is in, it will bring up a screen asking what I want to boot in.

I don't run any virus software, and I don't think you need to. I'm still pretty new to it. A friend of mine turned me onto it, he knows a bunch of commad line for it, which is really cool if you know what you are doing.

The disadvantages I have found are really things I expected to work out the box. A lot of your plug-ins (flash, shockwave, real player) don't support Linux yet. There are quite a few companies that do support Linux. I think in time to come, most of them will. There are ways to make all of those files play, though. Some of them work like a champ, regardless. PDF files are one example.

All of my hardware works. The only thing that doesn't work is my tv tuner that is built into my video card. ATI does not support Linux at this time. The tuner portion of the card is the only thing that does not work, the default drivers work fine otherwise.

It will not run Windows software that I know of, but it does open Windows files. One thing that is really cool is that you can read from your windows partitions. (It doesn't work the other way around--go figure) Built into the OS is a lot of software that you would normally have to purchse. There is an entire Office suite that is built right into the OS. The Office suite of Linux will open any MS Office file and allow you to modify it, etc.

I'm sure there are children's games that you can get, but I haven't looked into it. It does have quite a few games built in (solitare, nibbles, etc). As far as going out and purchasing it, I'm not sure.

I would higly recommend that you don't jump in head first. Do the dual-boot for those times when you need to do someting in a hurry. If you get really good at it, then remove the MS stuff. Better yet would be if you have a second machine you could put it on. If you ever messed anyting up to the point of no return, format the sucker.

There are so many things that you can customize in it that it's not funny. As jack mentioned, you can run the entire OS in text only mode.

Put the ISO files on a cd and boot from it. The installer recognizes windows is there and everything. Asks you if you want to format, or partition. Asks you if you want to set up based on many areas (gaming, server, office, etc).

It's really a cool OS, I'd give it a try.

 

What problems are you having with Windows? What version are you running? I might be able to help with any problems you are seeing.

 

You probably should still run antivirus software. Linux viruses aren't as common as the Windows variety, and don't receive as much media attention, but they do exist.

There are lots of WWW clients available. Mozilla is one of the well-known ones. RedHat and Debian both install it by default, I believe.

Disadvantages: Some hardware isn't supported very well in certain versions or varieties. Hardware vendors don't seem to support it all that well, so most of the drivers are third-party. If you're not accustomed to command line stuff, it can seem a bit awkward. There's lots of good free software available for it, but most of the commercial stuff isn't.

There are, I believe, ways to run some Windows software, but I haven't messed with any of them.

Children's games, I don't know. Again, most commercial software is not typically released in a Linux version.

 

Running it on a dual boot with win2k. I am having problems with the dual boot but working it out. it is all related to my hard drives. I got a 250 gig hd for Christmas for video editing. My bios doesn't support that large of a hard drive so I had to go with an add in EIDE controller. Without the controller I can only recognize 137 gb of hard drive but the dual boot works great. With the second drive on the card I get to see all 250 gb but the dual boot doesn't work. I think I am pretty close to getting it to work. Just haven't messed with non windows stuff in a long time.

I have to admit although it is frustrating I found that my computer skills had really slipped by using windows all of the time. Now I am having to learn something and have re-discovered how much fun it is messing with computers.

 

Hehe: The only windows computers in my house are customers machines.
I do all my work on Linux. Web browsing with Mozilla, (with realplayer, Java, Flashplayer.....)
A whole lot of stuff is available. I'd suggest that you try the Mandrake 9.2 download edition.
I think that buying a set of hard disk frames that let you swap the hdds and a new drive for Linux are the optimum solution for a beginner. All the data on the win machine are protected by simply not being plugged in while playing with Linux.
You can buy VMWARE for Linux which will allow you to run a complete PC with any OS you like in a sandbox.

Just my 2c

AlpineRAM

 

thanks for all the replys

Dan

 

Check out Lindows at http://www.lindows.com

 

yep try lindows, i have a couple lindows machines on my network.
it works pretty good and i would suggest getting click and run if you do go with lindows