[jonwessel]

I've heard of Linux but have never thought of giving it a shot until now. I can't sand that Bill Gates, he is worth like 50 billion or more but, NOOOO, he can't make Windows XP open source. I'm all for the open source thing. SO can u gimme some tips of why Linux is better than XP

[mixx941]

PROS:
1. It's not Micro$oft
2. It doesn't crash
3. It's not the same old crap
4. It's open source
5. It works
6. It's FREE

CONS:
1. It's a little harder to learn to use

Just my two cents.

I have used Mandrake and RedHat systems. Have had no problems yet.

-Mark

[bassetman]

compsupport you should have mentioned it's NOT M$!

[grybeard22]

Hey mark
If its free where do u get it?

thanks
gry

[bassetman]

http://www.linux.org/

[srhoades]

If you like having absolute soverign control over your system then linux is for you. Yes, the learning curve is tuff, but if you are the kind of person that likes overcoming challenges then linux can be a blast. The absolute only downside to linux is that since it is not mass commercially produced, documentation is poor at best. So sometimes you are scouring the newsgroups and message boards (www.linuxquestions.org) more than you would for windows.

[midlandman]

Very interesting.If one were to switch from XP to linux,would games still play?Would the internet still work the way I'm used to?Printers,scanners...ect?
I'm with jonwessel on this one.But I know NOTHING about linux.

[srhoades]

Games would still play with a program called WineX. Not free, but people have had great success getting a great number of games working. Internet work just as you are used to know. Hardware support for printers scanners etc is pretty good. If it can be done in windows, you can do it in linux, if not better. If yo are considering Linux, I personally recommend Redhat. The newest version is Redhat 9.0. I also recommend a book to go with it. Linux Redhat Bible. If you buy the book you will get Redhat for free on CD's. Oh, and you don't have to switch completly, you can dual boot. This way you use Linux, and when you can't do something you don't know how to do, you just boot into windows. Much better than cold turkey.

[snowdog]

midlandman, you might want to try Mandrake 9.1. It will resize FAT and NTFS partitions, so if you are running WinXP with NTFS, you can dual boot. The install is easy as sin (even the partitioning!). For your absolute very first time with Linux, blowing Windows away immediately might not be the best idea. Mandrake can also read from NTFS partitions. All distro's can read/write to FAT partitions though. Expect some frustrations (hardware/software). Remember, anything written for Windows will, 10 times out of 10, NOT work on linux (different OS, file system, etc). The amount of software available to us, and the quality of it, will really amaze you though. And for games, I have Unreal Tournament 2003 and NeverWinter Nights running flawlessly on Linux.

[BTex]

Atthe present time I have two XP machines and 1 redhat machine.

It is fun to learn but there has been a sharp learning curve. I like to think of it as learning a different language... But its fun
If you want a fun trial go to www.linuxiso.org and get a copy of knoppix It is a bootable cd that will run your computer give it a try