[MaidenFan]

In the last few months, I have made the jump from being completely Windows based to being heavily reliant on Linux. A vast amount of the help and tips I found while transitioning was found on message forums, so maybe this will help prospective users make the decision. I realise there's already a Linux FAQ thread so feel free to merge it with that if it needs to be.

As a bit of background, I am a second-year computer science student and general PC technician from the UK. My level of experience is completely self-taught and (until 6 months ago) Windows-based. My first computer was a 386 running Windows 3.1 and have since progressed through 95, 98SE and XP to Vista. Suffice to say, I am (or rather was) a Windows user. Before starting my university degree, I had heard of Linux and so knew "of" it, but had never really explored it.

At the start of my degree, I was told that a lot of my course would be based on UNIX (the basis of Linux) but for the whole of my first year I stuck with Windows, using Cygwin to access the department's UNIX servers. My laptop (an Acer Aspire 5630) runs on a quad-boot setup with Windows XP Media Center, Vista Business, Fedora 8 Linux and Mac OS X Leopard (Hackintosh).

If it ain't broke, don't fix it
Don't switch to Linux "just because". I had a pretty solid reason to start exploring, but if Windows works for you, then don't feel pressurised to try Linux. It won't change your world. It may make your computing experience slightly less stressful, but like 99% of software systems, Linux has bugs.

If you're curious and would like to try it out, get your hands on a LiveCD - there are various Linux distros that can be run from a CD so you can try them before you install, the most popular of which is Ubuntu.

Get used to the command line
Linux has indeed moved on dramatically in recent years to make itself presentable to the (I hate to use the word) "average" user - the person who just wants to surf the web and write letters. That said, while Windows users can often sit in the blissful ignorance that there is such a thing as a command line environment, it's still very much present in most Linux installations.

Over the six months or so I've been running Linux on my laptop, I could not have lived without the command line. Those who have little or no experience with it will either learn or sink. The flip-side of this is that once you have learned a couple of commands, you'll feel a lot more confident and eventually you will build up experience.

Google is your friend
I also can't count the number of times I've turned to Google with a specific problem and it's been solved in a matter of seconds with a simple config file edit or command-line instruction. Especially with well-known distros like Ubuntu, support is very easy to find.

Ubuntu is not the only distro out there
Many users refer to Ubuntu in the same was as they refer to Windows - as a complete system. This is completely untrue. Ubuntu is a fairly new entry into the Linux arena and, some say, has only made it to the big-time because of some serious financial clout from a very generous multi-millionaire.

The key to finding a good distro is to research and experiment. You wouldn't buy a brand new car on just taking a look through a marque list, so why do the same with a computer OS? Ubuntu, for example, didn't like my laptop's Intel GMA950 display card, refusing to give me the native 1280x800 resolution, although it detected my Intel 3945ABG wireless card perfectly. Fedora was the exact opposite, but I decided I could work with no wireless for the time being until I found a solution. If in doubt, check the distro's Hardware Compatibility Lists.

Don't expect it to work 100% out-of-the-box...
As with the hardware example above, Linux isn't a "one-size-fits-all" magic system that many Linux fans make out. Personally, my Fedora installation has taken many hours of tweaking and playing with to get it the way I want it - installing media codecs, finding Linux-equivalent software for various tasks, configuring the OS to run the way I want it to.

...But don't be afraid to play
I haven't worked with any other distro, but don't be afraid to get your hands dirty and mess around. If something isn't how you like it, there's more than likely a way to alter it. For example, my desktop (screenshot below) has been heavily modified from the standard GNOME desktop layout - the default desktop environment for Fedora and Ubuntu. I've made it look the way I want it to look - like Windows - because that's what I'm used to and I want to use the software because of the functionality, not the look.



Hopefully I've given some useful info that's helped people to decide if they want to switch. I'm quite happily using both Linux and Windows.

My Software
Linux Distro - Fedora 8
Visual Effects Engine - Compiz-Fusion (used to be Beryl on Fedora Core 7)
Window Decorator - Emerald with Crystal-ICE theme

Music - Amarok
Video - VLC & mPlayer
DVDs - Xine
MSN - aMSN (Alvaro's Messenger)
Email - Mozilla Thunderbird
Web - Mozilla Firefox
FTP - gFTP (standalone) & FireFTP (Firefox extension)
Office suite - OpenOffice
BitTorrent - Azureus
Graphics - Adobe Fireworks CS3 (running under Wine)
Text Editor - Gedit

Cheers,
MaidenFan