I’ve used Windows my entire life, but I’m starting to think I want to change to linux.
I’ve been having tons of problems updating my anti-virus, and I just asked myself, “Why not change?”
It depends on what you use the computer for.
If you just surf the web, check email, and listen to music, sure.
If you have some expensive piece of commercial software that you need to use for a job, you will go with what system that software requires.
Anything in between depends. Much software is available on Linux, including equivalents to Windoes and Mac software. But often it is slightly or greatly different to use.
What do mean by change? You could do everything from just boot Linux from a CD and play around with it to wipe all traces of Windows from your computer, abandon most of your applications, and set out from there. If you switch to Linux, you have to pick a “flavor” or variant of it. There are some that have installers like Windows does but that wasn’t always the case.
The easiest way to try Linux is to get a free Ubuntu Linux CD shipped to you. The CD is what’s called a ‘Live CD’, which means a whole OS (in this case, Ubuntu Linux) runs directly from the CD and memory without so much as touching your hard drive. That way, there is no possible chance of screwing up your system. If you like it, installation to the hard drive is very easy. If you don’t, you aren’t out anything.
I should have been more specific. I use my computer for all of my creative and personal exploits. This includes: learning webdesign, photoshop, writing, etc.
I listen to music. I keep in touch with my family through skype.
To be honest, I was just reading at the Linux site about the “Live CD,” and I don’t totally understand it. Does that mean I can leave Windows on my computer and make a bootdisk for Linux?
My disk drive works pretty slowly on my laptop (it’s pushing five years old), so I don’t think a bootdisk would be the best idea. I have all the CDs for windows, so I could always go back, I guess.
About the different “flavors” of linux, I also heard of Ubuntu (sp?), is this one of the flavors? How do I find which flavor I want?
Yes. Try out one of the ‘Live CD’ distributions of Linux to see whether you like it. These are bootable CDs which contain all of the Linux system software. If your computer can boot off the CD drive, it can boot using one of these discs, and will run completely in Linux without touching Windows or the software and data already in your computer.
You can get Linux Live CDs from various websites. I suggest Knoppix or Ubuntu; In my experience, they work well if many different computers and will likely work well on yours.
A Live CD can be downloaded as a single file about 700 MB in size. It is a ‘disk image’ which any CD burner can write directly to a CD.
And you can get Skype for Linux: Download Skype for mobile & desktop | Skype
The live CD lets you keep Windows but screw around with Linux by booting from CD. You better think hard about all this because Linux isn’t just a direct competitor to Windows. Lots of things are very different and some applications may be totally different or even virtually absent if you are into some niche thing. You would have to figure out how to get your old files somewhere Linux could read and you may not be able to read some of them again at all.
Linux does all this very well. Photoshop’s equivalent is Gimp, writing is OpenOffice, and music is likely xmms although there are tons of other options. In fact, there are other options for all these, but the ones I mentioned will come with the Live CD I pointed you towards. Everything else will be easily downloadable.
How easy? You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. 
Yes. The CD gets inserted into the drive, the computer boots from the CD, and the hard drive never gets bothered. Making a bootdisk isn’t really needed, because all modern computers can boot from the CD just fine.
Ubuntu is a good choice. I’ve been though a handful and I’ll likely never go to anything else.
Photoshop itself does not run under Linux, but there is an equivalent program called The Gimp that does much of what Photoshop does. It’s a free download (for both Linux and Windows), so you can try it out. http://www.gimp.org/
Writing? There is Open Office that includes a word processor. It’s another free download for both Linux and Windows. http://download.openoffice.org/2.1.0/index.html
Web pages? Try NVU: http://www.nvu.com/index.php
There are many others.
As someone who uses Linux at work and Windows at home, I think you need … Mac OS X! My gf has it at her home and work and it is simply fantastic, beautifully integrated and consistent. Stuff just works, and all those apps you want come with it or are easily available.
Shagnasty, you are making Linux look bad! =)
It may be worth noting that the OpenOffice interface is likely to look and feel more familiar to you than the newest version of Microsoft Office would, given the GUI changes MS has been making.
In regards to The GIMP, if your worried about the transition, there is another version of it called GIMPShop, that is GIMP with a user interface designed to mimic Photoshop better.
It’s also available for windows if you don’t end up going with Linux, but like GIMP.
For webdesign, personally I suggest Bluefish, but it is very much a personal taste. It’s just a very powerful text editor… no WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), so maybe not good for a beginner…
As for the dreaded “Which version?”…
Ubuntu is the easiest to get started with, as far as I have tried.
If you don’t mind burning some CDs, OpenSUSE is one of the larger distributions.
Fedora is perhaps the most popular distribution (well, before Ubuntu, now i’m not so sure.)
As for picking from those? Poke around the sites for a few minutes. If neither of the latter two strike your interest, go with Ubuntu (or even Kubuntu, which is essentially the same thing, but the interface is a bit closer to windows.)
Alright, now that I probably overwhelmed you… if your eyes glazed over on that, than I suggest look just above for the Kubuntu link, and try that one. You can download a CD image or request a free CD here .
Hope I didn’t scare you away.
In my experience, live CDs don’t work very well in older machines and may not give you a fair taste of what it’s like to use the OS in question.
It may well be that Linux (and I’m another one who will recommend Ubuntu) would work for the OP; there’s lots of excellent creative software available for Linux, and the good thing is that, assuming you can actually find and install the software that suits your needs, it’s usually available free of charge.
As Sunspace said, if you need to use a specific bit of Windows software, you might have trouble. It is possible to run a lot of Windows software using a compatibility layer called WINE, but the results are not always perfect.
If you want to play lots of popular games, you could be in for a headache, but if you want to email, browse the web, write, design and play with audio-visual stuff, and you don’t mind learning to use a few new applications, it could be good for you.
My favourite apps for Linux include:
-Audacity (excellent multi-track audio recording/mixing/editing program)
-Inkscape (vector graphics program with lots of features)
Unless you are doing very basic stuff with photoshop you will be disappointed with gimp.
Whether Linux is good for you comes down to two simple questions:
- Can you navigate a command terminal?
- Would you enjoy going through the Linux version of DLL hell for every single program you ever install?
If you don’t even understand the questions, get OS X.
Sage rat, your second question is a bit… well… extreme, don’t you think? I mean, yes, resolving a clash of dependencies and having to recompile from source with different libraries etc can be a massive pain in the arse, in fact just one instance of this is all it takes to send most new Linux users running back to Windows, but it would be quite wrong to suggest that’s what happens every time you try to install something, because that is not the case at all.
I agree with Aserrann; Ubuntu or similar would be best for your uses. I also agree with Mangetout… I haven’t had to compile anything myself for a couple of years now. Quite a few years if you don’t count wacky cutting-edge custom software; the Debian package manager has worked very well for me for some time now.
My box is headless, but I understand there’s a nifty GUI on the package system now, so I can easily imagine that people who got along without the command line in Windows could also do so in Linux.
Actually, i think Sage Rat’s first question is phrased a bit harshly as well.
For one thing, most of the time you really don’t need to dig down into the command line. Nanoda is right, almost everything has a GUI now. If not built in, many programs have programs written just to provide a GUI. Generally, even if you do need the command line, you can find someone online who can give you the exact command to cut and paste.
That said, a much better question would be “Are you willing to learn the command line?”. Linux has built in help files for most commands (which is sometimes a bit obscure, but the idea is there). After you learn the basic outline of a linux command, how to use it isn’t too hard to learn.
The point was whether the OP even understands the questions. If he doesn’t, it’s not even much worth talking about. If you understand the questions, then yes you would be fine getting Linux. No it won’t be that bad, but you do need at least enough knowledge implicit in understanding the questions just so that you can at least follow manuals (well…random postings to BBSs) on how to fix things if you screw them up.