Linux is quite capable of reading a FAT volume.
I’d just store the files on a seperate FAT formatted partition.
Modro, you forgot to mention that Euty has to mount the device to be able to access it. In contradistinction to Windows, Linux does not automatically provide you with access to all devices that you have available. It only mounts the devices that are specified in the configuration file (don’t have the name of the file ready, sorry). Some distributions may set up automatically the Windows partitions, but if yours doesn’t, you have to do it by hand. This article seems to give a fair description of how to do it.
Tuckerfan wrote
Well, when I say “engineering,” what I really mean is development activities. The company I work at builds an appliance which provides network security services. It’s based on Linux.
Also, there are a number of times when I need to do some on-the-fly data processing, say summarizing some info in a large database. It’s typically much easier to throw something together quickly with awk or perl or sed or whatever then try to deal with it in say excel.
So (disappointingly I’m sure), the tools I typically use are cc, bash, perl, etc. Also, a number of security-specific apps like nmap, snort, iptables, nessus, etc.
Euty, as was pointed out, Linux does well with FAT when you set it up right. But one warning that’s sure to come up: Linux doesn’t deal well with NTFS (yet). Windows is better with NTFS, so what you’ll want to do is set up a Windows partition as NTFS, a Linux partition as ext2, and a shared partition as FAT.
Euty for god’s sake, dump ME. That was rushed out, is 4 years old now, and is pure dogfood.
If one is gonna compare Linux and Windows, at least make it an apples to apples comparison and use at least a recent version of both.
I’m a switcher. From ME, too.
I started out with RH8 on my laptop last October, dual-booting with ME.
I recently replaced both with SuSE 8.2, and I’m doing Linux full time.
While the idea of Open Source/Free Software intrigues me, I’m by no means a zealot.
I like getting things for free, though.
If you’re having trouble with Redhat, try SuSE. It sure as hell beats the snot outta ME for a multimedia and web development platform.
Hell, a properly configured system is good enough to replace Windows for probably 95% of people. I’d give it to the mythical Grandma Who Just Wants To Send Email And Look Up Recipes right after OSX and eons before anything from Microsoft.
Sorry, but if I hear “It’s ready for servers, not for the desktop” line one more time I think I’m gonna scream. It’s damn well ready for the desktop, unless you’re a gamer or you need some very specialized Windows-only application. And even that will change soon enough.
I’ve been using Linux since about '97 and made it my primary desktop OS in '99 or so. My desktop machine doesn’t even have a copy of Windows to dual boot into anymore, my ThinkPad retains the factory installed copy for use with my GPS on road trips and for the times when I need to send a fax (I’m not sure if the linux driver for the fax/modem supports the fax part suppose I should RTFM someday) otherwise it’s booted into Linux al the time.
For my desktop system there are Linux drivers for all of my hardware, I’m running it dual headed (two vid cards and two monitors), thanks to MPlayer I can watch every digital video format windows users can - basically I’m not lacking in any gee-whiz features because my OS of choice isn’t ready for the desktop. Much like edwino I have an old PC with Linux on it doing duty as a firewall/router for the home network and a dedicated MP3 player attached to the stereo, only I control mine by forwarding an XWindows connection back to either my desktop or the laptop and using XMMS (sorta a winamp clone, only not owned by AOL) instead of his fancy pants remote control 
But all of this has come at a price. You’ll notice that it took two years of usage before I was comfortable enough to switch away from windows. You not only have to learn how to do things the UNIX way (which is in IMO fundamentally superior to the windows way) but also have to unlearn how to do things the windows way to really take full advantage of the OS. So if you’re willing to learn how to use your computer all over again it’s worth it. I can do about 99% of what I need to do with computer under Linux, I can do maybe 50% with windows. These days using Windows is painful for me - nothing works right, the GUI is ugly and works stupidly, I can’t switch between multiple desktops, I have to use the fsking mouse to get anything done instead of my beloved command line and I have to pay for most good software, which is a real bummer.
Remember it probably took you quite a while to develope your computer skills, and habits, under Windows and it will take a while for you to learn how to do the same things under Linux too. I’d say keep it installed and use it on those days that you feel like tinkering and learning something new. It’s still a steep learning curve, but once you’ve learned the basics you’ll become addicted to the control and flexibility you have in Linux, not to mention all the high quality free software out there.
black455 wrote
Fire up your pipes, friend. I don’t play games, and though I am particular about my apps, the ones I use are hardly “very specialized.”
Quicken: Forget about it. Not Wine-able yet either.
Internet Explorer: I’m sorry, but no browser comes close to IE. I use Konqueror regularly on Linux, and Opera occasionally, but they just don’t come close. (I will confess, I love the “enhanced browsing” in Konqueror, where I can enter “gg:cecil” to get a google, or “dict:felch” to get a m-w.com reading on a word, etc. Really wish IE had similar)
Outlook: Nothing close. Evolution is a good start, but doing anything beyond stock is out of the question. Simple macros on incoming messages to start. I settled on KMail and used it full time for 4 months. I really really tried. But eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and went back to Windows for Outlook.
Project: Forget about it. Played with many including MrProject, blech.
Visio: Kivio dies too often. Diagram Editor is too juvenile.
Any kind of Digital Camera interface: I’ve had a half dozen digital cameras over the years and couldn’t find one I could make work with Linux.
Word: I really tried with OO. Really. It crashed so often, I had problems with the font server, etc. Most importantly, it’s horrific at reading word docs. As a simple example, I read a lot of resumes as part of my job. I’d say half of them can’t be read by OO Writer. That’s right 50%. I’m happy to post examples for nay-sayers. And by the way, even being unable to read 5% of docs that other people send you in the real world is completely unworkable.
Excel: Same as Word.
Pocket PC Sync: Nada. BTW, I used Palm since literally day one, and I was the biggest fan until PPC passed em a year or two ago. Sorry, that’s reality. And I can’t sync with anything on Linux. Oh, and I do yearn to put Linux on the PPC, when I have time, but then I’ll lose a bunch of my fave apps on it. That’s another story though.
mIRC: BitchX? please. XIRC? Nothing comes close to mIRC in reasonable scripting capabilties. The best I found is mIRC on Wine, which is actually dang close, but with a few annoying inconveniences.
Oh, I do enjoy doing doing music stuff, I guess that’s pretty specialized. Stuff like Cakewalk, CoolEdit or Buzz can’t be found on Linux. (Buzz, btw is so much more in tune with the whole Linux open source dream, I can’t imagine why there’s anything out there like it on Linux.)
I use Mandrake, currently 9.1 and very seldom switch back to XP. I have XP on a FAT32 partition and the drives are automatically mounted in Mandrake in /mnt. I can honestly say for my purposes and needs, Linux is better than Windows. Stick it out for a little longer check out some programs on SourceForge and if after a while, you decide it’s not your thing, you can always go back to Windows. (Hopefully not Win ME…heh)
Psst, Bill H., in this thread, Mort Furd mentiones a Linux music program called Rosegarden that seems to have quite a lot of features. Don’t know whether it is any good, though.
Thanks, Tusculan, but this is another good example. Rosegarden is ok, but nothing like the stuff on Windows. Oh, btw, the thread you pointed out had another good addition to my list, Fruity Loops. Nothing like that on Linux.
And, to reiterate again, for those that don’t know… I’m a HUGE Linux fan. I wish wish wish I could use it as a desktop. Every 6-12 months, I force myself to try, just hoping it’ll finally be cooked. My last try ended about 2 months ago, and lasted for almost 4 months. It was so painful.
But it is getting better, and quickly. Wine is constantly improving, and seeing a commercial version in CodeWeavers is a big step in the right direction. There’s just more to go.
TheFunkySpaceCowboy
The schematics for building a remote control are availible online, and it cost me about $15 in components. It works pretty well, and there is an incredibly well supported IR community (http://www.lirc.org).
I do the xmms thing, but it becomes irritating for my wife’s Windows laptop. So instead, I use the mserv (http://www.mserv.org/) daemon (which I am not entirely happy with – it has not been updated in a while, it doesn’t do playlists, it doesn’t support OGG and AAC), but it does have a real handy telnet interface, as well as two pretty handy web-based interfaces (one html and one php). It also has pretty good inherent support for the IR.
One of these days, with a bit of motivation, I am going to switch over to RIMPS (http://rimps.sourceforge.net/). It seems like a quality development.
In short, you can use Linux to do things undreamable for the even the advanced user of other OSs. Not just mp3 servers, but industrial strength FTP and web servers, development environments, professional grade graphics packages and ray tracing, and digital studio software to name a few. And it’s all free! Granted, these programs are not necessarily as stable as the commercial releases, but part of the Linux mystique is to encourage active involvement in development and bug fixing. If you don’t need these, or don’t particularly want the capabilities at the sacrifice of stability, you should stay away from Linux as a primary OS.