[NCLUG] Living without windows? LONG

Daniel Miles dmiles at holly.colostate.edu
Mon Feb 18 10:02:16 MST 2002


Firstly, I'm a little hesitant to agree with Mr. Reed's assertion that you can do this, there are a few problems that you might not be able to get by.

If you teach VB you'd be religated to using it on your winblows machine at work 'cause you sure as hell can't get it at home if you're linux-only. VB uses calls that MS glosses over (an unlawful action) in their API and wine can't support system calls that wine coders can't find. Flash as well uses a lot of those system calls and macromedia doesn't see fit to support *nix at all (possibly because they made a deal with MS to get the accurate API, I don't know). I'm just not sure about access, you'll have to get that answer off of somebody else. There are a lot of options out there to *do* the things that access does (often better) but I'm not sure about actually using access.

As to your wife, if *YOU* set up the box and get a graphical logon thingie, she should have no trouble at all, GUI on linux is getting pretty good.

I also disagree with the preclusion that the first few months of use will be hell. Linux people often like to pump ourselves up by talking about how hard it is to use and how cool we are for using it (before people get offended, I'm REALLY including myself in this), don't believe us 'till you've seen it for yourself, it's not that scary. You just have to go into it knowing that this isn't Microsoft and not everything works the same way. As a computer guru you might get a little frustrated because you don't know how to do everything here like you did in winblows but you can learn easily it and you'll be a better geek for it when you do.

If you decide to go with Linux (it's not impossible!) keep this mailing list in mind, there are some profoundly knowledgable people in here who will be more than happy to help you.

I inserted other comments into your letter but that's the important stuff.


On Sun, 17 Feb 2002 21:36:59 -0700
Rich Young <rich at republicoftech.com> wrote:

> Hi, all-
> 	I'm looking for advice on migrating to linux permanently, for all my 
> computing  needs.  Sound, dogma-free advice would be very much appreciated. 
> Here's the situation:
> 	Around the middle of last week, my windows machine lost its hard drive.  I 
> have  an old, partial backup of the system, but it's essentially a 
> start-from-scratch situation.  When I was still trying to get the machine up 
> & running again, I stuck in the hard drive from my (non-functional) linux 
> box, which contained a basically unmolested install of the December release 
> of KRUD 7.2.  To my surprise and amazement, it worked immediately.  
> Apparently, it was hardware peculiarities with my old castaway project 
> machine that kept the box from running in the past; on the "new" Athlon 500, 
> it simply recognized new hardware and started working like it was supposed to.
> 	Now, I have a perfectly legal copy of Windows 98 that I could simply 
> reinstall  on the new hard drive, but I am unwilling to part with my working 
> linux installation.  If I'm starting over, then this is an opportunity to try 
> out a life with linux.  My wife thinks spending for a new hard drive is best 
> avoided. So I told her that, if she's willing to give linux a fair shake, I'm 
> willing to let "us" have "my" hard drive, thereby saving the family a hundred 
> or so bucks.
> This is where the complications start to creep in:
> 1) She is not a computer hobbyist, and wants the simplest user experience
>  availlable to her.  Microsoft doesn't make her angry, but she loses patience
>  quickly with computers that don't do what she expects them to.

in X, linux can function pretty similarly to windows, as long as she doesn't have to install anything or configure anything she should be OK


> 2) She needs the following capabilities:
> 	-email (no problem, already running)
> 	-web browsing (again, no problem)
> 	-word processing & compatibility with MSWord (StarOffice?)
> 	-scanner use (HP 6200C) & basic image editing (Jasc PaintShop Pro, ideally)
> 	-of course, printing (HP 810C)

Everythign on that list should be fine. I use StarOffice and I've never had a problem but I've heard that it borks on more complicated MS office files, the rumor on the street is that OpenOffice (the name given to StarOffice by the people who picked up the project when SUN dropped it) is better about that. The only one of those I'm not sure about is the scanner, I don't have one I've not had any experiance with them, check with HP, they do a lot of linux work themselves and HP products seem to be a good bet for linux.

> There may be other capabilities that she expects, but hasn't articulated to me
>  yet....
> 
> I am not without my own complications:
> 3) I need the following additional capabilities:
> 	-advanced image manipulation (GIMP, but I'll miss PaintShop Pro...)
> 	-Visual Basic (I teach a VB-for-beginning-programmers class)
> 	-MS Access (another class I teach, plus freelance uses....)
> 	-web and database development (no real problem, though I'll miss TextPad...)
> 	-possibly other web-dev-related apps, like Flash, etc.

VB is right out, it uses calls that MS glosses over (an unlawful action) in their API and wine can't support system calls that wine coders can't find.

I'm not really sure about access but I know there are things out there that do what access does, if this is a problem I'm not confident you can surmount it.

Flash is also right out, Macromedia doesn't feel Linux is very important and flash uses many of the same system calls that VB does, MS is keeping those secrets and without a lengthy and expensive lawsuit we're never getting them.

> 4) I am not (yet) administrator material with linux.  I've been a user (work
> the file system, use vi, administer apache, some perl for CGI and text 
> munging, and not much else) for a couple years now.

You'll pick it up as you go allong... Linux chat rooms are invaluable.


> 
> 	So, I guess my question (finally!) is: will this work?  Can I, with some
> combination of WINE & substitute linux apps, stay productive as a developer,
> teach my classes, and give my wife a computing experience comparable to what
> she's enjoyed on windows for the last decade?  I know the old line is that
> linux is for servers, but I don't believe that anymore -- many of you seem to 
> be using it for everything and getting along just fine, right?
> 	Any advice you can furnish on how to go about this transition as painlessly 
> as possible will be greatly appreciated.  I'd be especially thankful for
> advice/resources on getting started with WINE.
> 
> Thanks,
> --Rich Young
>    rich at RepublicOfTech.com
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