I have an opportunity to get my wife to consider switching from
Windows to linux, but I don't think Fedora is the right distro for
her. I'm wondering about Linspire/Freespire (Freespire is to Linspire
as Fedora is to RedHat?) or Ubuntu. (I've been using Redhat & Fedora
since '98.) I've also been frustrated at some of the compatibility
problems (like wireless) with Fedora, so I'm considering switching,
too. On the other hand, I like being able to get some of the newest
apps, like the newest gnucash, on Fedora.
Eric Raymond's recent piece on Slashdot was pretty convincing, too.
He argued that it is good for the linux open/free community to get
linux in as many places as possible, even if it means mixing the
distros with commercial drivers, because linux needs more market share
in order to succeed against windows, particularly as 64-bit comes on
the scene.
The "family license" of Linspire seems pretty attractive, too.
A big win would be to get my 17 yr old son off windows. He's forever
infecting the windows box with junk from his web surfing.
My most-used apps:
Open office
Tetex/latex
ps utils
gnucash
mutt
VPN (compatible with my work, which uses Cisco)
wine
perl
firefox
USB devices: scanner, drive, camera
code development utils
multimedia (not so good on Fedora)
gpg
My wife would like to use Publisher (windows). She might be able to
use Scribus (I haven't used it successfully).
Her favorites:
AOL (I can't break her loose of this)
MS office apps
Suggestions?
Thanks,
Bill
