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
Bill, I've been a Linux user for less than a month now, so take this with a grain of salt. In my search for a distro, I first tried Gentoo and Ubuntu, and finally installed openSuSE. Its a large distro (5 CDs, or 1 DVD), so you may have space considerations. For me, anyway, its been more user friendly than the others - YaST is a blast...lol. I think the key here as far as your family goes is to use the same distro for all, and that should be the one you are happiest with, because in the final analysis its going to be you at the help desk while they climb the learning curve. Is there enough room on your son's box to set it up for dual booting? Just a thought... Good luck, Bruce On Sat, 2007-02-17 at 17:00 -0500, Bill Mills-Curran wrote:
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 _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug@mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug
On Saturday 17 February 2007, Bill Mills-Curran wrote:
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.
Install Ubuntu (I prefer Kubuntu, but hey I do KDE devel). Set up *AHEAD OF TIME* all paths, icons, multimedia codecs, etc. Anything you could possibly want to do in Windows....Just to cut down on the bitching later. In the meantime, install Firefox and remove all IE icons. Remove AOL, no matter what the wife says. Use a stick if necessary. Just tell her that "AOL broke". Say nothing further. Your son will want games. Get him a Wii. Buy an extra controller and invite me over. I kill at Bowling.
participants (3)
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Bill Mills-Curran -
Brendan -
Bruce Linnell