RE: Looking for advice

Dear Dennis:

1. Are you planning to keep Windows only to run Word and Excel? I have
managed myself to live without them. StarOffice works great. I just finished
my MBA grad project with its tools, and there were very few things I missed
and many I won. There is also Perfect Office for Linux (I am not quit sure
if it is still sold as MS got power over Corel...).

2. There is a program that allows to run MSOffice on Linux without having
Windows on your computer. I don't recall it's name, but you may search at
www.google.com/linux .

3. If you do require Windows for some special reason, you may take a look at
VMWare. It is a virtual machine software, i.e. you can start windows in an X
window and run it over Linux. You need more system resources on this one,
but you can run all your Windows applications.

4. The software availability depends on what you want/require. Instead of
looking for existing Windows applications ported to Linux, I would rather
look for a native Linux application that does exactly what I require. For
instance, AutoCAD is not ported to Linux, but there exists VariCAD instead
(unfortunately, the version I bought was outstandingly bad documented, so
take care on this).

5. Regarding your printers, I have a LaserJet Series II, a DeskJet 820xCI,
and a Panasonic 1024. They all work fine. There is a website called
"linuxprinters". You may look for information on your hardware there, or
search at google.

Best wishes,

-Manuel.

-----Mensaje original-----
De: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]En nombre de Dennis
Enviado el: sabado, 29 de junio de 2002 18:03
Para: '[email protected]'
Asunto: Looking for advice


I have made the decision to switch from MS Windows to Linux. I am leaning
toward Linux Redhat. But I am not too certain what I will end up with after
making the switch. My intention is to maintain the ability to use certain MS
programs (namely MS Word and MS Excel spreadsheet) after making the switch.
I
could do this by maintaining MS Windows on a separate partition of C drive,
or
by running Windows on one machine and Linux on another. I purchased the
allegedly Windows-compatible program Partition Magic about two year ago for
the
purpose of repartitioning C drive without first having to reformat. But the
repartition failed. Partition Magic failed to accomplish the repartition. I
made the effort to repartition for the purpose of installing Linux on the
new
partition.

I am now considering a couple of options on how to get Linux installed,
while
also retaining the use of Windows applications. A) I could format C drive
and
repartition it as two drives, and install Windows on one and Linux on the
other. B) I could obtain a new machine (a more cost option) and run Windows
on
one and Linux on the other.

I am uncertain on how to proceed, however. My current machine has an AMD K6
cpu
running at 350MH with 128KB of Ram. The hard drive is 10GB. I worry that I
am
or would run out of hardware resources. So that leaves me with the thought
that
(1) I should either upgrade my current machine, or (2) not install both OSs
on
my current machine and instead obtain a new machine upon which to install
Linux.

Some of the other questions I have about migrating to Linux have to do with
hardware device drivers. For instance, does Linux Redhat (my currently
favored
version) have hardware device drivers for the HP-III laser printer (old but
still cranking), my HP 1215 ink jet printer, and my HP Scanjet 5200C
scanner?
It would be useful for me to know whether these hardware devices are
supported
by and will function with Linux applications.

Another question I have is what MS Windows programs are currently ported to
Windows? If the several Windows applications I wish to maintain (at least
for
the present) are ported to Linux applications then I may not need to
maintain
Windows when I switch to Linux. And, as I mentioned, I am heavily leaning
toward Linux Redhat. I remain open to advice and suggestions, however. I
like
the idea of an open-source company such as Redhat with its reservoir of
computer expertise looking out for the interests of its customers. I do not
have such expertise and never will. My focus, from the beginning (my first
machine was an 8088 running at 4MH) has been on running the applications,
the
word processors, the spreadsheets and the databases. I am not a code writer.
I
never seriously considered writing code because I was always and remain too
busy running the applications. I consider code writing a special talent. It
just not my talent.

I subcribe to Linux Journal. The editorial content of that magazine,
however,
is geared toward Linux administrators, one of which I am not. I do read the
magazine, however, looking for information that might be useful to a
non-programmer, end-user like me. I remain on the watch for other Linux
magazines or sources of information that might be useful for the end user
(more
so than a system administrator).

Any advice from the Linux community on these matters is truly welcome.

Dennis Auvil
Chehalis, WA



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