Andromeda IT - Specialists in home and small business computing
It all depends on your personality & interests.
If you are interested in PCs and how they work, you will LOVE Linux. You will get to learn a lot of interesting stuff, and it may even enhance your career prospects.
However, if a PC is just a tool that allows you to run the application software you require, then you are currently better off with Windows.
An analogy is cars - some people want to understand how they work and love tinkering with them, others just want to get from A to B. If PC-wise you are an A to B person, stick with Windows.
Even if you are a "techie" and want to use Linux, you will probably need to keep running Windows too for a while.
Since you are definitely going to need a good Linux book to assist with installation and problem resolution, we recommend that you get a book that comes with a Linux CD for a current release.
Note: We have found books by Naba Barkakati to be excellent.
Windows on the other hand, costs a lot of money. Bill Gates is already
the richest man in the world, so no need to give him the extra cash!
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Linux installation is a more complex process than a Windows installation. For one thing you will probably want to keep Windows for a while, so you end up partitioning your hard disk to create a dual-boot system; i.e. one that allows you to run either Linux or Windows.
Note: This partitioning is not too difficult, and the Linux install process includes software to assist, however if things go wrong you could end up losing everything on your Windows system, so best to back it up first.
But you can try Knoppix Linux without the complication of partitioning or making any changes at all to your hard drive. Knoppix is Linux on a CD and for many people interested in Linux, it is the best first step.
Most people will not have problems with the Linux install and it will be up and running in an hour or so, but one surprising aspect is that you have to answer questions about about your monitor horizontal & vertical refresh rates, so best to look this up in advance!
Note: Linux installation gives you a lot of options in terms of what "packages" (products) you are going to install. Assuming you have enough disk space, your best option is to install everything, especially if you are likely to be playing state-of-the-art games.
Once Linux is installed, you will probably find that some of your hardware
is not working properly, for example sound cards, printers, CD drives etc. Here
is where the Linux book you bought comes into its own. Most of these problems
are easily solved, but do take a little time. One great Linux feature is
that it allows you to change parameters or install software on the fly
so you won't need to reboot to get things working!
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However, suppliers are now starting to create drivers for Linux too so in many instances your hardware will work fine.
Nevertheless, when buying new hardware it is advisable to check whether it is supported first. (Search the Internet for "Linux Hardware Compatibility" and there are many sites giving compatibility information).
Note: Some hardware, for example the Win modem, is designed to run ONLY on Windows. These are cheaper than other modems because they rely on the Windows operating system to perform certain functions for them. We have also had problems with Linux drivers for wireless cards and printers.
Note: Printing under Linux used to be difficult. Drivers were not always
available for older printers which resulted in a need to install and (worse)
configure complex products like Ghostscript. Later releases of Linux have
support for a much wider range of printers built-in.
In our experience, any software available on Windows has an equivalent free product available on Linux.
However, the expensive best-of-breed applications invariably run on Windows but are often not available on Linux. One best-of-breed product that does run on Linux is OpenOffice, which is free, and is much better than Microsoft Office. However, your kids won't know how to use it!
Note: Crossover Office allows you to run many Windows programs on Linux but is NOT free! Since most people will have Windows already, they just run their existing Windows-only applications under Windows.
Linux can access files created with other operating systems such as Windows.
This would seem to be in its favour. For example you can open Word documents
on your Windows file system from OpenOffice under Linux. However the fact
that Windows can't access other file systems is one thing that keeps people
using it! (Say you create a spreadsheet in OpenOffice, you will probably find
that the kids always boot the PC into Windows [for games] so you have to reboot
into Linux every time you need to use it. This soon makes you create your
spreadsheets with Excel.)
Firefox is better, (more secure and extra features) and is available on Linux (as well as Windows). However many web sites require additional plugins (extra programs that extend the range of browser features, for example to play video streams or Flash graphics). The range of plugins available currently for Firefox is not as great as for Internet Explorer, so you may find there are sites you can't access, or that have reduced function!
Note: There are lots of other browsers available under Linux, however
these are even less likely to have the plugins!
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Basically this is a Linux Kernel (i.e. the operating system itself), plus a LOT of products that you need to make it useful. These include for example, GUI windowing systems, products to write CDs, programs for email, sound and browsing the Internet. These are all provided by different groups of people and are FREE.
For most purposes a Linux distribution, will do pretty much everything you want. Even for simple games like chess, you will be fine.
However, the state-of-the-art (FREE) Linux games often require a particular set of utilities, which may or (more likely) may not match what came with your distribution. This leaves you with the problem of finding all the extra bits of software you require to get them going. (You try to install program 1 and it requires utility package 1, 2 and 3. So, you find them and try to install them and you find utility package 1 requires packages 4, 5 and 6, and that package 2 requires packages 7, 8, 9 etc.)
Often this is such a complicated task that, unless you are very highly motivated you are probably going to give up! So, for state-of-the-art games, often Windows is a lot simpler!
Note: This interdependency issue is one reason why we recommend that you install ALL packages when creating your Linux system.
Note: SuSE Linux has an online installer and a great product (YAST2)
for package installation and system set-up. This program can normally sort
out all the dependencies for you, download all the packages you require
and install them.
However, there are currently lots of distributions out there, all slightly different. Career-wise, you need to learn a release widely used in business. The best ones to learn are RedHat and SuSE. The Enterprise products are the best ones to learn, but these are expensive. You can download Fedora Linux (from RedHat) or SuSE Linux Professional free.
Knoppix is great at recognising almost all hardware with no problems whatsoever, so should install easily.
Also, there are excellent tutorials to show you how to configure it and use it. You can save your configuration on a floppy so that next time you boot it is all set up. If you really like it then you can install it (or preferably RedHat or SuSE) on your hard disk.
