i now have most every kind of app i needed under windowz

[RedHat123]

recently installed Fedora, and after setting up my workstaiton the way i want, ive can do just about everything i ever needed to do with win2k.
dvd player - xine
cd burning
mysql
java, netbeans ide
xmms for mp3s
open office for working with spreadsheets and moving back and forth between ms office file types
gimp for photo/image editing
usb for grabbing photos from my sony digital camera
printing via epson cx3200

next on the list i plan on trying out some of the open source flash editors and some 3d modeling apps, and then try to get a few games working through wine.

after moving from RH7.2 back to win2k, the only things holding me back was support for my digital camera and printer. i ended up buying a new printer anyway. as it stands now, i dont ever see installing another copy of windowz anywhere in my house.

as my kids get old enough to use a pc, it will probably be linux

[EnigmaOne]

Originally posted by RedHat123
next on the list i plan on trying out some of the open source flash editors and some 3d modeling apps

Suggestion: Look into povray--very cool!

[blackbelt_jones]

I'm getting close, after "downgrading" from Fedora to the dearly departed-- and much more stable-- RedHat 9. I plan on sticking with RedHat9 until I can afford the Enterpise version, get a computer with enough speed and RAM that running SuSE isn't horribly borribly slow, or figure out Debian.

I still haven't managed top burn CDs in Linux, but since my CD burner exploded in a freak accident (apparently, my Win98 CD had a crack, and it broke apart during install with a loud bang-- jamming the machine with timy shards of whatever CDs are made of) so that's not applicable yet.

What I need to get working is a gnutella p2p client. I keep trying to install LimeWire, but there's a problem with Java. I installed it, but I didn't install the right kind, or I installed it in the wrong place. I know this is a terrible confession, but I still don't know what Java is for, so you can see why I'm baffled by this.

However, I got a video player working, got XMMS playing mp3s, got a script to automate my IRC downloads in Xchat. It's great to remember how these things also used to baffle, so I'm sure I'll get the limewire and the java working together by and by. Or I'll take it to the LUG, so named, I suppose, because when all else fails, you LUG your computer to the meeting and get some help.

[Syngin]

Here's a site dedicated to running WIndows programs under WIne:
http://frankscorner.org/

[Parcival]

Originally posted by blackbelt_jones
I know this is a terrible confession, but I still don't know what Java is for, so you can see why I'm baffled by this.

Nah, it's not terrible, nobody knows everything on the face of this planet. :) Java basically is nothing more than a programming language with various pros and cons. One of the pros surely is that it's platform independent. As long as you're not a programmer (or try to become one), Java (and particularly an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) like e.g. NetBeans) is useless for you except for the Java applets you may encounter on websites. For this purpose your browser needs a Java plugin to display them. When googling and/or searching the forum you will easily find answers on this task.

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by blackbelt_jones
(apparently, my Win98 CD had a crack, and it broke apart during install with a loud bang-- jamming the machine with timy shards of whatever CDs are made of) You too?

The family '98 machine's CD did pretty much exactly the same thing. My father was able to order a replacement from Microsoft for something like $20, somehow. Sorry, but I don't remember how or where -- it was probably somewhere on their site...

[freakmn]

I've had the cd thing happen to myself, and a couple people I fix computers for, and I found that disassembling the drive (usually just need small phillips head screwdriver), taking out the big shards, and blowing out the rest with compressed air fixes the drive. So, you're just out the cd, and not the drive.

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Originally posted by blackbelt_jones
I'm getting close, after "downgrading" from Fedora to the dearly departed-- and much more stable-- RedHat 9. I plan on sticking with RedHat9 until I can afford the Enterpise version, get a computer with enough speed and RAM that running SuSE isn't horribly borribly slow, or figure out Debian.


Just a word of advice: as someone who has corporate-level access to RedHat software, you're not missing anything between Red Hat 9 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3. RHEL 3 is built off of Red Hat 9, because 9 was so stable.

If you don't like Fedora, and you can't afford RHEL, just stick with 9-- you won't miss anything.

[fatTrav]

Originally posted by blackbelt_jones
I'm getting close, after "downgrading" from Fedora to the dearly departed-- and much more stable-- RedHat 9. I plan on sticking with RedHat9 until I can afford the Enterpise version...

Try whitebox linux -->>http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/

[CaptainPinko]

Originally posted by Parcival
As long as you're not a programmer (or try to become one), Java (and particularly an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) like e.g. NetBeans) is useless for you except for the Java applets you may encounter on websites.

I'm too tired to flame, but just let me say that that wasn't an fair account of Java. It really helps you out when you've got a mixed environment. That is something that will be appreciated by IT guys and SysAdmins not just programmers (unless you mean that very broadly).

[fatTrav]

Java isn't entirely worthless or whatever it's been called in this post. And I'm not saying this cos I get paid to write crap in Java. There are a lot of good apps out on freshmeat that are written in java. It's also the easiest language to learn, or one of them (Especially compared to C, C++).

You can always just get the JRE. But hell, I mean, I have 200 gigs of hard disk on my system and I'm sure that's about average...95mb of disk space isn't anything I'm going to miss.

[CaptainPinko]

I actually enjoy having some of the same apps under both Linux and Windows (and hopefully OSX soon ;) ). JEdit somewhat but especially NetBeans and Azurues the best BitTorrent client out there IMHO.

[Parcival]

Ooops, I guess I got misunderstood on this one, I never meant to belittle Java. As a matter of fact, I write easy Java programs myself, and I surely know about the pros of Java. :)

My post was rather looking from the average homeuser point of view who really doesn't need Java for more than have the plugins work in the browser. Everyone else who has gone beyond "Hello world" is a programmer in my eyes. :)