[Stratman]

Anyone that challenges Microsoft is a friend of mine.

Does anybody here use Linux or know anything about it? I have been toying with the idea of switching for a long time, but have never made the jump.

[ShadowAce]

I have been toying with the idea of switching for a long time, but have never made the jump.

Try out Knoppix first. That way you don't have to re-format your hard drive if you decide it's not for you.

[zeugma]

I use Linux on 2 laptops and 2 desktops.

One thing that you might want to do before you jump right in, is go to Knoppix.org and download the Knoppix ISO. Pop the sucker in your CD drive, and boot. It will give you at least a feel for the state of Linux today. The best thing is, since it is running off CD, you can't break it, no matter what you type!

Knoppix is also an invaluable tool to have in your arsenal for the inevitable windows crashes in case windows refuses to boot and you want to save your data before you re-install. One of my wife's co-workers had her laptop crash, and the windows tech they paid to come out and look at it basically told her the hard disk had errors, would need to be replaced, and she'd lose all her data.

I took the laptop home, booted Knoppix and in 20 minutes had cut a CD of her data that I'd FTP'd to my workstation. The tech was right in that the drive was failing, and would need to be replaced, but at least I'd been able to save her data. --- Knoppix - Don't leave home without it!

[Bush2000]

Anyone that challenges Microsoft is a friend of mine. Does anybody here use Linux or know anything about it? I have been toying with the idea of switching for a long time, but have never made the jump.

Sure, I use Linux all the time. And, because you don't know anything about it, I highly recommend that you give it a try. It's going to be humorous listening to your stories of wasted days, weeks, months ...

[N3WBI3]

Actually I am a Red Hat certified Engineer, so I am a little biased twords Linux. But if youre starting fresh dont count out BSD, Solaris, or OSX.

If you really want to give Linux a look check out Knoppix If will give you a good look at the KDE desktop running on a linux platform, if you like that look at Fedora.

[ohCompGk]

I think the main things you need to consider before jumping are the apps you run on top of the OS.

In a business environment you have to consider third party apps of which few release Linux versions. Insurance companies, pharmacies, car dealers and such usually rely on occupation specific apps that tie them into MS. If this is not your case (and you are considering for a business environment) then download Open Office (openoffice.org) and run it on windows to see how comfortable you are with it as an office product. This will be your biggest step. OSAS has a good cross platform accounting system that you can get your feet wet in Windows before you switch (not free though). As far as making the jump from Windows to KDE goes, it's no worse than a new version of windows.

As far as development goes, you should develop in the environment you are developing for. Web development still favors MS. I've found nothing in the Linux world that compares to Dreamweaver and Gimp comes in second to Photoshop. Perl and php have always been a text editor type of development so they don't matter (although KDE's text editor works great with color markup of just about any language).

As far as servers go, Linux has it hands down. MS has never been able to compete with *nix in this market.

Games... throw them in the trash and start over although there are many games released for Linux plus a whole bunch of free ones.

As far as stability goes, I've crashed them both. Like my ski instructor told me when I was young "It's not how many times you fall it's why you fall". Linux does have a stability record that is hard to argue with no matter where your loyalties lie.

If you do decide to make the jump be sure to check the hardware compatibility list for the distro that you've chosen. If you're running a newer Dell or IBM you shouldn't have many problems other than internal modems. Linux just won't take to WinModems in spite of several attempts by open groups. If you need a modem go out and buy an external one. Orinco/Lucent 802.11b works just fine with Linux. They are all the wireless products that I have experience with and I did beat my head against the wall a few days to get them going the first time I tried (several years and versions ago).

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

"Anyone that challenges Microsoft is a friend of mine."

Still using Windows? Don't like yourself much, huh?

[FLAMING DEATH]

I cut my Linux teeth on Knoppix. Knoppix is good, but in my opinion, Mepis is better. You can order the SimplyMepis CD for $9.95. Like Knoppix, it will run "live" from the CD without installing, but if you do decide to install it, it is easier than Knoppix and has even more goodies.

I've installed both, and Mepis is a bit more user friendly...in fact, it's billed as "Point and Click Linux". It also works pretty well with older hardware...right now, I'm running it on a 433 Mhz laptop with 196 MB of ram, and it is plenty fast enough to get work done.