[ILUG] Using Linux instead of Windows

[kae]

On Thursday 14 April 2005 12:48, Garrett O' Leary wrote:
> Dear Linux users group,
>
> Notwithstanding Antivirus software and Antispyware, I am broken hearted
> from pop ups and spam.  I run windows xp on my PC and my laptop.  The PC
> has almost ground to a halt because of variious spyware infections which I
> cannot seem to shift. I use MS Outlook for one mail address but I also use
> a web based MS Outlook.
>
> I have had some success changing to Mozilla Firefox for general browsing
> but the web based outlook doesn't handle well in Mozilla so I am still
> stuck with Internet Explorer.
>
> For work reasons I must use and share MS Office files and Adobe PDF files.
> I also need to use jpeg and gif files and of course I use real player to
> play Mp3 files.

OpenOffice handles MS formats reasonably well, and can export them to PDF 
(which MS Office can't do).

There are a few PDF viewers in Linux. If you install a standard KDE desktop, 
then KPDF will be available immediately for you.

> Finally, I use a 16 bit application that is connected to a modem on a com
> port. This is a critical application.
>
> I really dislike windows and would love to change Operating Systems on both
> my laptop and desktop if I could manage it.  What course of action do you
> recommend? Will Linux solve my problems and will I be able to run Ms Office
> applications by installing an emulator of some sort?

You may either use Wine (which is a Windows compatibility layer), or dual-boot 
your machine.

You can run IE6 through Wine, which may be a solution for your Outlook 
problem.
  But, why use Outlook at all? Can you not use a different email solution? 
Linux comes with a few ready-installed. Evolution is fairly popular, as is 
Kontact (which I use), and Mozilla's Thunderbird is also very good.

I would recommend dual-booting the machine, until you are sure you are able to 
carry out all of your work through Linux.

Kae