I'm using Linux almost all the time (switched over from Windows about an year ago) and I haven't had any serious problems yet. I chose SuSE (now a Novell product) and it works fine.

Of course, no MS Windows applications run "as-is" (they might, with the "Wine" emulator) but I have always found open source substitutes. I'm only missing a good "Visio" emulator -- I use "Dia", but it's really not there, yet.

A very good plus: virus, spyware, worms, and all that kind of malware do not exist!

A probable problem: it's harder to setup or modify than MS Windows, so you'll probably need some help (a friend, if possible; a book, otherwise).

Having dual boot (Windows/Linux) is no problem -- in fact, I have my PC configured like that, for the (few) situations when I need Windows. You must install Windows first (but not using the whole disk) and then Linux in the rest. When you boot, a menu will come up offering Linux & Windows.

Linux costs basically nothing --you can get free CDs from anybody-- or buy them for a little fee. I remember seeing somewhere that you could get the Novell SuSE 9.3 CDs for about 5 dollars.

As to the programs:

* The GUI comes standard -- I use KDE, others use Gnome, and there are more windows managers.

* SuSE comes with OpenOffice, which also works in Windows. You could go to www.openoffice.org, and download it for Windows, so you can test it. It includes a word processor, an spreadsheet, a drawing program, a presentation program, and other features.

* There are many Internet options -- FireFox, Mozilla, Opera or Konqueror for websurfing, and Thunderbird, KMail, Opera or Evolution for email.

* For publisher software, try Scribus. And use GIMP for the graphics; it's a great package.

* There are some accounting programs, but I don't use them, so I'd rather not suggest any.

The only missing point is VB, for obvious reasons... though if you are doing .NET programming, there is MONO, which implements .NET for Linux.

Good luck!
FK

OK, i've just started the process of configuring my system to run Linux, i've partitioned the drive to give myself 7GB free space to play with.
I'm in the process of downloading the ISO image from SuSE 9.1, its 700Mb so it will take a while.

FK, I hope i can count on some support???

Juggler: it's 5 CDs, not one... you'll have a longer wait! And, yes, count on any help I can provide!

For Linux would-be users, I would suggest:

- get Open Office for Windows, and try it out, and figure out if you can live with it. It's not exactly the same as Microsoft Office, so you'll have to re-learn some things.

- get Firefox and forget about Internet Explorer. There may be a few pages that work with IE *only* but odds are you won-t find them. And using Firefox will help avoiding virus (viruses? virii?)

- get a LIVE EVAL Linux CD so you can check Linux out without installing anything

After this toe-dipping you will know if you can live with Linux!!!

I didn't think that Pop songs of my early years made an impact, but I can here a chorus line, don't remember the song, but the female vocalist sings, " And the Wallsssss ..Kept tummm.. b.lyn downnnnn!" Did a careless RedHat leave the gates open to this sabotage?

my system crashed trying to download SuSE, i've started it again but i'm trying now with mandrake 10.1, this is 3 disks so i think this is more like the file size to expect, also i had to repartition the drive, win XP wont create a linux swapfile.

See http://www.techbookreport.com/tbr0169.html if you want to try Linux before making the change.

How do you access Internet? Dial up, DSL, or something else?

If your machine has a winmodem setting it up can be harder.

I found http://www.wru.umt.edu/discus/messages/15/18.html?1037351921 and http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic5445.html -- the latter is specific for the SpeedTouch.

I use SuSE, and there is an specific DSL setup function there; I don't know about Mandrake/Mandriva... sorry!

Good news! What did you use to set up your modem?

With SuSE, there is kinternet (or cinternet) which allows a connection on demand -- whenever you need to access the web, it connects you.

Looking around, I found linux0.cs.uaf.edu/archive12dec00/msg00045.html and handsonhowto.com/dodip.html#dod and support.actcom.co.il/support/tips/adslen/adslDrak-pppoe.php which may help -- but they offer different (conflicting?) advice!

GL!