Newbie Help?

Linux Support
1

ohi there, i was looking to see if anyone would be able to help me answer a couple of questions as i am unsure of what to do since i am in a bit of a predicament.

well i have known about linux for a year or so, and was considering a move but i was unsure at the time and just left it. but since then, as of late i’ve been currently having problems with my pc. as i’m sure everyone is aware, windows se7en was released not to long ago and so as like many others i wanted to upgrade from vista to windows 7. so i borrowed my friends disc and installed everything, and all was good. the first 2 reboots were fine, but after i shut down my pc and booted up again then next morning i got the message

Windows Booting

Windows Vista Loader 2.0.2
acpi

great i thought, and my pc was left like that for a couple of weeks until i found the recovery disc which i had made earlier before installing win7. so i installed vista again everything was well only problem was. since i had upgraded to win7 it wiped the OEM partition back-up version of vista. so i had no product-key for my vista.
so thinkin i was smart, i tried to install windows 7 again, but as last time it fail. so i reinstalled vista, to which i then got a catastrophic virus, which damaged the system files. so being so p**sed of with vista, i downgraded to XP. ofcourse everything was fine. but i didnt like it at all, and decided to upgrade AGAIN. so now after the 3rd of installing vista, i have now decided i want to change OS… and go in a new direction i.e. Linux. being open-source i thought it would be a good move.

from what i know. it has the capability of supporting most windows files, but im not sure of programs. such as photoshop cs4, after effects cs4, song vegas 9 pro, and LFS (Live For Speed). oh and MSN. these are basically my essentials for using my pc. so would linux support these programs?
also, is the installion process any different from you’re normal mac / windows setup? the reason i’m asking these questions is, i’m just sick of windows being such a cock and i want to know if linux will do the same? and which version of linux should i use?

any advice, help & tips would be great

BkS.

2

No… Linux won’t run programs like Photoshop CS4 natively, but there are Linux alternatives like GIMP=Photoshop, KDenlive=Sony Vegas etc, see here:
http://www.linux.co.uk/index.php/2010/06/linux-alternatives-to-windows-software/

You might be able to get some of your windows apps to run in WINE on Linux, but the alternatives are usually a better bet as they are native Linux apps

another other option would be to run a copy of windows “inside” a Virtual Machine on Linux… in something like Virtualbox or VMware.

And your last option is to setup your system to dual-boot Windows/Linux, where you decide which OS to boot into when you boot your PC

Linux is very easy to install, get yourself a LiveCD ISO image, burn it to a CD/DVD, boot to it and when you get to a desktop… click the “install” icon and you will be walked through the install.

Best bet IMO is Linux Mint, or Ubuntu.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php
http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download

3

i see. i have a 32-bit system with 250GB Harddrive, and 2GB of RAM. i want to replace windows with linux as i dont want windows as my main OS.
would i be possible to post other versions of Linux? or tell me where to find them?

Thanks

BkS.

4

http://distrowatch.com/
or see:
http://www.linux.co.uk/index.php/category/distros/

5

thanks man (:

that’s helped a bunch. one question though.
if i was to download & install ubuntu is it still classed as linux?

6

Yes… Ubuntu and mint are Linux… both are based on Debian

7

thanks for clearing that up (:

and just to clarify - (i sound like a pain in the ass XD) - i can install this too my main partition which windows runs on just now?

8

You “can” using “WUBI”, but this is not going to perform terribly well. Better off resizing your partition and installing Linux on it’s own dedicated partition …