Tell me about Linux

[saden1]

The new netbooks are awesome. They're not for any serious work but do things like watching movies and browsing the internet well (forget about doing any gaming on these). Ubuntu is the #1 consumer grade Linux OS out there and it does a fantastic job as a netbook OS, so much so that Windows 7 was digned to compete with it (and other linux distribution in the netbook market).

The Dell mini comes with Dell branded "Ubuntu Netbook Remix" which I am using on an Asus EEE netbook as I type this post. I have been using Ubuntu for the last 4 years exclusively both at home and at work and I love it. I'm a geek but some folks might find it frustrating because they expect it to function just like Windows. You never have to have a virus protection software installed and there's boat load of applications available free software developers around the world, some of the application are awesome and some of them trash. Ubuntu has a great development cycle, they release a new version every six months and the fix bugs and update some applications in the time between major releases.

If you have a specific question let me know.

[MTK]

Originally Posted by saden1

The new netbooks are awesome. They're not for any serious work but do things like watching movies and browsing the internet well (forget about doing any gaming on these). Ubuntu is the #1 consumer grade Linux OS out there and it does a fantastic job as a netbook OS, so much so that Windows 7 was digned to compete with it (and other linux distribution in the netbook market).

The Dell mini comes with Dell branded "Ubuntu Netbook Remix" which I am using on an Asus EEE netbook as I type this post. I have been using Ubuntu for the last 4 years exclusively both at home and at work and I love it. I'm a geek but some folks might find it frustrating because they expect it to function just like Windows. You never have to have a virus protection software installed and there's boat load of applications available free software developers around the world, some of the application are awesome and some of them trash. Ubuntu has a great development cycle, they release a new version every six months and the fix bugs and update some applications in the time between major releases.

If you have a specific question let me know.

Is OpenOffice pretty comparable to MS Office? Are MS files compatible with OpenOffice and vice versa?

[saden1]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

Is OpenOffice pretty comparable to MS Office? Are MS files compatible with OpenOffice and vice versa?

OpenOffice can read and generate MS Office compatible files but the process isn't always 100% perfect. For most basic types of documents everything looks just as it does on MS Office but documents heavy on MS propritory features may need adjusting/touchup. In some instances OO avoids replicating MS bugs. The newer version (OO 3.0) does a fantastic job with convertion to MS formats than the previous 2.x.

You may also want to note that Open Document Format (ODF) is now an international standard and going forward MS has commited to supporting the standard due to market preasures.