Can you guys point me in the right direction?

[jonnorris03]

Sorry if this is not the right place for this question or indeed if my question seems incredibly dumb but here goes.

I am dyslexic and so have had no useful formal education, however I have been scratching a living in voice and data for the last 20 odd years.
Windows was a revelation to me as it was such a graphical interface which as a Dyslexic I love.
My question is has Linux, in it's many forms, become something that I can buy of the shelf and load onto my computer to replace the crappy version of Windows XP without having to be a major code head?

I really want to get my head round Linux because I believe it to be the most important development in the industry for many years and is giving the finger to the Corporates who want to control the business in a way that is both greedy and unhelpful to the industry as a whole.

So sorry if I come across as dim but I really need some support.

Cheers guys.

Jon

[oz]

Welcome to the forums!

Various distributions can be purchased online, already burned to disk, or you can freely download most of them and burn them to disk yourself if you wish. Some retail hardware/software sources used to (and probably still do) sell boxed Linux distributions as well. I think the Mandrake Power Pack might still be sold as a boxed set.

You can check the link in my signature for lots of good information on getting started with Linux.

Hope you'll have fun with it.

[gerard4143]

Linux, unlike Windows, does not have a great marketing team so all the information is passed on by word of website

DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

The website I enclosed is a great starting place...Any question just post away, that's what we're here for...Welcome to the forums..Gerard4143

[jonnorris03]

Thank you both for your friendly and very useful advise.
I will look into this and keep you posted.

Kind regards

Jon

[Rubberman]

All Linux systems use some GUI on top of the X-Windows system. There are a number of them available including KDE, Gnome, and XFCE as well as others. These three are the most popular and are available on most major Linux distributions these days. They are similar enough in function to the Windows GUI that you should not have too much problem adjusting to them, even being dyslexic.