Hi All - Enthusiastic Newbie

[dmarquis]

Hi Everyone:

I'm Dave. I've been extremely interested is Linux for some time, but haven't had the time to really jump in headlong.

One reason is the overwhelming amount of information, distributions, etc, that do some much but are fairly cryptic to a non-IT person.

I'm an aerospace engineer that's been very frustrated with the state of the MS world for a stable, consistent, flexible, but still intuitive engineering platform. The engineering software (CFD/FEA/Simulation) available for Linux I think is a bit sparse, and I'd like to find a way to change that.

Anyway interested in looking at this with me?

Thanks

Dave

[TomX]

Well one of the first choices you need to make is which distribution you wish to use.

Generally, any of the top 10 most popular distributions will be a good match for you.

Take a look at distrowatch.com to help you decide which distribution to choose. To newbies I usually recommend SuSe, Mandriva or Ubuntu.

As for aerospace engineering programs I'd search for them within Gentoo's portage:
http://gentoo-portage.com/Browse

I assume they'd most likely be under:
sci-math
sci-misc
sci-astronomy

I'm sure you know more than me though.

[deltaflyer]

welcome to the forums dmarquis,hope you enjoy your stay

andy

[bryansmith]

Welcome aboard!

As for the eng software, sorry but I stay as far away from science and math as possible (Sociology major at university) .

Bryan