Newbie switching from Mac....help?

[EvilKilgore]

Dear Linuxers...
My questions are clearly outlined below for those who want to skip the intro....

I'm a long time mac user, currently using an iBook over four years old. I've gotten great use out of it but its showing its age.... very slow, battery fried, and I can't really upgrade it anymore. I would prefer to by a new MacBook, go with what I know, but I totally can't afford it. Not to mention they high price of apple accessories and upgrades...

I can't stand Windows and am considering switching to Linux. I want something affordable but with a good OS, and I've heard Linux and Mac can have a similar user interface. I grew up with computers, so I can get around them just fine, but have no programming knowledge of any kind. I don't use my computer for anything super complicated, web access, email, music, and a bit of online gaming. I'm looking for something easy to use that requires little to no programming knowledge. Everything I got for my mac (accessories, software) was basically "plug-and-play" and I would be interested in something similar. Basically, I want it to "work" without too much tinkering around from me....

MY QUESTIONS: Given my circumstances above:

Am I a good candidate for switching to Linux? Even though I don't know programming?

Any suggestions for which laptop (hardware) is good to buy (or have built) to run Linux?

Any suggestions for a Linux OS that will make a mac user feel at home?

[elija]

Two Words...

Linux Mint

Linky

[yancek]

You could go to distrowatch and check out a variety of distros. There are links to home pages of a number of different Linux OS's and you can take a look at screenshots, download Live CD's and try them out on your computer before installing. If you are buying new hardware you should check on Linux hardware compatibility, also some of the bigger distributions have their own hardware compatibility lists so you could check that after deciding on the distro you want.

[L4Linux]

Mac is much more similar to Linux than Windows. (Last versions of Mac have BSD Kernel which is Unix-like, like Linux is) Enough of the history lessons...

Linux Mint is a good choice, very easy to use. It is based on Ubuntu.
I would suggest Ubutnu, because it has many more users, so you 'll find help easier, should you need it.

You 'll like the next even more, you can make Ubuntu (or any other Linux distribution) exactly like Mac OS X!

For the dock bar you need to install "awn".The installation is very easy in Ubuntu. Go to System->Administration->Synaptic. There search for awn and install awn-manager. Click mark, when it asks you to mark additional packages and then click apply. The dock is installed and you can use it from Applications->Accessories->Avant Window Navigator! The second way is to run this command in terminal:

sudo apt-get install awn-manager

For Mac OS X skin check this link:Mac OSX Leopard 10.5 Full pack GNOME-Look.org
Step by step instructions are here:Make Your Linux Desktop Look Like A Mac - Mac4Lin Project Documentation

[Bemk]

If you are interested in not too much tinkering with Linux, ehhhh, Linux is designed to be tinkered with. You can do everything you want with Linux, E-mail. Web browsing etc. but you can get much more out of GNU/Linux by tinkering with it.

I'm using Ubuntu as well but right now I'm looking for a distro which enables me to do much more, I think Gentoo will be something in that direction. Ubuntu is a great newbie Linux system, however you should remember that Linux is to be tinkered with. You can tinker a lot with Ubuntu but Ubuntu also gives you the choice to just use it, although I think that's a waste of capabilities. And as for me, I'm starting to look at the limits Ubuntu will give me, and to grow on I am starting to look at other distros.

This Distrowatch is a good thing look at. I think it will help you with finding a distro right for you.

[EvilKilgore]

Thanks for all the advice! I still haven't even bought a new laptop which is what I really need first, but I will be coming back to this info! I don't mind doing some tinkering and I'm actually excited to learn. I just want to make sure what a I get will work fine "out of the box" so I can get to the tinkering in my own time, as slow or as fast as that may be. Ubuntu gives only very few hardware suggestions.... how to find out exactly what I need to have in a laptop to make it compatible?

[Bemk]

Sorry if I gave the wrong idea about tinkering, I just think it's a waste of capabilities if you don't. But still if you use the right distro you can often just run it out of the box. However most of the time it's better to just take a normal distro which suits your needs and tinker with it to get for example your graphics driver working properly (often an NVidea graphics card needs proprietary drivers which aren't included, but you can still use your pc albeit with a lower screen resolution, e.g. not more than 680x460 or more commonly 800x600)

[EvilKilgore]

Yeah I understand what you mean. But it sounds like Ubuntu will be a good start to get me into the lniux world, then I can tinker and switch OS from there!
I'm thinking about getting a ThinkPad (SL500). It's within my price range and seems like a good deal. Comments?

ALso, will the .doc files on my mac be transferred seamlessly onto Ubuntu? What about my ext. hard-drive, will it plug and play like on my mac?

[L4Linux]

You can open and edit your .doc,.xls,.ppt files with OpenOffice. It also available in Mac, so if you buy a new Mac in the future, you don't need to pay for MS Office again.
Usb hard disks are plug and play in Linux, with no need for extra drivers.
A question about your iBook. Does it have a PPC processor? If it does you can use on it one of the following distributions.
I suggest OpenSuse, Fedora and Debian. But I think you can't have a Live-CD for Mac, so you will have to do a normal install to try them.
About the Thinkpad SL500, here it says they had some issues with the Intel graphic chipset. Intel and the Linux community will eventually release a new driver that fixes it, as they work closely together. Or you can buy a laptop with Nvidia graphic card. Take a look at Laptop Manufacturers [Linux Laptop Wiki], for the laptops that interest you, to see how they worked for other users.

[EvilKilgore]

Thanks for the great advice! After lots of poking around on linux wiki I've decided on the HP 6730s. I'll put Ubuntu on it and start with that. I think I'll leave my mac how it is, it's so old and slow that its not really worth tinkering with. I'll have it as a backup until I figure out Linux : )