FYI: Open Source Alternatives

[clickalot]

Hi,

I was reading the fine "The table of equivalents / replacements / analogs of Windows software in Linux." suggested in the Readme for Newbies.

Since I was (well, and still am...) a heavy windows user I've been using "Open Source Alternatives", and i like it.

Do you have other suggestions?

[undermind]

well, to play mr. obvious, i'd say download a live CD with linux and try it out theres free and open source live CD's that are specially made for system recovery, wich could be very usefull indeed. also, if you need the functionality of a Bash shell, theres Cygwin, wich runs reasonably well under Windows.

[jayd512]

I agree with undermind, but for a slightly different reason.
Besides using the Equivalents list, you can use LiveCD's to see what types of apps are available to you.
Knoppix is a great example of that. Try the DVD version if possible... all kinds of good stuff there

Other than that, though... don't forget about Google!

[clickalot]

Alright, good call.

I'm using ubuntu 9.04 but I wouldn't think of downloading a live cd and try out programs ...

do all live cds come with a pile of software? or is there one that carries more software than others?

[reed9]

Most general desktop distros come with a pretty similar set of basic software, depending on whether the use GNOME or KDE as the desktop environment. Each of these has their own apps and most distros include them. So GNOME distros inevitably have Brasero for burning software, and KDE has k3b, GNOME has Totem as the main movie player, kDE - a little more variation here, between Kaffeine or Dragon player mostly. GNOME will have Banshee or Rhythmbox for music, KDE will have Amarok.

I do advocate testing other distros, but for looking at different software, just install 'em in Ubuntu and try out different apps. Ubuntu and Debian have pretty much the largest selection of packages in their repositories, so you can find just about anything through the package manager.

If you're looking for a particular sort of program, ask, and I'm sure people will be happy to talk up their favorite apps.

[jmadero]

I'm actually going to play devil's advocate and say....actually install and try out several distros. One note to start with though is learn how to partition a hard drive correctly (that is, separate your home folder from your root folder, makes the process much more enjoyable)

Why I say to install:

1. A lot of times things just "don't work" in live cd's and people get mad but don't realize that installing makes it much easier (example is wireless, to install the driver you need to, or almost always need to, restart the computer, once you restart you lose what's in your RAM which is where the driver is to begin with....so if you have a wireless card that isn't supported out of the box, unlikely you'll get it working)

2. If you're seriously thinking about leaving Windows, or making Linux a bigger part of your life it's better to treat it as an OS rather than "just another piece of software", I did live cd's for a long time but always was a 90/10 for Windows/Linux, once I devoted a piece of my hard drive and set Grub to boot Linux first....I became a 99.99/0.01 Linux/Windows man

3. If you don't have a lot of RAM you might run into issues because every piece of software you "install" from a live cd is only put on your RAM, if you run a live DVD it avoids some of this but none the less, you should have at least 2 gigs of RAM to do this, I run 4 and still have filled it up relatively fast using a live distro.

4. I'd say it's relatively easier to make the system look the way you want with an installed distro, again because things are stored on RAM, one restart, everything you do is gone. Neither my KDE nor my Gnome boot look or function like they did out of the box, and I have to say that I very much like mine over the "default"

so...that's my take, try 2-4 distros, depending on level of expertise/desire to learn, install one at a time, use for a month, then move on....after trying 2-4 choose the one you like best and go back to it

[clickalot]

Right now i'm using virtualbox to run windows.

an Intel core 2 duo E8400 and 6GB ram gives me enough freedom.

i suppose nothing stops me from trying out other distros except maybe if they don't run well under virtualbox...