Re: I'm a newbie where should i start

From: ray (ray_at_zianet.com)
Date: 02/25/05 

Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 09:01:19 -0700

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 15:12:46 +0000, Ricardo Ferreira wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm a newbie in opensource. Actually I am now decising to move from
> Microsoft to open source. Where should I start? Do you know any site where
> I can find a simple "step by step to linux", with some advices and be
> awares?
>
> Just use one machine, office with access, frontpage and publisher. What are
> the equivalents.
>
> thanks for any comments
> ricardo
> ps: i'm in Portugal, software in portuguese would be a plus. Any local
> advices?

You still haven't really told us what you want to do. Dual boot linux and
MS; scrap MS altogether right now and install Linux; get your feet on the
ground first?

There are several things you can do:

1) install OpenOffice and Mozilla on your MS computer.
2) boot some Linux 'live CDs' - Knoppix is just one, but these will boot
and run from the CD so you can get a feel before you do an install. There
is a list at www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php. These will also give
you a good feel for any potential hardware problems.
3) install linux 'alongside' MS i.e. a dual boot. Most major linux distros
will do this quite easily - SuSE and Mandrake include utilities to resize
NTFS partitions to make room - others can resize fat32 partitions (it is
good to defrag first). The dual install will be set up more or less
automatically if you elect for that.
4) you can buy boxed sets of distros from the distro web site or Amazon -
you can get a cheap set of CDs from various sources; or if you have a
broadband connection you can download and burn your own.

www.distrowatch.com is a good place to frequent for info. www.yolinux.com
has lots of good info, as well. www.tldp.org is The Linux Documentation
Project and has many howtos related to linux issues.

There is also a list of software equivalents somewhere (hopefully another
reader will post?). OpenOffice is a MS Office clone, and just as bloated.
I use AbiWord for word processing and gnumeric for spread*** - they are
'leaner'. There are numerous html editors - I edit raw html, myself, and I
like nedit. See also: amaya, bluefish, quanta, nvu. 'Publisher' activities
can probably be accomplished with an OpenOffice function. At
distrowatch.com you should be able to find info about Portuguese support.

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