Newbies Question

[amer7862000]

Hi,
I'm a full time windows user, but now i want to start exploring a range of operating systems..
how many popular operating systems are there that almost resemble the windows features..?
which next operating system would be ideal to acknowledge and explore?

any suggestions?

Amer

[Duckula]

If you tell first your concept of "the windows features" perhaps I'll be able to help better.

All the posix-based OSes are mostly compatible at the application level, so if you're just asking about the user environment maybe your question would be better rephrased "Which environment?", and still would need to define exactly what in an environment do you consider to be windows-like, since that may be a subjective perception.

[amer7862000]

my concept of "the windows feature" is more or less; the GUI and user-friendliness.. i want to use an operating (if there is) where you have full control of the operating system..
hope dat helps?

[Elijah]

I just switched from Windows 98 to Red Hat Linux 9 this year. That was one of the best decisions I ever made! :)

It is my experiance that Red Hat Linux 9 is a lot more stable than Windows 98. I read that Red Hat Linux (the free version is now called Fedora) is one of the easiest flavors of Linux for beginners to learn.

Red Hat Linux has a very nice GUI. It is highly configurably (much more so than Windows 98). I use the KDE desktop (you can also use Gnome). If you would like to see some screenshots of KDE visit: [kde.org...]

I would recommend you try out a distro of Linux. Who knows, you may be like me and never look back! ;)

A very happy Linux user,

Elijah

[Duckula]

the GUI and user-friendliness

The GUI is going to be easy to use either with Gnome, KDE, or lighter alternatives. the problem is that it will not really be "like windows": it may be better in some aspects :)

If you want to know if some specific feature will be available in Linux, etc. just ask.

It's important to define the difference between OS and user enviroment, because the same OS (Gnu+Linux) may have any of several user environments; and also, if you like e.g. KDE, it is supported on lots of OSes (BSD, OSX, etc...)

[claus]

>> the same OS (Gnu+Linux) may have any of several user environments

For a person coming from the windows world this might be hard to grasp, as there the OS has only one user interface.

With linux, you can set up the interface in all sorts of ways - there are even user interfaces that looks and behaves like traditional windows or macintosh desktops. You don't have to switch OS to another linux version to do that, you just need to switch your user interface.

The OS stays the same, you just change the "shell" - sort of like switching the cover on a cellphone.

Oh, and you can use a text-only interface too (command prompt only) but i wouldn't recommend that here ;)

[Marcus Aurelius]

You could download knoppix it wont nuke your windows install if you just want to poke around, boots right from cd and installs nothing.

[amer7862000]

where do i go.. to download it...

[Wertigon]

[knoppix.org...]

There's also the Gentoo Live CD, although Gentoo, while fairly easy for the newbie, requires quite a lot RTFM:ing. So go with Knoppix for now. ;)

[ArmedGeek]

I've seen a lot of Fedora suggestions here and I think I'll throw my $0.02 in here. Mandrake. Mandrake is just about as easy as it gets for desktop AND server uses. They've put in all the GUI/user-friendly stuff without limiting the power of the system. There's nothing better than using the same OS for desktop and server. Talk about seamless. I run a pair of servers with several websites, multiple domains, email (also multiple domains) all on Mandrake 9.2. My desktop OS of choice is also Mandrake 9.2. For those of you looking into getting started with Linux, Mandrake really should be looked at.

ArmedGeek