Ubuntu?

[Al Czervik]

Anybody have any experience with it, or any other Linux OS? Is it only for the uber geeks, or can a sorta geek make it work? Is Open Office any good?

[nrc]

Anybody have any experience with it, or any other Linux OS? Is it only for the uber geeks, or can a sorta geek make it work? Is Open Office any good?

I use Fedora since it's similar to commercial RedHat which I work with on a daily basis. Just about anyone can install one of the desktop distributions these days without much problem if you're using a desktop PC that is neither bleeding edge or completely obsolete. Laptops and very old or new hardware will usually work but can be tricky. If you're comfortable opening a Windows command shell from time to time you'll probably be fine.

I prefer OpenOffice to MS Office. Especially Office 2007. For most things it just works without all the bells and whistles. There may be some capability missing, but nothing I need. The version I have doesn't handle Office 2007 documents, but I don't know if that's changed.

[Insomniac]

Been a while since I've used it, but Ubuntu is a pretty good release. If you can install Windows, you should be able to install Ubuntu. The other thing that is nice is you can run it from a CD and try it out before installing.

[Insomniac]

I found Open Office to be a very good alternative to MS Office. As has been pointed it out, it's not a perfect replacement when it comes to compatibility, but you can do a lot with it.