[brynjarh]

"In my opinion in some ways Linux is a better operating system then Windows, but, unfortunately, almost EVERYTHING is written for windows, so that is almost a necessity in the computer world."
I'm wondering, what software in Windows are you using that has no similar software available for Linux? Then I'm talking other then games.

I find your statement a little off, I haven't seen any kind of Windows operating system for years and I seam to have programs for everything I need to do, I find the list of programs available for Linux to be much much longer, at least in speaking of quality since most freeware software for Windows is very low on quality beside some exceptions, commercial software is the only software that has quality there, and then of course the open source projects that also support Windows.

Anyway, just to mention a very small amount of programs available for Linux that can do various tasks:

Bluefish - Web development studio.
GIMP - Image manipulation program.
Sodipodi - Vector graphic tool.
Blender - 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback.
Epiphany - Browser.
OpenOffice.org - Office suit.
Xine - Video player.
Muine - Music player.
Sound Juicer CD Ripper - CD ripper.
gToDo - ToDo list manager.
Gaim - Multi protocol IM client (Jabber, MSN, AIM, ICQ, IRC, Yahoo, Gadu-Gadu, Napster, GroupWise).
AMSN - MSN IM client.
Gabber - Jabber IM client.
XChat - IRC IM client

[Josh]

Well, I have heard of 95% of all that software mentioned.. and I use most of it too lol

I don't do like nay gaming, so i wasn't talking about games Take flash for an example, the only flash program I know of doesn't even compare.. and how about Dreamweaver, I have yet to find a editor in either Linux or Unix with better syntax highlighting..

And my school program, that is only available in Windows, I am not aware of ANY home school curricula available for Linux.

I mean just go to download.com, look around, like all the programs there are for windows. I mean you might be able to find something close, but lets face it, not enough people use Linux (Yet) to warrent the "big dogs" in programming to create Linux versions of there software

Josh
_________________
Josh Powell - uber geek

Get Firefox! | Don't drop the torch - Spread Firefox

[brynjarh]

Macromedia has said it will release a Linux version of it's products. I have yet to see them do that or comment on when they are going to release them, but it's something to have an eye on. [ http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-5170061.html ]

Download.com is mostly crap freeware software anyways, just the top 10 programs for everything that have any real use. And talking about the "big dogs", there is just one and one commercial software product that has any comparison in quality to free open source software, like Photoshop or 3D Studio Max, but the rest is usually crap since their main goal is to create software that sells, not to create good software. But okay, of course there is some software that might be only for Windows and no software to replace it on Linux, these software are usually used by very few, except something like Flash. But about you school program 'curiculims', what does it do exactly?

[ http://www.sourceforge.net/ ] Here you can browse ALLOT of free open source software, good and bad, windows and linux. Recomend you look at it.

And have you heard about a neat program called Wine? It can be used to run Windows programs on Linux, I have actually worked on Flash projects using Wine to run Flash MX, but I believe Macromedias MX 2004 product line doesn't work on wine though (only MX and older), I always find it funny to see Windows programs run on Linux. , you can probably run most of your windows software using Wine [ http://www.winehq.com/ ] , but you often neat to tweak it somewhat, you can just google more information on it and ask for help on forums like the one on [ http://www.linuxquestions.org ]. I recomend WineTools [ http://www.frankscorner.org/winetools/ ] if you need to install common components, like visual basic 5/6 runtime library for example, to run some software.

[Josh]

LOL, of course I have heard of wine.. who hasn't? lol Its really handy sometimes, but lots of programs don't work 100% right, which isn't surprising.

And my school curricula is what I am doing my school on; ie. I do my daily lessons using this program


Josh
_________________
Josh Powell - uber geek

Get Firefox! | Don't drop the torch - Spread Firefox

[computerkid1220]

Go to http://www.netraverse.com/ and get a copy of Win4Lin. It needs a product code, but send them an e-mail saying your're a LUG (Linux Users Group) and they'll send you one for FREE. It installs *Windows* as an application under *Linux*. Have fun!