Thanks very much, guys, for your helpful and encouraging responses. In reply to your questions, I want to use Linux for ADSL Internet access (cable Internet is extremely unreliable in my building), word processing and some simple spreadsheets. This is for personal use and also work I occasionally take home on nights and weekends.
I did get Red Hat operational enough to evaluate OpenOffice and I found it quite adequate for my purposes. I also was able to evaluate Evolution for everything but e-mail, and liked it, too. I already use Opera and Mozilla in Windows, so I have no doubts about the apps. I found the overall Red Hat GUI very convenient and easy to use. The installation wizard was also extremely user friendly. Where Red Hat worked, I much preferred it to any version of Windows of the Mac. But I was unable to get it working fully. To make a long story short, problems began with hard drive partitioning. I read that you need a commercial program like PartitionMagic for XP because of the NTFS file system, so I shelled out $100 for PartitionMagic. But when I got into it, I found that it also has problems with NTFS. Anyway, after I installed PartitionMagic/BootMagic, my CD-ROM was nowhere to be found on XP. Also, the physical CD drawer wouldn't work. Anyway, I eventually lost my temper with XP and PartitionMagic -- and checked "Remove All Partitions On This System" during the Red Hat 8 install. (And now the computer won't boot from a Windows CD; only Linux.) Here are the major problems I encountered when I installed and reinstalled Red Hat 8: (1) It crashed after each installation. Initially, the desktop was mostly blank (black) except for a half dozen blank white rectangles. After rebooting once or twice (after each installation) I got a partly functional desktop. However, many of the fonts were a mess, particularly on an area about halfway down to about three-quarters of the way down the screen. (2) Everything seemed to be twice the size it should be -- the taskbar, the desktop icons, various windows. Some of the dialog boxes were so big I couldn't use them because the bottom portion (with the buttons I needed) was tucked under the taskbar and I couldn't resize them enough to get access. (3) I have no idea how to configure the D-Link modem I'm using with DSL. (The command-line instructions (no less!) in the Red Hat For Dummies book are for other modem models and didn't work, but I don't have a clue about using the command line, which didn't help.) (4) I couldn't get any sound when I put in a music CD. Hardware: a 2 GHz Dell Dimension 2350 with 512 MB RAM and a 60 GB hard drive. The monitor, which I got with my old computer, is a 15-inch Daewoo CMC- 1502B1, which the Linux installer correctly detected. As for inside the case, I';m not sure. Dell didn't provide such detailed documentation. I want the dual boot so I'll have an OS to fall back on when Windows crashes. But I read something on the Net tonight about Red Hat 8 not supporting NTFS. Would I be better off using another version of Windows (for dual-boot purposes)? Sorry for being so long-winded and so short on technical detail. (But therein lies my problem, I guess.) Thanks again, everyone, for the encouragement and advice. Pat 12/30/02 6:58:18 PM, Pat Roche <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >After an unsuccessful weekend struggle to get Red Hat 8 working properly, I'd like to >hear the views of this technically adept group on whether non-technical people >should attempt Linux at all? > >Should someone who doesn't have the technical aptitude to do his own troubleshooting >avoid Linux until it becomes less problem-prone (e.g., Jesse's recently posted >headache with Mandrake 9.0? > >If your answer is "go for it anyway," which distro would you recommend? > >And do you have a phone number I can call when I run into trouble? > >Pat Roche > > >
