I couldn't but to add a few lines while reading all the talk about the
usefulness and the difficulty (or ease) of using Linux.
After doing research in a national lab i moved on to a village college for
my job. I can't even imagine how could I have continued my work with out
Linux. All these compilers, TeX, gnuplot, ha wonderful. I never have seen
a good plotting software like gnuplot except for making contour plot. I
know the difficulty I faced to generate a EPS file using windows plotting
software. If you run a program in windows it is difficult to see the
output written in file. if you use a windows you may not know whether your
mail has really been sent out or not. Here you can really see if it goes
by -v option to sendmail. Now you have got more options for the GUI also.
This I am telling in a layman's point of view. Above all, I find all the
necessary software (and much more) in a single CD.
About installing Linux the only problem you may face is with the X or the
sound card. Still you have different utilities. In my case Xconfigurator
or xf86config could not identify the right card but with xf86setup did.
Still I don't know what was problem with the others. Anyway I could
install it. I am a novice to these things. This means if one spend some
time he can do it. If the card is not supported you to have to wait for
new driver or replace it. Of course there may be problems otherwise with
the latest mother boards. Still the PCQuest articles is sufficient for
most of the things I believe. For example, I had problem with
initialization string for my modem. Earlier it used complain dial tone not
present. I could rectify it using the string I got from PCQest article.
I am indebted to these generous people for making these software available
free of cost. I can't just imagine how could I have managed with out
Linux.
Satheesh
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