Another noob with questions. Abf, I'll need you on this one :D

I'm no abf, but i'll try and answer your question as best I can.

I do web development entirely in linux. The tools I use are Eclipse, Apache, Tomcat, MySql and Bluefish. Bluefish is lightyears better than dreamweaver/homesite, imo. It generates code, but not in the wysiwyg style dreamweaver does. I deplore the coding style dreamweaver encourages. It's so sloppy. I'm also doing developent work in Django and python.

My environment is setup for maximum productivity for me. I often have 30-40 apps running on 6 virtual desktops. I can't do that in windows. It's just not possible. The machine would crash after 10 minutes. This is the ultimate development OS.

Other than development work I play windows games via cedega. If you have an nvidia card it's relatively painless getting supported games to work.

I do graphics work too. I used to use 3dsmax and photoshop religiously. I've switched to Blender and gimp. I'm getting pretty good with gimp and am still learning blender. It's a pain learning new 3d software after the years I've put into max, but that's life.

I do audio production. I used cubase sx in windows. Now I'm in the process of getting my ubuntu studio going. When I'm done I think i'll have a better, more stable, setup than cubase ever provided.

Media stuff is 10x easier to get going than in windows, believe it or not. Just install automatix and it'll do the rest. Amarok is the best audio indexing/playback software in existence hands down. itunes is a joke in comparison. Allofmp3 is your friend if you wanna buy music. I have an ipod with rockbox installed. Works swimmingly.

It took me about a year to be completely comfortable to switch entirely to linux and not miss a beat (as you can see I do a lot of work on my computer.) My development work simply couldn't be interrupted plus I've been heavy into audio and graphcs production. Migrating to a new platform was not easy.

The only things linux can't do is work with some popular commercial software. I'm still looking for good mapping software that'll work with my bluetooth gps (google earth may be the answer). I do need a windows virtual machine for emergencies (mostly for work or if I need IE). Other than that linux can do just about anything windows can. I absolutely will not use vista, I have major reservations with the direction microsoft is going.

Well you might want to explain a bit more about how dreamweaver has you annoyed At any rate.... As you are probably already aware, the LAMP stack(Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) is kinda standard on Linux, and I believe gets installed with the server installation of Ubuntu, so that might be a good place to start. A possible replacement for Dreamweaver would probably be NVu, however knowing a bit more about why it has annoyed you might help in suggestions for that. For PHP programming there are any number of possibilities, the plain text editor(Emacs or Vi for example) are always a good choice, you could also look at Eclipse with the PHP modules installed. In as far as file server, look up Samba. Will be able to act as a file server to Windows, Mac, and Linux machines with no problem. From the sounds of it you might want to try Ubuntu, and install the LAMP stack on top of the desktop distro, this would be one of the easier ways to do it probably. What can it do for you? It really depends, and a lot of it depends on the person. Will it work for what you have described thus far? Yep, and pretty well from the sounds of it. Linux does tend to require a bit more initial setup, that is more difficult until you get to know linux, and then it is SO much easier than windows But past that there is less work in maintaining my linux boxes than my windows box(My Wife's actually), at least for me, but I also am probably considered fairly competent at linux as well, which newcomers wont be. Seablade

i am totally noob about development work....i just happen to be a desktop linux user. so go with BT's advice.

get a basic ubuntu install....run automatix to config your media junk. then install bluefish, nvu and some other proggies listed in BT's and seablade's posts and go nuts.


ps...i do have some nvu experience and i think its one of the best website creation progs i ever used

@bt...i got rockbox on my iriver...hahaha...its great.

If this is a linux web system, AND you are trying to make that a relative link, your problem is in the first character there. '/' on Linux is kinda like the 'C:' on Windows, and by adding that initial '/' you are giving a direct link to the file on the system. It is also somewhat unusual to have a 'i' directory direcetly on the root directory, typically people try to keep the root directory fairly clean. It sounds like you might want to do more relative links than you are doing, it is my preferred way of linking to a file for web deployment anyways, it means MUCH easier transitions between webhosts. So based off the above, if you continue in web development, it would probably be a good idea to learn linux as it will benefit you in many ways, one is the ability to set up a local webserver for testing, two is to teach you a bit more about *nix filesystems which you will come across a LOT doing web development, as I am sure you are aware. The more you know the better off you are in that instance. Seablade

I don't mean to be disrespectful, but that is some truely ridiculous logic. Microsoft probably has the most powerful marketing firms in existence working for them. Of course their presentation is going to be impressive.

There's screenshots everywhere. You're not trying. Checkout the screenshot thread in the linux forum here. Here's a screenshot of my current dirty desktop http://bob.bah.net/mullet/workspace.png

OSS comes out of passion for the community. Yes, it's very communistic. But it works if everyone plays by the rules. It's amazing but it works. I will, at some point, probably release some things I worked on to the OSS community.

AMD64 is very well supported and very fast.

Just use windows on the oqo. One step at a time.

HehHeh... so much to explain in that single post.... Well first and foremost, this forum has a screen shot thread that should give you some ideas, feel free to check it out. Though to be perfectly honest screenshots wont tell how effective it is to work in, only working with it can tell you that. Keep in mind most people working on Linux are in a computer field, not artistic There are exceptions, just keep it in mind. Only if you decide that is what you want. For instance Ubuntu uses a CMS system(Drupal? maybe?) so that updating and maintaining it is a peice of cake compared to doing it all by hand. However most of these can be customized to a large extent, depending on your knowledge of HTML, PHP, MySQL, CSS, etc. Standard web technologies, or you could make your own CMS, nothing to stop you from doing that. If you are going to do web design, you will need to learn PHP, HTML, CSS, etc. It doesnt mater if you continue to use a visual program to do the work, you will need to know these technologies so that you can do things beyond what those visual programs will let you do in their WYSIWYG editor. This is what will REALLY give you the ability to do what you want with websites. Just because web developers use Dreamweaver, doesnt mean they dont know what the underlying CSS and HTML in it mean. Um this is a research thesis project in itself, many have probably already been done on this. The basis is, many people do things for multiple reasons. The NON Money making way of doing things, is that people do it because they can, they want to benefit themselves and their fellow human being by doing so. They believe that it is important to be able to access the source code of a peice of software to be able to actually get it to do what you want, or modify it so that you can work faster in it, etc. They believe when you buy a peice of software, you shouldnt just be buying a license to use the software, but purchasing the source code to it so that you can modify it to get it to do what you actually need. This is an entirely different way of thinking than most closed source developers are used to. I cant explain it to well myself, though I do believe in it fully, though maybe I dont carry it to the level some of the people do. Ubuntu isnt there to make money, though it might do that. Typically people run buisnesses based off open source software by providing a service, not buy reselling the same thing. For instance Ubuntu recently extended its service plans to up to Five(?) years, that you can buy support for Ubuntu linux in the enterprise environment. Suse and Red Hat work in similar ways, they make their money buy selling documentation and service, more importantly the service. The OS itself is free, when you buy the OS off the shelf at a computer store, you are paying for the service, not the software. There is so much more to it than what I have listed, but hopefully this will give you a basis to get you interested. So Igor may go work for MS, of course Victor Frankenstein then goes to work in his spare time on OSS, or goes to work for one of the many companies that will pay him to do so. Linux was written in the spare time of MANY programmers around the world. Many programmers now get employed by companies ranging from IBM, to Red Hat, to Novell, to continue working on Linux, so that they can take that software and use it in their own work, to which they can make money by providing the support for it. That is two thirdlies You can run Linux on about any specs. How fast it runs depends on many things. For the ultimate in customization there is LFS, one step up from that, and what most people choose when they get serious into customization of LInux is Gentoo. Most people however find that a standard distribution works for them, such as Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. The general reccomendation for most people new to linux by the majority of people on this forum is Ubuntu. This is true in a lot of places I have seen. It is a decent starting point, and shouldnt have a problem running on either machine. Personally I wouldnt spend the money unless you need to(My Wife wants a recording of that so she can play it back whenever I suggest buying more componets for servers etc http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/6231/1/ I wouldnt go trying to install linux on this until you understand linux quite a bit better to be honest. But this is actually the first time I had heard of this thing, if it wasnt so danged expensive I would get it, where is your review thread on it I am curious though.... At any rate at first glance it seems to act just like a standard computer, which makes linux on it easier. I am not certain about WiFi support, the article mentioned above mentions a possible module for it so it shoudlnt be to bad, I would be curious to run gentoo and e17 on it myself Possibly get a nice battery powered firewire audio interface and use it for portable high quality recording... Hmm... things to think about. At any rate I will tackle some of these on a general linux level... Wine or Cedega, I believe this should run fine by now. Some certainly exist, though BT can probably tell you more about them than I can, I am not to familiar with em. Yea wireless in Linux can be shaky ground at times, but since this runs off a x86 processor you should be able to use ndiswrapper to load windows drivers as a worst case scneario. However as I mentioned above, the article mentions there might be a module(Driver) for wireless support already in existance which would be much better. Touchscreen shouldnt be a problem. The catch there is the handwritting support.... I am honestly not certain what the easiest way to do that would be, I am fairly certain it exists as I believe Qtopia has it, but i am not certain how easy it would be to implement in a standard linux distro, never tried, though I may if I pick one of these up Mind blank here, refresh my memory as to what this is? I know it I just cant remember right now. At any rate I hope this answers some of your questions. Seablade

Well I'm no 3rd grader but I my site supports Kubuntu. I prefer the KDE desktop so that's whats up there. As far as screen shots go, all of my How-To's are screen shot driven. Its allot easier for me to just show a picture than to just use a whole big long paragreph explaining how its supposed to be. I teach at night in a local 2 yr college and my students go from Never even hearing about Linux to being able to install, configure, and replace their XP machines . So its not too hard to learn. They like the How-to's and have given me some good perspective from a brand new user. I think that's part of the problem.... many very knowledgable users tend to forget the "New Guy". The learning curve can be pretty steep if you rely on the coder's notes in man(like readme) pages.

As far as lamp goes its pretty much the standard for a linux web server. Its fast, reliable and can be secured pretty easy. This site is running ona lamp server. So is mine. The biggest thing about any webserver is security. I have an older lamp How-To based on Mandriva 2005 but the new will be based on Kubuntu-alternate. Its much like the Ubuntu-lamp build but tweaked to lock it down. SQL attacks seem to be the prefered hack attempt so securing Mysql is paramount.

First learn the desktop under Linux then move on to the server stuff. Learn the basics and go from there.... Any *ubuntu will be a great choice for learning the desktop.

http://www.linuxloader.com/modules.p...howpage&pid=28

PDR60

PHP has major security issues. http://www.sans.org/top20/#c3

I evaluated php a year ago and didn't I'd be HIPPA compliant because of the security problems that exist. If you don't need security then it's probably a great solution.

You may also want to look into some rapid deployment web frameworks like Ruby on Rails and Django.

BT 4 out of those 5 listed are very easy to fix(Dont allow remote file access, and properly parse the input), the first one however is somewhat ambiguous and hard to tell.

PHP like anything else has to be properly maintained.

Seablade

Ahh thank you, I knew I recognized it somewhere.

There is actually an emulator I have seen pop up specificly for the old Sierra games, I dont know how well this would work for you. There is also a Dos Emulator around as well that may work better.

Seablade

Yea I kinda wish gamespy I tihnk it is had a linux client, I would be signed up already

Seablade

Quest For Glory FTW

Man, you're making this way more complicated than it needs to be. Download a "live" cd and try it without installing it it. Both Ubuntu and Kubuntu have live cd. The first will get you the gnome desktop. The second will get you the KDE desktop. Decide which one you like and go from there. There are How-to's all over the place to help you and there is also this board.

PDR60

Heh thank you I needed that post as I had just pissed myself off and that made me chuckle Correct. Linux is a Unix Like OS, but not Unix itself. Unix was traditionally a mainframe OS, but has expanded a bit into a legal headache(See SCO) among other things. Yep A good way to look at it yep. You at least are on the right track, itll make a bit more sense as you get used to linux. Well the name you are looking for is Window Manager, but that isnt entirely accurate, but again I tihnk you are at least on the right track and will understand it a bit better after you get used to linux. Im sure i could come up with more colorful names as well Yea its a pet peeve of mine because people quite often compare Linux to Mac or Windows, when in actuality they are comparing a distribution of Linux to Mac or Windows. Its a matter of clarifying the difference so that others dont get the wrong information early on and dont know better. The best answer thus far that shows you are on the right track. Linux and the Open Source Software movement follows this line of thinking, though again there can be a bit more to it that I cant describe or arent familiar with. Heh ok well you were close. I THINK what you were referring to here is a typical linux install and what it entails on the HD. The 4 Partitions is one way of doing it, typically swap, /, /home, and one more depending on the use might be /usr /var or /tmp Lilo, or the LInux LOader is a boot manager, one that many people use, though it has lost a significant amount of ground in use to GRUB which is another boot manager. Either of these programs will allow you to select what OS you want to boot on multi-boot systems, but they also provide some functionality to Linux upon loading it, and are needed to load linux. That last one(Number 7) has more to do with a specific setup than with Linux in general. Typically people in linux use partitions to seperate out their system, Ill give you a brief overview of the main three I listed.... swap - This essentially acts as virtual memory. Linux uses a seperate partition for this and you really SHOULD have one. Some people suggest going with 2x your physical ram for the size of this partition, though I dont believe this is nessecary anymore as that calculation is left over from the days of 8-32 MB of ram, or possibly earlier, not real sure when it started. In those days virtual memory was a must and you never had much physical memory anyways, unlike today. However that being said I dont believe you will suffer any ill effects other than possibly having a little bit of unused disk space, by following that formula, so for the better safe than sorry philosophy best followed on your fist couple of linux setups, it might be worthwhile. / - Yes that is lieterally just a forward slash. This is called the root partition, not to be confused with /root which is the home directory for the root user. This is kind of the equivalent to C: on windows, an arbitrary identifier, though on linux it represents much more than C: does on windows. On windows C: represents a partition on a HD. On Linux '/' while usually being a partition, represents the top level of your file system. Everything else is under '/'. Whereas on Windows you would have C: D: E: that would be different devices (Cdroms etc)or partitions on Hard drives, on Linux you might have '/' and '/mnt/cdrom' and '/home' that would be say 2 partitions on your HD and a cdrom device, or rather where you would go to browse that CD Rom device, or those partitions. See on Linux you can put a filesystem anywhere in your root filesystem. So instead of '/mnt/cdrom' you could put it at just '/cdrom'. At any rate the '/' is the root of the filesystem, you cant go any higher, and contains either your entire file system, or all of it on that partition, as well as mount points for everything else, that will for all intents and purposes make it all look like one large filesystem despite being across several devices, or partitions. /home - This is kinda similar to My Documents on Windows, but not really. This directory will have a directory under it for each user. It will be where ALL of your files are stored, and you can easily have a documents folder under it. It also tends to hold all the configuration settings for that user, as well as any other random things he/she may need, on top of all the files you create or use. For a standard user this is really the limit of what they can write to for most things(Not really, but for all intents and purposes at the moment we will say it is, in actuality they write a lot to /tmp for temporary files, and probably a few other places), though usually they can read and execute things in the /usr directory which is where the application binaries get stored. Seablade