On Fri, 2003-01-03 at 17:56, Robert Frank wrote: > Frustrated with Windows 98 and Microsoft, I'm looking at moving to > Linux. I've been told that Debian is a good way to go, particularly for a > Linux beginner. I'm hoping to use it on a home office computer, using > applications such as Pagemaker, Photoshop, WordPerfect, Excel, Dreamweaver > and a multitude of games. > > QUESTION: Will Debian run these programs and PC games? (I'm not a > programmer and only some basic code .... but I loved Windows 3.1 when you > could type or view code.)
Hi! Linux is not windows. It will, basically, not run windows programs. Lindows might be something for you, I never looked at it, though. Most windows program have a near-equivalent replacement, for beginners I'd recommend openoffice for office things, gimp is roughly a photoshop clone. I don't know if there's something that compares to pagemaker or dreamweaver. Games are right out (well, there's a few. And, of course, it's always fun to play nethack, xasteroids, xgalaga and all the other old friends [all dating from around the time I was born]). Conclusion: Linux is probably not for you. Not unless you're prepared to spend much time learning it. Remember how much time you spent frustrated because you didn't know how to install a CD-ROM driver into your HIMEM.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT? Expect to spend roughly the same time. If you're not used to Unix-like systems, it probably doesn't matter much that you knew windows fairly well (I'm speaking of installing and configuring the system. The mouse works the same way...). cheers -- vbi -- get my gpg key here: http://fortytwo.ch/gpg/92082481
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