Hello Neill, Welcome. I'd like to amplify some of the comments made earlier and contribute a few links that might be helpful. The learning curve may seem steep but I hope you will find that it's worth the effort! It certainly has been for me.
I don't know where you live or work but there are many enthusiastic people that attend Linux User Groups (LUGs) in California that are willing and able to help you in getting started with Linux. We have a list on our wiki https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CaliforniaTeam available by clicking on the "Local Meetings" link at the top. We link to several overlapping lists of California LUGs including the Linux.org list mentioned earlier. My problem solving routine includes using Google with carefully chosen key words. You will often find links to the Ubuntu forums among the results or you can browse them directly. Regarding Software, I think Pidgin is a nice, simple IRC interface to get to IRC. Another benefit of Pidgin is that if you are stuck on a windows machine either at home or work it runs on Windows too.. Many people start using more Open Source software packages and data formats on the Windows platform like Firefox, Open Office, Gimp (instead of Photoshop), Songbird (http://getsongbird.com/ instead of iTunes), etc. All of these Open Source software applications work pretty well on Windows today depending on your real needs. For those interested in a Unix-like environment while on Windows the Cygwin project http://www.cygwin.com has recompiled many favorites (like Apache, MySQL, even X Windows) to run on Windows natively though for trials a virtual machine may make more sense. [1] To get a full Windows environment dual-boot without repartitioning (uses a windows *file* as a hard disk) the WUBI (Windows UBuntu Installer) installation of the standard Ubuntu desktop CD might be helpful or can be downloaded. http://wubi-installer.org/ These methods are not "full LInux installations" and can vary in effectiveness, but they can provide most of the benefits of both computing worlds when using a Windows machine. -- -- Grant Bowman <grant...@gmail.com> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_platform_virtual_machines and look for Windows as the host OS -- Ubuntu-us-ca mailing list Ubuntu-us-ca@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-ca
