[clug] Getting started

[Fred Pilcher]

On Saturday 17 February 2007 03:31, Barry Campbell wrote:
> Hi there
>
> I am in dire need of help getting started with Linux.

Hi Barry. I'm a newbie too, and I'm presently running Simply Mepis 6 and SuSE 
(SLED 10 and Open SuSE 10.2), and I'm just starting to experiment with WINE. 
By the sound of things I'm only a little ahead of you. ;-)

Firstly, I'd agree with what the others have said - the native Linux apps are, 
in general, exceptionally good and will not only do what the Windows 
equivalents do but, usually, do them so much better it's astonishing.

But there are some Windows apps that I just love and, as yet, haven't found 
quite the equivalent; I'm running Irfanview and Autostitch under Wine.

Simply Mepis is a wonderful distro - I've installed it on my daughter's PC as 
well as using it at work to overcome some specific problems. I'm running SuSE 
on my PCs because I'm finding it more comprehensive "out of the box".

I'm using K3b for most of my CD/DVD burning requirements, and it's superb, 
though I haven't yet found a DVD compressor that will compress a dual layer 
DVD onto a single layer and, sadly, I'm still using Windwoes for that. I'll 
be interested to see if any recommendations come from the wonderful 
luminaries on this list.

Good luck, and please let us know how you travel.

Fred