Linux Users--your input, please

[Corny]

It's not too hard to see the handwriting on the wall. When Jobs took over Apple, he brought it from near-bankrupty to the healthy, vital company it is today. If he passes--or retires--it's likely that Apple will fall into the same maelstrom of financial trouble that it was when Jobs took the tiller in 1997.

As much as I am not a fan of apple, I doubt that

1. How does a newbie get started?

Get a Live CD like Knoppix or similar.. best get a few different ones, and play around with them. Live CD means you just boot from the CD and get a fully working (although a lot slower since it is loaded from cd/dvd) linux to play with where you can't break anything. Most of them have some instructions for the most common setup tasks included, too.
If you like it, get a "simple" Linux distribution like ubuntu or suse linux, install it by following the manual, use that system to play around. do not abandon your other OS yet, but try to do as much as possible in linux.

2. How does one learn Linux?

for the very beginning .. maybe get a book it always helps to have something "real" handy to read in.
if you run into problems .. solve them. you can google for solutions, but also try to understand them. read manpages, readme files and beginner guides. the most important part however is: learning by doing. if you are feeling secure with your everyday use of linux you soon will want to have more control, more tweaks, more power .. that is the point where you can start installing more "DIY" distributions of linux

3. How is the websurfing experience? What browsers are used? What plugins are available--and unavailable?

mainly firefox, but also opera and konquerer. basically you can do everything a windows/mac user can do. in the past flash support has been kinda crappy because of adobe, it's still not perfect, but most stuff does run. DRM crap usually does not work, but that's almost out of fashion again.

4. Is Linux secure enough to do the highest-end financial matters?

i'd say "of course" however, i am not too sure what "highest-end financial matters" should mean.

5. Are there a lot of websites--banking, especially, and other financial institutions--that are Linux-incompatible?

banking websites that use special hardware for your machine could be a problem (i don't know how common this is over there, here a few do that). classic websites .. not so much. unless they are purely optimized for the IE, but no big bank does that still today.

Most of all: Will it be necessary for me to attend classes of some sort? I would be a raw newbie with Linux.

Necessary - no. It can be very helpful though .. often local linux clubs offer support for the newbies first installation, or free newbie courses and meetings like that. a good book (sorry that i can't recommend anything atm .. ) should be sufficient, too.

 

[davy]

linux is not an alternative to mac (or even windows)

it's an alternative to computing.

it lets you become your own mechanic so that you can fix your own problems.

if that doesn't interest you, you might now want to get into it.

 

[techboywi]

You may want to consider Ubuntu. It is a varient of Linux, but it is very easy to use. It has a interface similar to Windows, does alot of the hard work for you, automatically updates itself, and includes alot of the basic software you need from day to day.

I switched from XP to Ubuntu about a month ago, and its worked great

 

[floating]

If Linus Torvalds gets ill, which OS will you switch to next?

 

[floating]

Thanks for the very detailed and IMHO correct description of linux OrionFyre. I have used linux for a while as a desktop and am still using it for servers but switced to mac.

From a technical perspective severl linux distribuations and Mac are very similar. Open source unix kernel and a distribution with lots of user tools and applications on top. Only difference is that the sugar on the cake with Mac OS X is non free.

What I really like about OS X is that I can turn off my mental 'tweaking' switch and just use it. As an IT-fanatic the 'tunability' of an operating system like linux can draw me into fixing and turning every single knob for ages. Oh, maybe it's something with age as well, you grow out of it eventually

 

[jspk]

if you need internet explorer or some windows only apps, install ies4linux (wine) or virtualbox (seamless mode).

 

[floating]

Floating, I realize your post was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but I think it deserves a serious answer.

It certainly was

I'm well aware of Apple's mismanagement in earlier days. And Steve Jobs has has a large share in reorganising Apple and making it as focussed as it is now. However, you can't read a recent marketing book without reading about 'the Apple case'. The world is not what it used to be and we don't know what will happen tomorrow. Steve had both talent, timing and luck, but the marketing and production techniques invented by Apple are used by many more companies nowadays all over the world. I think Apple without Steve Jobs has a fair chance to keep using them as well.

OS X has also been made by thousands of enthousiastic and professional people, Many of the applications and Server OS are based on open source projects or libraries. I don't think that Apple will go astray the minute Steve leaves the building. And even if he does AND things go really wrong it will be at least 4-6 years before we as end users are in trouble. 6 years is a century in the IT world and even Apple will have so many products already planned and in development we can still enjoy those.

Bottom line: I will not spend too much energy on speculating what OS to use next until there's reason to do so and I really have to.

Fred.

 

[davy]

Why on god's green fucking earth would anyone WANT to run IE on linux? that bug laden, security hole riddled, worthless excuse for a binary is only deserving of having the file overwritten with thirty thousand passes of random data from a properly seeded /dev/random.

for the bad and clueless web developers.

what else?

 

[Corny]

precious random data? /dev/zero should be more than sufficient, you won't try to restore the file anyway.

 

[Corny]

I heard there is a nice activeX plugin for mozilla, too

 

[floating]

We do all our web development at work on mac/linux with firefox, but customers require website compatibillity with IE6/7. Ies4linux is nice for that. Desperate, but 'nice' . I bought and use vmware fusion though, more stable than IE in Wine.