If you really need (specifically) Adobe Reader, it can be used in Linux

The Gimp was originally developed for Unix/Linux, you're fine there

Audacity also exists for Linux

For Video Editing, you have Cinelerra, Kino, LiVES, jahshaka, Open Movie Editor, and probably others

Iclone, Poser, Daz3D, Crazytalk and Milkshape, do not know, but blender in a good option for 3D modeling, Elephant's Dream is a movie you can download (legally, of course) and watch, that was made using blender (and other open source tools)

2D Animator, maybe you could try Synfig, and see if you like it

On monitor video/audio capture, xvidcap

Cedega is an alternative to running windows games in Linux (it's based of wine, but it's centered on gaming)

What kind of format converters are you looking for? Video, audio, images, all? Either way, they exist for Linux, and they do the job well


And instead of Dual Boot, you always have the option of Virtualization, like VirtualBox, or VMWare

Everything you mention (up to video editors) is either in most distributions by default or easily added. If you've used, say, Firefox in Windows, use it (and Thunderbird) in Linux with the same add-ons and extensions (and there are other browsers and mail clients either installed by default or readily installable; e.g., Opera).

Linux distributions come with a number of window managers, most commonly KDE, sometimes with Gnome, plus others. You can try Blacbox, Fluxbox, Twm, Xfce and others if you don't like KDE or Gnome and you don't have to deal with terminal windows except when you need to do so for some reason.

You add Adobe Reader and Flash (if they're not part of the distribution already, most likely not) with a simple download from Adobe and straightforward installation. Security to your financial institutions is handled by OpenSSL and OpenSSH, both industry standards for secure communications and delivered, as far as I know, with pretty much every Linux distribution.

Now, I don't really know all that much about video and audio editors (although I know they exist and there have been a series of articles describing their features and use at Linux Journal magazine, that you can browse at http://www.linuxjournal.com and see what you think. I understand that such applications are improving and that games and the like are too (sorry, I don't do either). I'm sure others more familiar with these applications can offer advice.

If there are not Linux packages available that do specifically what you want (bear in mind that virtually all Linux packages are available at no cost -- if you like it, you contribute to help with the expenses), one alternative is to install VMware Server in you Linux machine then install Windows XP in a virtual machine. VMware Server is available free for non commercial use from http://www.vmware.com. When you do this, you have a full XP machine on which you can install whatever software you want and run it as if it were the only thing on the computer (and flip back and forth between Linux and Windows and turn Windows off when you don't need it). Virtual machines are not dual-boot, they're a machine within a machine (and you can install XP, 98, 95 and even other Linux distributions in multiple virtual machines).

The bottom line is that Linux will, most likely, make your computing life easier (and certainly less expensive!). If nothing else can recommend the system as a platform, Industrial Light and Magic does all their graphics work (and rendering) on Linux servers -- this in not to say that you're going to be able to get your hands on their software (and not for free, either), but the capability is there and the system around that capability is more than mature enough to make migration relatively easy and pretty painless.

What the heck, give it a shot and see what you think.

Not long ago, there was a special Linux distro specifically built up for video and graphic editing. It may have the name studio in it. Sorry I can't remember. I do have a CD burned somewhere in the big heap of distro CD's, but it would be a major task to dig it out.

It has been a while, but once in a while one encounters a really dumb IT admin who deliberately tells his server to block anything but MS and Mac. Marc Rudov's URL did that to me, for video. There is a plug-in, USER AGENT SWITCH for firefox which will identify itself as Vista/IE 7 if ypu wish, and when I did, it worked fine. I sent Marc a message suggesting his IT guy warn us Other OS may not work, and let us worry about it, to stop treating us like eunuchs.

Switching operating systems can be a pretty disruptive change. Why can't you stay with Windows (presumably XP)? For my Windows work, I am staying with XP. Although Microsoft won't be selling it in a couple more months, they are still going to support it by way of security and bug fixes for years. You won't get any new, wiz-bang features of course, and support for newer hardware may diminish, but XP will still work as before.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I can stay with XP and will be keeping it for somethings, but bottom line is I don't want to.

I disapprove of MS's practices top to bottom.

To avoid opening up that debate the Pink Floyd fans will understand me when I say I don't want to be another brick in the Microsoft wall.

http://ubuntustudio.org/ might be worth a look.

Questions like is Linux there yet always seem funny to me since I have used mostly Linux since 2001. I used the release of Suse just as I would have Windows.

I had problems with secure website when Netscape 6.x first came out and for a few months had to use 4.x to access secure sites.
Current releases of Firefox have worked fine in either Linux or Windows.
Your choice is either to wipe out Windows and deal with any issues or dual boot and decide if a switch is feasible. Stating why you are not going to duel boot is disingenuous.

Really, Linux is great. Linux is NOT Windows. Microsoft has a history of purposely disabling competing products. From causing error messages based solely on product identification with DR DOS, to causing errors based solely on product identification with the Opera browser and their own website. They have recently lobbied and politicked to force through the OOXML standard which they apparently have no intention of following themselves, and require the Silverlight application for installation of SP1 in Vista. So if you're waiting for Microsoft to stop what they are doing, don't hold your breath.

For video screen capture I've had more success with "Istanbul" recently.

Number of screen capture tools listed at:

http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Apps/deskt...o-capture.html

That sure sounds like the one! Good job!

I am also one who does not like Windows. Sometimes I have reasons to go there, such as certain gov't URL's that seem to be written in the non-standard Java script that is used by MS.

But, by the time I get logged off, I am usually almost foaming at the mouth and cursing in frustration. As soon as you enter, it starts putting up pop-up after pop-up, reminders, attempts to update, two prompts not one if you want to delete or exit something, as if one weren't bad enough. Then, it has delayed so long the little pop-ups come back again, before you can even use it.

And, very long time to boot, because the anti-virus and firewall have to mess around for a very long time.

Even then, at this time I do not ever plan to delete my Win partition, just in case, and I had to pay for it. If I buy a minimal Linux machine (e.g. -- madtux) that is one thing, but to wipe one that was preinstalled, no. HD space isn't that expensive anyway.

Also, Lord deliver me from the Win fanatics who mock and tell us we just don't know what we are doing, if we set it up correctly it would work great. Linux works great all by itself. Once you get Windows set up right, it needs reinstalled. I still have Mandriva LE 2005 on my old laptop, and it works as well or as poorly as when it was installed.

The biggest problem with Linux is most of the time Linux is installed on a machine specifically designed for Windows, and Linux programmers have to try to make it work on everything. They actually do very well.

Imagine with me what would happen if you designed a machine just for Linux then tried to install Windows on it. Hee, hee!

In my opinion, dual boot the sucker; it costs little unless you mess up the partitioning or grub loader. If you lose Win then go for it. But, it is handy to have it there for the rare bad URL that you might need.

Better yet, multi-boot. On www.justlinux.com they have a thread telling how a member has 147 distros, including multiple Windows and DOS partitions, which most folks say can't be done.

20 GB for Win; and 12 GB for each Linux distro. Then, use maybe 30GB of FAT 32 for a common storage partition, maybe 2 - 5 GB of ext3 storage, in case you want ./evolution to be stored for several distros. (./evolution has some files whose names cannot be stored in any MS formatted partition or CD. This causes problems when attempting to move it to a new computer. Probably have to bzip it in ext3, then move it as a binary file, and unzip it in the new machine.)

By the way, Dell is still installing XP on all Vostro machines. I got one and that XP is the best Win OS ever, IMO. Still in one month of use, it picked up 56 spywares. Blechhh.

You'd be surprised how mature wine is for a beta program. It actually does a pretty good job.
Many programs simply run out of the box, and sometimes better than in Windows. It runs many programs that vista or even xp can't.
Some times you will have to change some settings, like setting the windows version to winxp or 98 in wine or install internet explorer to make some program work, but really, it's not harder than installing directX on windows XP. In rare cases though, the program just won't work. 2 years ago, it was most programs which didn't work. Now, it's rare, really, maybe one out of 20 programs won't work for some reason. That's better than vista and even xp. XP can't run many win98 programs.
If you install GNU (I mean linux which should be called GNU), give wine a try, you will be surprised.

Very well put. You made me smile!!!!!!!

That's because it has been worked on for twelve years before a "beta" version was finally announced/released.