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LinuxInTheHomeAndOffice

Linux in the home, the office and in Education

Linux is a very able operating system and a suitable platform for the home office and education environments, it is also suitable for playing games. There is a wide choice of distributions and a fairly steep learning curve once you have selected a distribution. One advantage of Linux is that having learned how to do something once, that rule pretty much applies to all other versions and distributions.

There is no harm in trying out each of the top three distributions. I'm not an operating system fascist but I do question the motives of the leading distro providers and for this reason Debian is my personal favourite although I also use RedHat, SuSE in the workplace and at home.

Linux will co-exist with microsoft, however I like the "clean break" approach. Get hold of a reasonably decent specification PC and install Linux, or install a few versions of Linux, I suggest the clean break approach because it's hardly fair to run Windows for the past few years on its own and then to evaluate Linux on a dual boot PC. Also please don't scrimp and save on your Linux hardware, give it good quality high specification hardware. I am confident that Linux will make better use of your electronic equipment than competing propriety brands will. Linux Tools and environment under Win32

You may wish to make a gradual migration to using open source, to get comfortable with the Linux Tools and interface in which case you should install cygwin and KDE for cygwin on XP or Windows 2000. This will give you have a very user friendly KDE interface and will be able to run a surprising number to linux programs and tools on a Win32 platform. Free Open Source Programs and Tools

The following will operate on Linux and on Win32, giving you the advantage of unified interface and saving you a load of ca$h, although having said that there is nothing wrong with paying good money for good software! TexPad is and example of good software worth paying for,

OpenOffice Cygwin and KDE Desktop and KDE Office Gimp Apache

Building the Perfect Linux Server or WorkStation. by Roland Munyard Building the Perfect Windows XP Server or WorkStation. by Roland Munyard

http://www.sf.edu/jhlavacek/computers/kids.html

Open Source Software in a Windows Environment

Many of these applications will work in both Window and Linux

http://www.jairlie.com/oss/suggestedapplications.html

Linux Information- "Linux for everyone!"

Dedicated to the Open Software in the Home, Office and Enterprise, this page is about using Free and Open Software in the home and office.

Open Source/Software refers to the fact that the source code of Free/Open Software is open to and for the world to take, to modify and to reuse, more specifically I bring you information about the application of open software in your home business or enterprise.

OpenSource.org Open-source software is an idea whose time has finally come, for twenty years it has been building momentum in the technical cultures that built the Internet and the World Wide Web, now it's breaking out into the commercial world, and that's changing all the rules. Are you ready?

High-Availability Linux Project http://linux-ha.org Linux Gazette http://www.linuxgazette.com Linux Banners http://www.vergenet.net/~conrad/linux/banners/ Linux Documentation Project http://www.ibiblio.org/mdw/index.html Linux Links http://topology.org/linux.html

LinuxLife.org - Cool

http://www.softpanorama.org/index.shtml Softpanorama: (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

UK Linux User Group resources http://www.lug.org.uk

Linux on Laptops This is an index of information and documentation of interest to those who now use or are considering using the Linux operating system on a notebook or laptop computer. This resource is available on the World Wide Web at its original North American location,

The moral values of Free Software are best summarized in the 'Hackers' Ethic: from a book called Hackers, Heros of the Computer Revolution.

    * Always yield the Hands-On Imperative! Access to computers - and anything else which might teach you about the way the world works - should be unlimited and total.
    * All information should be free.
    * Mistrust Authority - Promote Decentralization.
    * Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
    * You can create art and beauty on a computer.
    * Computers can change your life for the better. (Levy, 1984)

Help fight for the right to play DVD on Linux http://www.opendvd.org The Linux Box http://linux.box.sk/ Softpanorama (slightly sceptical) http://www.softpanorama.org/index.shtml The Linux Counter http://counter.li.org/ The Linux Gazette http://linuxcentral.com/linux/lg/

WinCVS http://www.wincvs.org/ - (use on Windows with CVS) Modems http://linmodems.org Clear River - Build rpms online. http://www.clearrivertech.com/services/buildrpms/

http://www.linuxsure.com - another site like Linux Open Office campaigns and petitions

Join The Electronic Frontier Foundation and help support the DeCSS legal case and many other issues of vital importance to the "electronic frontier".

Top 50 Security Tools http://www.nmap.org/tools.html http://www.cs.colorado.edu/users/rickhall/deployment/links.html Software Deployment Links

Explore2fs - A very useful tool for reading linux partitions from Windows XP

http://www.alsa-project.org Advanced Linux Sound Project

Linuxquestions.org Utils / Tools of interest

debsync - Synchronize Debian GNU/linux http://www.librelogiciel.com/software/debsync/action_Presentation fai - Full Automated Installation on Debian boxes

Debianhelp.org RedHat resource

atp-get for RedHat http://www.freshrpms.net , the first thing I add after installing RedHat Misc Information and tools

Free Software Foundation Europe http://www.fsfeurope.org

Linux Kernel Archive http://kernel.org ISP on a shoestring

    * Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email
    * Abuse.net

 ============================================
 Take the Boulder Pledge: "Under no circumstances will I ever purchase
 anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited email message.
 Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus
 warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the
 survival of the online community."
 ============================================

OpenOffice.org is free. (StarOffice software is an affordable alternative in office productivity suites that runs on multiple operating systems, including Solaris[tm] Operating Environment, Microsoft Windows, and Linux. The office suite has a simple, easy-to-use interface and contains full-featured applications including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, graphics and database capabilities.)