[Gloucs] Getting rid of Windoze

[Thomas Adam]

On Thu, Mar 03, 2005 at 11:05:04PM -0600, E wrote:

> The easiest one was browsers & email as i've already got him using

This is only the beginning of a number of issues with these questions
you're asking -- firstly "easiest".  For what?  For whom?  The Queen?
The Pope?  Indeed, it's subjective, so unless (until?) you tell us what
you mean by the definition of the word, this is going to be a subjective
answer.

> firebird & thunderbird under windows.

Firebird is old and you should really be using FireFox.  I personally
use all manner of browsers, mostly links2 and elinks.  Why?  Because to
me they're more light-weight and user-friendly.  Thousands would
disagree, but then I don't care.  :)

Email clients, I use mutt.  Thunderbird is heavy.  Others that exist are
Evolution and Sylpheed.  I have used the latter many times, and it is
very fast, and featureful, without having the 100 second startup time of
Thunderbird.

> I use Office (word, excell, publisher) what can replace these ?

OpenOffice[1] can for sure. If you wanted a foray of other alternatives,
there's 'Abiword' (as "word") and 'Gnumeric' (as "excel").  As far as
desktop publising is concerned, there is 'scribus', which is quite good
[2].

> I use dreamweaver for webdesign ?

That's nice.  You might be interested therefore in using 'nvu' which is
supposedly similar to it. I use [g]vim.  Others that exist are 'Amaya',
and 'BlueFish'.

> I use Adobe Photoshop & Macromedia Fireworks anything similar ?

The 'Gimp' is like photoshop.  'Dia' might be like Fireworks, I'm unsure.

> I use 3 programs in windows to convert & encode my own dvd's ? is
> there anything available todo the same ?

Lots. A hell of a lot. 

> Will Linux play all the differant media formats (Quicktime, Realtime,
> WMA, WMV, ASF, DivX, Xvid) ?

It's not "Linux" that plays them -- support for this does not reside in
the kernel.. The two leading players of those codecs are 'Xine', and
'Mplayer'.  I prefer the latter.

> What software will burn CD/DVD's ?

Someone else in this thread mentined k3b -- that's a pile of poo in my
opinion, and unless you will be using KDE as your primary desktop
environment, it's a heafty download for an otherwise broken application.
Since many "burning" programs are a frontend only to cdrecord (Gasp!  A
command-line program, surely not...) many of them just enumerate the
possibilities that the app does.  There's 'XCdroast', as well.  "Arson" is
another QT-based app that'll burn CDs, but not sure about DVDs.

> Is it all "user-friendly" ie. no command line stuff ?

Ah, the question that "interested" me.  I like this.. is it all
"user-friendly".  As with your initial question, this is subjective, and
unless you clarify what you mean, you'll get a subjective answer.  So
far, I've taken it to mean you want all nice pretty GUI apps.  But in
so-doing, you're limiting youself.  You cannot escape using the
command-line.  

> How do i install upgrades to firefox/thunderbird for example ?

Depends upon the distribution.  Since you're using Ubuntu, then you have
two options:

1) Go via Synaptic  (A GUI -- is this "user-friendly", too?)
2) apt-get update && apt-get install mozilla-firebird \
mozilla-thunderbird  (my preferred method).

> Is there any accounting software available that will do online banking

There's certain 'sql-ledger' as an accountancy web-frontend.  There's also
'GNUCash', but what about the on-line banking bit?  What do you mean?

> What about a good FTP client / Firewall / Antivirus / Instant
> Messaging ?

"A Good" client?  Again, what do you mean by "good"?  If you mean it
behaves well, and eats cookies, then I'm afraid you're sadly mistaken.
However, if (and this is still the assumption I'm making) you meant a
GUI versin, then there is gFTP for FTP stuff.  Firewalls, I would use
iptables (there are some frontends to allow you to bugg^H^H^Hdefine
iptable rules -- I don't know what they are off-hand, I just use [g]vim,
and a brain).  Antivirus, well, 'SpamAssassin', I suppose.  Gaim, licq,
amsn all do IM.  'Centericq' will as well.

You might think I'm being too harsh on you, in picking up on your
grammar.  But I'm trying to get you to see that unless you define what
you mean, and be specific, you won't get the answer you were looking
for...

-- Thomas Adam

[1]  www.openoffice.org
[2]  Again, that's in my opinion.

--  
"One of us is a cigar stand, and one of us is a lovely blue incandescent
guillotine" -- Stephen Malkmus, "Type Slowly" from "Brighten The Corners"