Linux

Hi all,

Long time UNIX admin, first time LINUX user.

So I'm finally at the last straw with Windows. I hate it. I've always hated it but the wife was scared of change so I kept it going. But Window's insistence on "protecting" me by preventing me access to certain areas created hours of work for me last night when I was trying to recover from a recent malware problem. So I'm done with it. But my problem is that I have tons of third party applications, some of which are old so I don't have the original disks for. And others that have been customized to my liking over a long period of time and I don't know if I could even set it up again the way I like it if I had to. So my question is this: will I loose these programs and/or their settings (assuming said settings aren't configured in say Window's regedit) if I install LINUX?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Linux flavors often have a dual boot facility as part of the install, so that you can reboot into Linux or into Windows depending on what programs you want to run.

For example, ubuntu, offers to install grub right from the getgo. grub (another one is lilo) allows you to specify which OS you want to boot. This requires a free disk partition for Linux.

You can install VMware or other virtual system software packages. Also requires at least one separate disk partition for each OS. This allows both Linux and Windows to run at the "same" time.

If you only have Linux installed on your box you may not be able to run your Windows apps under wine - wine is the least among the choices here. wine provides a windows framework under linux. It seems to work for older apps, but anything that is a newer major windows app has caused me problems in the past. YMMV.

edit -
implicit assumption in the above - you left windows installed, and added another hard drive or partition. I don't know enough about wine to comment beyond some tinkering with it.

Hi Jim, thanks for the response. I'm actually hoping to remove Windows entirely. My ideal situation would be to get the new LINUX OS to see these 3rd party apps as they are now without having to reinstall them from scratch again. If by "windows apps" you mean things like windows media player then I won't miss things like that. I rarely use the MS provided softwares. Even WMP I've long since mothballed in favor of SMplayer instead.

It's going to reformat your drive during installation and it will not see your apps if you perform a new install. Linux won't "upgrade" from your current Windows install so I believe you'll have to find a Linux app that is comparable to what you are currently using. There are thousands out there and I've found a replacement for everything I was using before.
Good luck.

I'm surprised to tell this to a long time UNIX admin, but Linux is not windows and never will be. Windows programs are not, have never been, and will never be directly supported. Installing the WINE libraries lets you run some of them but this is often tricky.

You'll need to find new ways to do a lot of things. But that's pretty much the point. If it was the same as windows, did everything the same way as windows, ran the same programs the same way in the same interface, what would be the point? It'd have all the same problems too.

What are these 3rd party apps you need so badly? Are they really irreplaceable?

I'm not saying that it is. If I implied that than I apologize. I was just asking if I could retain my third party applications (ie: software made by Adobe, Mozilla, EA, Goldwave, etc) under the new operating system without reinstalling them from scratch. I do not generally see third party apps as "Windows programs".

You might be shocked to learn that 3rd party apps for Windows won't run under IRIX, either, then. Really, it's the same principle... Linux is as alien to Windows as HPUX, Solaris, OSX, or any other OS built around UNIX guidelines and not Microsoft ones.

Some of the ones you mention have Linux versions, like Mozilla. Others beg the question -- Adobe what? There's an Adobe Reader for linux(plus open alternatives like xpdf), and an Adobe Flash Player(plus open alternatives like Gnash), and I'm not sure what else. Some have open alternatives for a variety of OSes and architectures, like the audio editor/mixer Audacity. And some are just really reaching, assuming EA means EAgames... It's possible, I suppose, using WINE, but emulating Windows perfectly has been found to be an uphill battle. There's plenty of older games that run better in WINE than Windows XP, but when MS invents new API's and tosses old ones in the garbage bin every month, it's unlikely for the latest and greatest games to work.

If you want all your Windows applications running in a Windows interface, use Windows.