Which linux distro is most compatible with windows?

[Larilin 0]

Hi all,

I hope nobody has asked this question before (I didn't find it). I am considering starting to use Linux on my personal computer (I'm currently using Windows 2000), but as I have to interact and exchanges files with Windows pc's, I prefer to buy the linux distro that will give me the least headache with regard to interacting with Windows pc's.

 

My impression is that SuSe is best at this, as SuSe 8.0 seems to be able to read (and write?) office files. If not for this, I would choose RedHat which seems to me to be very good. But as RedHat seems to be less compatible with windows, I might go with Suse.

 

I would appreciate comments and suggestions!

Thank you

[blueworm 0]

Linux is Linux regardless of distribution.

All that changes is the packaging...

[firefox2501 0]

If you are worried about opening MS Office files on Linux, then you can use OpenOffice. OpenOffice runs on any distro of Linux or on Windows, and it can read or write MS Office files.

 

If you are worried about file sharing with Windows systems, the best method to do this is with Samba. Which is available for any distro of linux.

 

If you are worried about playing Windows Media Files, then your best bet is MPlayer, with the various codec add-ons. Once again, this is available for any distro of linux.

 

The question of which distro is best boils down to personal preference, not the capabilities of linux.

 

I run SuSE because I am used to it. One of my friends runs Red Hat, because she is used to it. Another friend compiled his linux from scratch.

 

Hope this helps.

[Larilin 0]

firefox2501:

 

Thanks a lot! That was very helpful and solves my problem, really.

Thank you!

 

Larilin

[Squeak 0]

The most problematic thing is gaming. A few games are available on Linux natively, such as ut2k3, RTCW, RTCW:ET(and many other id games), Soldier of Fortune 1, and a few others. But if you want to play games that are Windows-only, you can use a Windows emulator called Wine to run many games, and other Windows applications (it runs HL well, not so sure about Steam though).

[Larilin 0]

Thanks for the information concering games! Games are not the most important thing to me though. I plan to use this pc mostly for working and surfing on the internet.

 

But what you write about a windows emulator, sounds interesting. One important reason why I want to start using Linux is that I have been heavily attacked by viruses lately and lost a lot of time dealing with that. I don't think my computer is completely clean yet. In addition, there are some other problems with my pc - which may be related to viruses - or to windows being an unstable os.. So I am looking for an os with more security and dependability but if I can keep working with an interface that looks like the one I am used to ..that's great!

[Dapper Dan 0]

Quote:

One important reason why I want to start using Linux is that I have been heavily attacked by viruses lately and lost a lot of time dealing with that. I don't think my computer is completely clean yet. In addition, there are some other problems with my pc - which may be related to viruses - or to windows being an unstable os.. So I am looking for an os with more security and dependability but if I can keep working with an interface that looks like the one I am used to ..that's great!

This is EXACTLY why I moved away from Windows to Linux! I havn't looked back!

[IMcool 0]

I would consider the features of each distro. Particulalry in these areas:

1. Community

2. Packaging (varies between distros)

3. Supportablility (availability of the software you need)

 

All of them are not perfect, but I personally find Mandrake more appealing with all the support it has.

[Dapper Dan 0]

If you do choose Mandrake, 9.0 was a great release. I would start there. Other's experiences may be different but I personally ran into a lot of problems with Mdk 9.1. I also worked with 9.2 some which is in beta, and not ready for prime time.

Also consider Red Hat 9.0 which is very user friendly and has great support. You can also use a program with RH 9 called "apt-get rpm" that makes installing programs a breeze without getting into "dependancy hell."

Another avenue you may want to explore is to download and burn Morphix Gnome 4.1, a complete Linux distro you can run from cd. That way you can check out Linux and see how you like it before doing anything that could potentially endanger you Windows partition. Morphix is Debian based, and also uses "apt-get"

The Mandrake 9.0 installation will automatically mount your windows partition, both vfat and ntfs when dual booting. Red Hat doesn't do it automatically but it's not too hard to do if you follow their instructions.