Quote from: davidinyork on September 04, 2015, 10:26:18 AM

Quote from: MikeDunn on September 04, 2015, 10:23:42 AM
Must admit, Dell do decent rack-mount servers though

Yes, got some of them too! At least the recent models can comfortably be carried by one person. With the earlier ones it was more of a challenge and I always made sure I was wearing steel-toecapped boots if I had to shift one!

Yeah, shifted a few of those in my last job, not fun. (Could never stand Dell desktops, at least the out-of-warranty ones I used to have to maintain on a shoestring budget, due to their weird non-standard parts).

I have a Lattitude E6500, which has been great for the last 5 years. Been kicked around all over Europe. The battery is failing now, but apart from that, it's been fine. The previous Dell had a new screen, keyboard and power board, all done on site under the 3 year warranty. As David says, I've used Dell 2u and 1u servers for ages, much better than the Compaq/HP ones we used before.

Anyway,  getting back to the software question.

Going back to the software question, I am not a Linux power user, but found Zorin to be very good. I use the default tools, including the Open Office software. It reads and writes the MS format files and works quite well. I did find some of the commands in the spreadsheet program to be different to Excel, but still works OK.

Quote from: Malc on September 04, 2015, 03:54:30 PM
Going back to the software question, I am not a Linux power user, but found Zorin to be very good. I use the default tools, including the Open Office software. It reads and writes the MS format files and works quite well. I did find some of the commands in the spreadsheet program to be different to Excel, but still works OK.

For the novice (particularly one used to Windows) the best Linux distribution at the moment is probably Mint.

Quote from: davidinyork on September 04, 2015, 03:57:32 PM
For the novice (particularly one used to Windows) the best Linux distribution at the moment is probably Mint.

Coming from Windoze, I've tried a live version (on a USB stick) of LXLE and was fairly impressed with the ease of setup and use. I was even able to get my Brother wireless laser printer working on it fairly easily.

I too use Linux, but I'm in IT professionally, so I might be considered a power user. Generally speaking, there is a program to do everything you can in windows, it will just do it differently. if you simply need receiving and sending emails through a normal email provider, then Thunderbird is probably the way to go. libre office is definitely the best thing for office work, again, it depends what you need it to do.
Most things nowadays are moving online, google has a whole suite of software based online. they call it google apps which is email, word processing, spreadhsheets, calendar, drive space etc.
Then it wouldn't matter what device you are on, because you can access it anywhere with an internet connection.

Caveat, I am a google fan, I have an android phone use google for work emails and private, so everything syncs everywhere for me which is super convenient, but not for everyone. so take my praise with a pinch of salt. That said, my 50something mother uses a chromebook (a laptop built by google effectively) and she can get around on it quite well. she does facebook, yahoo mail, and watches tv catch up programs, so clearly it isn't impossible.

Aside from office and email. what else are you likely to do? SCARM (or anyrail if you prefer) both work on linux through another program. so whilst it's not as straight forward as simply installing it, it can be done. and we would gladly help you through!

The biggest 'problem' with linux is, as far as you're concerned, there are lots of different versions... ubuntu, mint, fedora, suse...the list is pretty huge... but if you're brave enough there is tonnes of help around to help you get used to them.

Thank you mickster04.

I really can't get on with Google. One area of concern is that I need to share files via Dropbox with others. They are all on MS office. We don't do anything terribly clever but it does need to work.

dropbox has a native application for use with linux
https://www.dropbox.com/install?os=lnx

[EDIT] you'll also find that most windows formats are readable in linux. the biggest exception is powerpoint, which has issues with the animations, and graphics in documents, which sometimes have difficulty when alpha (transparency) is used...

Quote from: mickster04 on September 07, 2015, 10:40:40 AM
dropbox has a native application for use with linux
https://www.dropbox.com/install?os=lnx

[EDIT] you'll also find that most windows formats are readable in linux. the biggest exception is powerpoint, which has issues with the animations, and graphics in documents, which sometimes have difficulty when alpha (transparency) is used...

Ouch. I use Powerpoint a fair bit.

well you could install MS Office into linux.

theres a thing called WINE https://www.winehq.org/ which lets you install and run windows applications.

seeing as you have a license for MS office, seems a shame to waste it.

Quote from: mickster04 on September 07, 2015, 11:38:33 AM
well you could install MS Office into linux.

theres a thing called WINE https://www.winehq.org/ which lets you install and run windows applications.

seeing as you have a license for MS office, seems a shame to waste it.

It gets complicated if you start doing that sort of thing...

easier if you use https://www.playonlinux.com/en/

Quote from: davidinyork on September 07, 2015, 11:43:57 AM

Quote from: mickster04 on September 07, 2015, 11:38:33 AM
well you could install MS Office into linux.

theres a thing called WINE https://www.winehq.org/ which lets you install and run windows applications.

seeing as you have a license for MS office, seems a shame to waste it.

It gets complicated if you start doing that sort of thing...

I would have thought that if you are committed to using Windows apps (like office) then you'll be better off sticking to Windows OS rather than using Wine just so you can use Linux. Why not have a double boot option so you can use either Linux or Windows?

Not wishing to encourage or discourage anyone from using Windows or Linux, but if you have an existing Windows licence from your existing laptop then can you not just buy a new computer with nothing (or Linux) on and then install Windows with your existing licence?

Cheers, Mike