confused - Newbie questions..

[Tjobbe]

hey everyone, just wonderring if Gentoo is right for me and I ahev a few questions im hoping you can help me with!

1- Where do I find out what spec my unit must be to run Gentoo? it used to run windows 98 and "barely" XP and I want to install it on there, what do you think?

2- What graphics programms can Gentoo handle, what is compatible, does it run s/w like adobe photoshop and quark express or is this a no-no?

3- What experience would you reccomend for a Gentoo user? I use XP all the time, have used win 98 and a mac, will I find it a steep learning curve and get scared by it or does it work more or less the same? I did see one or two of the screenshots which scared me!

4- would prgrammes like OpenOffice be suitable for Gentoo?


Essentially, why I'm asking this is to see if an average user can take the unit with gentoo and use it for university, for browsing, emails, chatting and maybe a little bit of work as well if needs be on the graphics apps.

Thanks for your time! sorry if these questions are answerred elsewhere, im a bit new to this so don't know where to begin looking im afraid!

Tjobbe
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I know where you live.

[Trevoke]

You came to the right place
Linux is great for everything but high-end video editing and highly demanding gaming (because we don't get real drivers!)

If you want to run Gentoo, well, you probably need a 5+ gig hard drive (after you've installed all the software you want, just to make sure you have the hard drive room to do big compiles (Open Office, KDE, the such). Any video card will do. Any sound card will do. 64+ megs of RAM will do.... Do you get the picture yet? Linux is much less demanding than WinXP.

What graphics programs does Gentoo handle.. Well, we're all very proud of GIMP. It's nothing short of amazing. Don't know Quark Express though, but GIMP will replace Adobe Photoshop easily.

OpenOffice : it's great It's made for Linux, so... Works for Gentoo. I love it. It's fully Office compatible, whichI find hilarious...

Need any more reasons to switch to Linux? More specifically, Gentoo? Best tech support ever, RIGHT HERE!
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[oumpah-pah]

If you're completely new to linux, I think you should not start with gentoo. You should rather try a more 'user-friendly' distribution, like Mandrake for example. Once you get used to the command line, config files editing, ... then you can try gentoo. I know some people that tried gentoo first, and quickly went back to windows, and I don't want this to happen to you!

[Trevoke]

It's a matter of choice! As long as he knows that he can ask questions here and he'll get answers with a smile.... (oops, I mean of course )
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[Tjobbe]

Brilliant, that sounds like I have found a new love then!!


so essentially, Gentoo CAN run software designed for PC's or did I read that wrong?


I assume that GIMP is open source? I'll check this out thanks for the advice but I would still like to have photoshop to run on there if it can!

thanks
_________________
I know where you live.

[Trevoke]

Well, alright, time for the obligatory little lesson
(www.gimp.org)

Microsoft Windows (r) is an operating system.
GNU/Linux is an operating system.
You have to pay for Windows and most important software on it.
GNU/Linux is free and so is all software on it (except, like, McAfee AV but who cares, use clamav).

Since Linux is an OS, it'll do exactly the same thing Windows does : let you manage your computer and ... use it.
When you mean software designed for PCs... I'm afraid you may mean software designed for Microsoft. The answer is "No, unless you run WINE". (www.winehq.org). WINE stands for WINE Is Not an Emulator. It lets you run Windows software on Linux, interesting for games (but do check out winex and the such, those have better DirectX support).

However, Linux has a good (better, IMHO) replacement for the Microsoft software : software built FOR THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE!

I know you love Photoshop, but if you learned to use it, and if you aren't afraid to install Gentoo, you certainly won't be afraid to learn how to use GIMP. You'll soon learn that it's quite amazing.


By the way, word of warning: installing Gentoo is very time-consuming, and you will learn a lot. You need patience.
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[Trevoke]

Addendum : I just did some research on the forums.. GIMP is not quite as good as Photoshop yet. If you want to run Photoshop you'll have to use WINE... Thankfully, there's enough help on WINE around here to choke a full-grown cow.
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