Linux Question

Linux Mint is probably the best ubuntu-based distro.

Libre Office is the new office version, cross died long ago(I think)

If you're linux curious here's a great site which lists the most popular versions along with the newest updates:

[link to distrowatch.com]

Mint is #1 currently FYI

Linux Mint is pretty decent distro [link to www.linuxmint.com]

You can always load the terminal by pressing 'Ctrl+Alt+t' and perform root operations by placing sudo before the command.

I use LibreOffice as an office productivity suite and have not had too many issues opening files made in Microsoft Office.

You could also give debian a try too [link to www.debian.org]

Will it work fine with the newer Office 07/10 formats? That is the main reason I was looking at Crossover Office.

Thank you! It does seem to fit what I was looking for.

I run both Linux Mint, and PCLOS. Both are excellent!

I like to mess around with OpenSUSE, you might wanna give that a try.

There are a lot of distro's out there, it's quite hard to say a certain distro fits you. I suggest you install VMWare Workstation so you can test them all in a safe environment.

ubuntu or linux mint
i prefer ubuntu

PLOPLINUX is worth a look

Well, I can only speak from my experience with libre office so your mileage might vary:

Word Documents - I have not had too many issues opening word documents but I do not open them very often. Most of the documents that I open are marked up in TeX and sent as a pdf

Powerpoint - if the slides contain mathematical formulae, you might encounter a couple issues (i.e. weird ass symbols instead of the actual symbols that should be displayed). 'Normal' slides should not give you any issues.

Excel spreadsheets - no problems here but just know that the functions for libreoffice calc are different than the functions in Excel. Most of the data that my coworkers and I encounter are saved as CSVs so the sets can remain OS agnostic.

Folks, thank you for all the suggestions! My hat's off to you.

Im really thinking about moving to ubuntu just going to leave a windows partion for all my games

I may be mistaken but Ubuntu 12.10 is suppossed to have FDE available as an install option.

[link to www.pclinuxos.com]

I'm a FreeBSD guy personally, but that is usually too much work for those who aren't interested in custom-building their OS.

So my vote goes to Mint or OpenSUSE. Either is a pretty good distro to work from.

I'm a long time Suse user and I tend to prefer it.... However, I just installed Mint with the Mate desktop on an extra drive for testing in my workshop and like it alot. (Not enough to get me to abandon Suse on my other boxes though.)

My son has used Mint on his new laptop for the last few months, but that's only because we couldn't get Grub to properly install due to UEFI in the BIOS. I heard there was a fix, but he likes Mint now.

Oh yeah, I forgot about your "Office" question.

I use Libre Office mostly, but have written some stuff in MS Access for some small offices. So, when I need specific MS products, they're run through a Win7 VM in Linux.

Last Edited by Travis Bickle on 10/16/2012 08:41 PM

I found this Linux choosers questionare guide to be helpful today, maybe, we'll see, but I think I will try the openSUSE Linux -
Online quiz helps to select a desktop Linux distro
[link to www.desktoplinux.com]

Interesting. Thanks!