Time To Switch To Linux

[phuket Mike]

I've been a heavy Windows user for a long time. Played with Linux from time to time in various forms. My current thinking is to go with 64bit Fedora 15 on my main desktop. I don't care about Windows Software, I don't use office and have recently ditched Dreamweaver.

I have a fairly high spec machine i7 processor with 8gb of RAM, but have found Windows 7 is slowly eating up all my resources.

The only Windows application that I need that is not on Linux is a Database Design tool called Dezign, I can't do without it, but I can move it my laptop for the time being.

If any one knows of a Linux app for graphical database design I would be very grateful and also opinions of Fedora V Ubuntu.

I will also be heading back to the UK in a few months and getting back into the job market so if anyone has any info on what distro is widely used in companies that would be helpful, I've seen plenty of people using Centos which is based on Fedora.

I'm not particularly looking for job supporting Linux, but as my background is in tech support it would be useful to have some more recent Linux experience.

Thanks in advance.

[sulasno]

have you tried Wine ?

[Crushdepth]

Have you considered running Linux (or Windows) as a virtual machine in the other OS? Good way to get used to it without going cold turkey. And actually it's handy to have both available at once.

[phuket Mike]

I will always consider Wine, it's a good option - need to test my app first.

I never considered the virtual machine option going to take a look at vmware, the microsoft addon and virtual box.

Thanks for the help.

[rakman]

Centos is "white box" RedHat Enterprise Linux of the same number. RHEL is typically a "server" style of Linux.

RedHat Linux, was the old (early) versions of RedHat, which became the Fedora Project.

Both RHEL and Fedora are open source, the Fedora community is a geared to new developments, where RHEL is geared to be a stable enterprise o/s.

Sound confusing?

[jpinx]

You might want to consider Debian and if you can not find an application for what you need you can use a virtual machine running whatever windows version will run your current app . You will find intelligent and useful help for debian on irc.freenode.net #debian Many Linux variants are based on debian such as ubuntu and maemo, all because debian is solid and frequently the choice for public servers, but you can go as close to the bleeding edge as you want if you have the skills.

[dave_boo]

Have you considered going with SuSE. Great for easing into the Linux world as YaST is a one stop shop for configuring your system. It also supports a lot of Linux standards so that you don't get confused as coming from say Ubuntu to another distro. The net install is a great way to build your system with just what you want without a bunch of superfulous things laying around. If installing the default it is stunningly good looking. Zypper is, from what I can tell, on par with apt-get.

Just an idea to consider.

[dharmabm]

The only Windows application that I need that is not on Linux is a Database Design tool called Dezign, I can't do without it, but I can move it my laptop for the time being. If any one knows of a Linux app for graphical database design I would be very grateful and also opinions of Fedora V Ubuntu.

depends a bit on what kind of databases you are working with, but there's definitely tools out there. a quick search found the most options for mysql that look like they have features similar to your app, but postgres has a few as well. a quick look at DBDesigner looks VERY similar. check out http://sixrevisions....ysql_databases/ and http://wiki.postgres...se_Design_Tools for some ideas.

k

ps. i've never been a fan of fedora (even though i was a redhat user way back before they forked) but i've always found centos to be pretty reliable, although their development seems to have stalled a bit of late. debian was my favorite for many years, rock solid though not exactly cutting edge, and requires a bit of admin expertise. ubuntu is easy (and based on debian) but i tend to avoid recommending it (except for LTS versions, which i am still installing for clients). don't really know suse enough to comment, but it seems to be well liked among knowledgeable users. your best bet is to install virtualbox on your windows machine (as i think someone else recommended) and give them all a try before you make up your mind. http://distrowatch.com/ is a distro-hoppers best friend, there was a time not too long ago i had 9 different distros running on different partitions of the same machine, until i finally found my home with arch! linux is a BIG world, welcome and enjoy!

Edited September 12, 2011 by dharmabm

[dharmabm]

Centos is "white box" RedHat Enterprise Linux of the same number. RHEL is typically a "server" style of Linux.

RedHat Linux, was the old (early) versions of RedHat, which became the Fedora Project.

Both RHEL and Fedora are open source, the Fedora community is a geared to new developments, where RHEL is geared to be a stable enterprise o/s.

Sound confusing?

actually, i am VERY confused by this statement. RHEL is a commercial version of the opensource fedora project, unless something has changed. the relationship has always been a bit fuzzy i know, but RHEL is and has never been "opensource", because you have to pay for a subscription to use it. much of their code is released as opensource, but that's not quite the same. please correct me if i'm wrong, maybe something has changed in their business model in the last few years?

k

Edited September 12, 2011 by dharmabm

[dharmabm]

I will always consider Wine, it's a good option - need to test my app first.

I never considered the virtual machine option going to take a look at vmware, the microsoft addon and virtual box.

Thanks for the help.

hey, it looks like you're (most likely) in luck! http://appdb.winehq....cation&iId=4600

but i would test it in a VM before fully making the leap if it is that important to you.

k

Edited September 12, 2011 by dharmabm

[gregb]

Centos is "white box" RedHat Enterprise Linux of the same number. RHEL is typically a "server" style of Linux.

RedHat Linux, was the old (early) versions of RedHat, which became the Fedora Project.

Both RHEL and Fedora are open source, the Fedora community is a geared to new developments, where RHEL is geared to be a stable enterprise o/s.

Sound confusing?

actually, i am VERY confused by this statement. RHEL is a commercial version of the opensource fedora project, unless something has changed. the relationship has always been a bit fuzzy i know, but RHEL is and has never been "opensource", because you have to pay for a subscription to use it. much of their code is released as opensource, but that's not quite the same. please correct me if i'm wrong, maybe something has changed in their business model in the last few years?

k

I think you understand what RHEL is. All the source code is released to the community as is required by the GPL. However, it is nearly impossible to get that code to compile, because they don't release any of the instructions on the order in which programs need to be built, or which options need to be passed to the Makefile in order to make everything work. For all purposes, RHEL is a commercial version of Linux which complies with the GPL, and is therefore open source by definition, but to try and use RHEL as an open source distribution is just stupid.

The binaries for RHEL, which are the useful part, are only released to those with a support contract. If you are capable of supporting yourself and don't want to purchase commercial support, you should choose a different distribution. However, if you do want to pay for commercial support, the team at Redhat does take fixes from the open source community and backports them into the RHEL source tree, so customers paying for RHEL get the advantages of bug fixes that come with being open source code while at the same time they get the security of a commercially supported product.

[sulasno]

http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/how-to-use-virtualbox

password : makeuseof

[phuket Mike]

Thanks for all the advice guys, it's probably made me more confused than ever. I am currently trying a few different distros out with VMWare and I also need to test the apps that I use. To be honest I do really want to make a full switch, I have a laptop that on Windows 7, so can use that for any Windows specific stuff.

As for a database tool I am probably going to buy Navicat for Linux once I'm certain it meets all my needs.

Thanks again and I will let you know how I get on. I will probably be back with more questions.