There Are Ways To Make The Transition Easier

Many potential users of Linux are discouraged from exploring Linux because they don't want to start from scratch with an entirely new environment, wasting too much time learning new ways of doing things instead of being productive.

Fortunately, there are several ways to practice with Unix-style tool and applications without jumping headlong into Linux. Lots of Unix-style programs have been ported to the Windows world. Even if you never end up using Linux, it may be worth it to add these to your current system.

Cygnus Solutions offers a large collection of GNU Unix utilities ported to the Windows environment, available for free. Check out the GNU-Win32 project. There's also Virtunix, which also ports a large number of Unix programs to Windows. Both of them can be used together to give you a very Unix-like system without a full installation.

If you want to get an idea of how a Unix GUI looks and behaves, check out Litestep, an alternative, Unix-like graphical shell for Windows 95, 98, and NT.

The DOS / Windows to Linux HOWTO is full of tips, suggestions, definitions, and ways to bring your DOS and Windows knowledge over to Linux. There is even lsh, a command line that looks, acts, and feels like DOS.

You can also use Bochs, a PC emulator that runs under Windows 9x or NT. You can install Linux on this virtual PC and try it out without having to repartition your drives or otherwise change your system. Of course, performance and stability may suffer, but it's one way to "try before you buy", so to speak.

Of course, Linux can read (and even write, if you like) all your Windows files, since Linux supports FAT, FAT32, NTFS, OS/2's HPFS, and many, many more. If you have specialized TrueType fonts installed under Windows, let Linux use them too, without having to copy them to a Linux filesystem.

There is also WINE, The WINdows Emulator, which allows you to run many Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 programs under Linux. While not all programs are supported, a very large number are (including many games) and more are supported all the time.

Finally, there's DOSEMU, which does a very good job of emulating DOS. Most DOS-based applications, and a large number of DOS games, run very well in this emulator. Even Windows 3.1 will somewhat run in DOSEMU.