Hey everyone,
I am new to this forum and to Linux. I have been with windows most my life and am sick of it. I have been trying to find out all I can about Linux to see if I really should make the move. I have a few questions about Linux that I want answered.

1. I have a lot of files that I want to keep but they are under windows. Is there a big diference in general file names like. .jpg, .mp3, etc? Can I convert them somehow??

2. I have some games that I would like to play now and again. Will they run in linux?

3. How do I get a good copy of Linux to try? I tried downloading a live eval of SuSE 9.1 and burned it to CD but it will not boot. I believe I followed exactly what the instructions said. Is there some special trick to it? Is the live eval from SuSE any good?

Thank you for helping me. I really like this forum. It was useful in helping me figure out C++ programing.
PS I am using windows 98

ok you don't need to convert anyfile names. the suse live eval is not what you want to run linux while using your existing windows files. You should download the fedora core 2 or fedora core 3 test cds or dvds. And you can burn the cds easily if you have nero. You just open up nero express select open saved project/disc image (you probably have to scroll down in the file type box so you can see the iso images) then it will automatically burn the cd the way you want it so that it can boot. If you don't have nero then you probably need a program that can extract iso's like winrar and then just burn them onto bootable data discs using floppy discs. Then when installing if you want to run linux while accessing your windows files you need to set up a dual boot (a live cd just runs off the cd) when i installed fedora core 2 if you select auto partition then it will pretty much do everything for you. Then when you reboot you will have two or three selections 2 of them will be for linux one will say dos which means windows and there you go now you can run both linux and windows on one machine.

Hey mikeandike22
Thanks for the info. I think I understand about the writing to cd's now. I had never done it before and had messed up.


One more question. How does the rep points work on this forum. I went over to a thread about them and it didn't explain anything really. How do you give/get them?

There's a little picture of a thumb sticking up and at thumb sticking down at the lower left hand corner of the post. That will allow you to give reputation to that poster, if you like them.

Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.

As already mentioned, there's no big difference in common filetypes like jpegs, mp3s, etc., although Linux doesn't really need to use filename extensions to determine the actual type of the file (and therefore what application to open that file with) in the way that Windows does. Still, a Linux graphics viewer will open any jpeg, a Linux audio player will open mp3s, yada, yada, yada. Even better, Linux can read and write data from/to Windows 98-formatted drives and partitions, so you can share your files between both operating systems.



Any program specifically written for one operating system won't natively run on other operating systems, so directly- the answer is no. However, (depending on the actual game titles) there may be Linux versions of the games, or they may run under "Windows emulation" software such as WINE or VMWare. If you tell us which specific games you're concerned about we can problably give you more info.

yeah if you do a google search for a wine for a game title usually it will bring to a site where you can download a whole bunch of them.

Ok, Thanks for the tips and the info. I will keep them in mind.