Another Texan here..

[krashdragon]

Hi, I want to use Linux of some flavor or other..tried installing Red Hat V 4 or 5 or whatever ages ago...but like someone else posted..
Where is the danged instruction manual?
I started using computers with CPM and dos, the thru the various flavors of windows and even a few Macs at school throw in..
BUT... since I'm totally used to working with icons (ok, I still remember a few DOS commands)..
thinking in LINUS totally throws me... and each flavor seems slightly different...

My biggest problem is that I still need to use MSFT Word, Excel, Access and Powerpoint, as well as Photoshop and AutoCad, to name a couple of programs, so I guess I duel boot will work fine.
anyway,
most interesting reading here... even pulled out my wireless card from the desktop to see if it would wokr..it should, hopefully, cause I cant' get it to work with windows!   
Y'all take care...
Mary aka Krashdragon

[StrayBit]

Welcome from another CP/Mer.  I, also, am thrashing around trying to learn this Linux stuff.  Like you, I also got used to those funny pictures.  Fortunately, with the excellent (and patient) help from all on this forum.  I'm learning a lot and enjoying every minute of it - once I get past the frustration of my own stupidity!

[M0E-lnx]

Welcome to the forum krashdragon. I'm also in the Lone Star State

I understand where you're coming from... Your story is somewhat similar to mine.
I bought RH 5 (this was a long time ago) at a local compusa store. Took it home, it did come with one big manual which I did not bother to read... I coudlnt' figure out how to get the dang thing going, so I chunked it

went back to using windows, but around the time MS was putting out their longhorn (vista) betas (this was a couple maybe 3 years ago) I was already dual booting XP/Vector.

Vector has a very user friendly desktop IMO, and I've found that you can most everything right out of the box.
Unless you have VBA applications on your MS Office suite, you can do anything these apps can do using openoffice.org which is available for VectorLinux. I'm not sure how the GIMP measures up to Photoshop, but I've seen people do wonders with it.

The only reason you might need to dual boot is AutoCAD. I have yet to find something that can do what Utocad can. But then again, I dont use that, so I can live without it.

Anyway... enough about me.... welcome to the forum, give VL a try, you wont be disapointed.

[wcs]

Welcome!

If you really need/want MS Office, you can give it a try with wine or crossover office to have them running on your machine.
I find the Office 2000 version works perfectly (or almost), but not sure about newer versions.

The most recent OpenOffice does a great job as well (and even with VBA macros).

Given that you need some other programs, you can also set up a virtual Windows machine in your Linux installation with Virtual Box (or other virtualization software). This will require lots of RAM, but it works great.