need help/sugestions for switching to opensuse 13.1 from win7

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#1

Not sure if this is the right thread for this, so Modes fell free to move it into appropriate place as needed.

I am not looking so much for technical help in here as this is a to general post for that. what I need is pointers to needed apps and tools, websites for me to accomplish my goal.

here is some background of what is going on:

I have been playing with OpenSuse 13.1 for the last 8+ month.
I have setup a file/VM server for my home LAN based on OpenSuse 13.1 LXDE.
I have installed OS 13.1 on my laptop (this is still in progress as have run into some incompatibility issues with my WiFi and video card)

but my main desktop running windows 7 have been on the fritz for several month or so, and my recovery disk does not work.

I have been toying with the idea of moving to Linux for some time but could not justify it as any distros I tried was not up to snuff.
now I want to try again.

the requirements are:

First and foremost look and feel as much as win7 as possible. if you know any place I can get some wallpaper/desktop theam please point me to it.
any changes I need to do for it to work similar as win7 please sugest.

reason being I share this PC with Wife/in-laws
they are windows only so want to make it as easy for them as possible.

main use of this by all parties involved is Internet/E-Mail/Skype

Wife needs MS Office support (which I believe can be met with LibreOffice)

my needs are a bit more extensive as I also need some DVD/CD ripping soft, .Net dev and Network tools.

any pointers, suggestions are welcome.

thanks.

#2

From my point of view you alredy done it. “.Net dev” someone else will answer on. Not my game.

Good luck

Regards.

#3

well truth be told I did load OS13.1 on my main PC last night.
it is on an old laptop HDD just on trial basis so far, my beat-up and tired win7 is still on the original HDD nice and safe.

my main concern is that the whole experience is not very smooth and worry free.
I still have issues with network connectivity, mainly with connecting to other machines and my file server(s) (I am running an unRaid server and my new File/VM server side by side) and where with windows it was easy to see the network and all the stuff on it and to connect to them, with Linux it’s proving to be a challenge. as I simply do not see the servers anywhere in the GUI. if I type the IP in dolphin I get the shares, but I need a GUI so wife can connect and use the Fs. so it’s not simple and so far I am not sure what to do next. hence this post. I am surfing the net for HoTos and such but so far nothing very help-full came up.

#4

Connect to the server
Drag the small folder in the address bar of dolphin to the places section on the left side of dolphin
You can rename it if necessary to make it obvious what it is
Then it’s just click and connect
I have 6 different such folders in my Dolphin

#5

If there are Samba shares you need to enable/open the Samba client in the firewall of openSUSE
And enable Samba in the services

#6

you know what, that might be it. they are Samba shares as it was designed as windows network and my HTPC is still on windows.
I will try that.

#7

If you dual boot, you can point to whatever wallpaper you have on Windows and have it display on Linux. Alternatively, save your Windows wallpaper to use on Linux.

Xfce is probably the easiest to make Windows like (but see below)

You have a choice of browsers, none of which are like Internet Explorer. In theory you should be able to use Thunderbird but I found it easier to install Kontact which imported the Outlook emails flawlessly (see notes at http://www.bradlug.co.uk/life-after-xp-notes/). However, that doesn’t fully harmonise with the Gnome applications you get with Xfce. So you may be better customising KDE if you cannot get Thunderbird to do its business. Skype is now being better supported on Linux.

You can set up LibreOffice to save in MS formats by default and, if any files contain VB, to preserve that in any saved file.

.Net dev would be the problem as what is available on Linux is generally behind what is available on MS; the others are well provided for.

As you have Windows, the other alternative would be to put Windows in a VM running over openSUSE. Then you could have access to Windows .Net dev tools.

#8

thanks for all your king suggestions.

to response :
wallpaper is not an issue as I change them even in windows to a
pic Du jour :slight_smile:
also I do not dual boot, my main drive is too small for that at the moment so that is not an issue.

I do not like xface much, but KDE is not bad for my taste.
and I haven’t used IE except for some special cases in years.
I use mostly Opera and FireFox.
thunderbird and skype are also familiar as I use skype and did install it on Linux last week , I use thunderbird at work and at home as an outlook replacement, I just added them to the list so the whole picture of what I need is clear.
but thanks anyway as it confirms my chosen options again.

as for .Net, my needs are small and I do believe that Mono should be sufficient enough for my needs. I do not do much at home and for a few small apps I want to code for personal use Mono should have all functionality I need.
I do wish I could use “Xamarin Studio” though. very nice interface.

Anyhow, I decided to try a Linux mint 16 on my main PC last night.
so far I am impressed. it did not work this good on my laptop. but desktop seams to be a better fit for it. I have even found a theam to make it look like win7 :smiley: icons and all.
I was thinking of trying the ZorinOs but I do not like the fact that it is very proprietary like, you can not upgrade easily , you need to redo the whole install from scratch etc. and installing some apps apparently not an easy thing.
not sure what the issue is but read a few review describing that as an issue.
will see.

#9

On 2014-04-28 18:26, vl1969 wrote:

> I am not looking so much for technical help in here as this is a to
> general post for that. what I need is pointers to needed apps and tools,
> websites for me to accomplish my goal.

I knew of a site, Russian IIRC, that listed a lot of Windows
applications and their Linux “equivalent”. I have limited internet at
the moment, can not try google it.

> First and foremost look and feel as much as win7 as possible. if you
> know any place I can get some wallpaper/desktop theam please point me to
> it.
> any changes I need to do for it to work similar as win7 please sugest.

There is a known document around named something like “Linux is not
Windows” (google). Have a read at it, because it is interesting, tells
you of a lot of misconceptions people migrating have.

On the other hand… I have a visitor once, that is not “fluent” with
computers. Only used Windows. Had to ask other people to install things
or how to do “different” things. Well, she asked to use my laptop to see
her email. I just left her my Linux laptop with Firefox ready… she did
not even notice it was not Windows.

So it is not that difficult :slight_smile:

Your people just need someone around to maintain the computers and
handhold now and then.

> Wife needs MS Office support (which I believe can be met with
> LibreOffice)

If not, there is a commercial thing somewhere to run office in linux,
with a customized Wine, I believe. Otherwise, if your computer is
powerful enough, just move your Windows install to a virtual machine and
use it. Or install it fresh, reuse the license. I hope.

> my needs are a bit more extensive as I also need some DVD/CD ripping
> soft, .Net dev and Network tools.

For DVD ripping there are things. I have done it once or twice, not very
familiar with it. Have a look around packman.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.

(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))

#10

On Tue 29 Apr 2014 01:58:22 PM CDT, Carlos E. R. wrote:

On 2014-04-28 18:26, vl1969 wrote:

> Wife needs MS Office support (which I believe can be met with
> LibreOffice)

If not, there is a commercial thing somewhere to run office in linux,
with a customized Wine, I believe. Otherwise, if your computer is
powerful enough, just move your Windows install to a virtual machine and
use it. Or install it fresh, reuse the license. I hope.

> my needs are a bit more extensive as I also need some DVD/CD ripping
> soft, .Net dev and Network tools.

For DVD ripping there are things. I have done it once or twice, not very
familiar with it. Have a look around packman.

Hi
For MS Office, there is Crossover, for DVD ripping in windows or
openSUSE use handbrake along with libdvdcss.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 13.1 (Bottle) (x86_64) GNOME 3.10.1 Kernel 3.11.10-7-desktop
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#11

In the past, I have used DvdRip (or Dvd::Rip, I forget the exact “spelling”). It rips to VOB files, at least it did when I used it. I also use K3B to copy video DVDs, but I select an option to only create an image (ISO) so I can play it from the hard drive, using xine. To make it easy to play them, I wrote a simple shell script, and I right clicked an ISO, set it to always open with my script. After that, I just click on an ISO and it plays. Just don’t try on an ISO that is from a “data” DVD. I never tried that, so I don’t know what will happen. If anyone is interested, here’s the contents of that script:


#!/bin/sh
#kaffeine $1
xine dvd://$1

If you prefer kaffeine, uncomment that line and comment out (or remove) the line for xine.

#12

Yeah, I forgot about handbrake! That’s even better than dvdrip. It even gives you the subtitles, very handy for my mother’s loss of hearing. I think I had to select the mpeg2 codec to make that work, can’t remember…

#13

Not quite.
VOB files are what a VideoDVD actually contains.

DVD::Rip can rip to any file format/resolution you want, i.e. avi, mpg, ogg. It can also create VideoCDs and render subtitles.

I used it a lot years ago…