A few Linux Questions

[eCK0]

I have talked to Aman about some of these already, but I figured I might as well get the opinion of others while I'm at it.

Let me explain my prediciment. A few years ago I used to run nothing but Linux. Then I went to college. One of my classes was .net programming. Being a Microsoft product, I realized that I needed Windows. After a while, I got annoyed by the constent dual booting and switched to all Windows. I'm out of class right now so I'm wanting to switch back to Linux, here is where my questions come into play.

Simple Linux Questions:
1. Does Gentoo have an explanation of the packedges, or is it a yes or no kind of deal?
2. What is the best Windows emulator?
3. What WM do you prefer?
4. What Office program do you prefer. ie Open Office?
5. What Linux disk format is the best?

If I am to go straight Linux:
1. What games work properly in WINE, WINEx, etc.?
2. What programs work properly in WINE, WINEx, etc. ie. .net
3. Is there a way I can simply convert the disk format to a Linux format, or 4. do I need to back everything up and put it back on after?

If I am to dual boot:
I have always had problems creating another partition after I have already set it up to have one.
1. Will a program like PartitionMagic solve that problem?
2. If so should I use a Windows program or a Linux program.

There may be a few other questions, but that is all I can think of at the moment. Cheers.

[Aman]

Simple:
1. Gentoo tells you how to get a bootstrapping system installed and completed successfully. Once you can bootstrap, you need to emerge a window manager, which will emerge xfree for you, and then you need to emerge all your other software (such as word processor, games, xmms, whatever).
2. WINE does simple windows emulations, WineX does advanced OpenGL and DirectX emulation for games, www.transgaming.com -- monthly subscription required.
3. I like Fluxbox because it looks great but still performs very well. Enlightenment is the most advanced and unique window manager; if you have a great system (even my system can't run enlightenment that well) it is good. For the rest of us, i'd say stick with fluxbox. There's also XFCE4 for more newbie people, very small compared to other WMs like KDE and GNOME, but certainly not the best.
4. I love OpenOffice, it's got everything in Microsux Office only better and free. AbiWord is a very minimalistic word processor, still great, same features as OpenOffice, but not nearly as "powerhouse" and is much smaller. If you have a good computer, go for Open Office. You will not regret it.
5. I love ReiserFS, but I have heard terrible tales of people losing all their data through ReiserFS crashing on them. Has yet to happen to me. I use that on my / partition. My /boot partition is an ext2, and my /storage partition (where all my movies and music are) is an ext3, the journaled version of ext2. Basically, if you plan on doing gentoo, use the filesystems I use. You can always subsitute my ReiserFS partition for a JFS or an EXT3 partition if you do not feel safe with Reiser, but I have never had any problems.

Straight to Linux:
1. Almost every game I have tried on WineX has worked very well. The one of a few games that haven't worked SPLENDIDLY are Dungeon Siege and Counter Strike. Warcraft 3, Call of Duty, Splinter Cell, Worms Armagedon, and Civilization 3 are games that work better than on Windows.
2. I doubt .net will work in WineX or Wine, but I know dreamweaver does. No development software directly meant to run on Windows (like Borland or .Net) will work on any emulation programs. Anything simple (for example, not made by M$, not development software [web development is fine], not software that interacts with the hardware on your PC) will run fine on either.
3. No, you cannot convert them like that. Even if you could, I'd highly recommend you DO NOT do it.
4. Yes, back everything up onto CDs or something. Or if your hard drive is big enough, install Linux, make an NTFS or FAT storage partition for everything you want to back up, and then mount that partition once Linux is up and running and copy everything to your linux partitions. Then fdisk the NTFS/FAT storage partition to make it a Linux one. Then of course, do your 'mk<filesystemtype> </dev/hd(x)(y)>'.

If To Dual Boot:
1. No not likely.
2. Linux program.

In response to that, ALWAYS INSTALL suckmycomputerWindows FIRST. Then, when Windows starts sucking (excuse me; WORKING :D) just create the extra needed partitions for linux through Gentoo's LiveCD (fdisk) and configure GRUB correctly, and you should never have a problem with dualbooting/partitions. Windows will never know Linux exists.

Hope this helps. This may be clearer when madcow answers, but for now try to make something out of what I said :D