To get rid of windows, pure and simple. Linux is (IMHO and I'm not about to start an OS war) a better OS and like I said at the beginning, the only thing that keeps me going back is games, specifically FS9 (until Doom 3 and HL2 come out).Oh and I do run Windows Media Center so my other PC is my TV/VCR/DVD/Radio/Stereo ++. I would never go back to a "normal" TV/stereo setup again.As an update, the install went fine until it wanted the second CD. The problem here was that it did not display the window to put the CD in and press OK. So there was no way for me to get past it.Therefore, what I will do next is copy my FS9 install from my NTFS partition over to my Linux partition. But in order to do that I have to do some partition resizing and shuffling...I'll keep you posted!

>Oh and I do run Windows Media Center so my other PC is my>TV/VCR/DVD/Radio/Stereo ++. I would never go back to a>"normal" TV/stereo setup again.Yes, but does it make toast yet? :) I'm not about to give up my 56" widescreen TV for a PC screen, even if it did make toast... :)Thanks for indulging my curiosity... ;)

Who says I gave up my widescreen TV? ;-)

Update:So far I have had no luck. I copied my installation from my windows parition to my linux parition. I then ran fs9.exe under wine. I get the spash screen and some hard drive activity, then nothing. :-(However, FS9 Configurator works! :(

So what Services does FS9 Configurator turn off and on in Linux? Samba? :-lolJim

That would be FSAutoStart....FS9 Configuration let's you modify different cfg files for FS9. :-)

Oops. Yeah, I got those two mixed up for some reason. Sorry.Jim

>Therefore, what I will do next is copy my FS9 install from my>NTFS partition over to my Linux partition. But in order to do>that I have to do some partition resizing and shuffling...I'll>keep you posted!I haven't tried Wine yet, but would it not be possible to simply mount the NTFS partition straight into Linux and thus avoid copying and reinstalling fs9?If memory serves me correct all the partitions on the harddisk are represented by the folders /dev/hda* or /dev/hdd*. I think you just create a symbolic link to these in /mnt (e.g. /mnt/windows) and then mount them in the usual fashion (/mnt/windows). My memory isn't great on this topic though - best do a search on google.Anthony Dyer

>I haven't tried Wine yet, but would it not be possible to>simply mount the NTFS partition straight into Linux and thus>avoid copying and reinstalling fs9?No. Linux does not yet have stable NTFS write support, which would be a limiting factor in this endeavor.

I have not tried the new "captive NTFS" driver myself, but I heard it should support write access. It's basically the MS NTFS driver in a Linux sandbox.Anyway, I assume getting FS9 on the disk is not the biggest problem in this endeavour ...VOlker :]

>I have not tried the new "captive NTFS" driver myself, but I>heard it should support write access. It's basically the MS>NTFS driver in a Linux sandbox.Interesting, last I heard this was an 'experimental' thing. Of course I have lost touch with the linux world for the most part, so perhaps that little guy has grown up :)>Anyway, I assume getting FS9 on the disk is not the biggest>problem in this endeavour ...LOL, I would have to agree :)

I haven't tried it either, and frankly at this point I don't want to write to my NTFS paritition with a non-MS driver.Anyway I simply copied the FS9 install from my NTFS to my Linux parition for Wine to see.Still didn't work. :-(

Ken, Well anyone else who can answer the question also, can you tell me what you see are the advantages of Linux over XP? I do not and never have had problems with virus's, spyware or hackers so that would not be a motivating factor for me. I don't have to work very hard to avoid all of the bad stuff out there so I am usually at a loss to explain all of the other people that have problems. Anyway what types of gains do you see in day to day tasks that make the switch over worth while? Thanks in advance for any advice! Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Did you check "my documents" setup in the registry?Jos

I think that in Linux Format, the lastest Linux versions of Doom 3 and HL2 have been announced as released by that company that repackages them for WineX.For FS9 I believe you are going to be facing the CD copy protection problem on startup in that they are using the Safe Disk ill-behaved CD driver for reading those deliberately malformed non-standard CD sectors. You'd have to ask the Wine-X folks if that code would run under Linux catching the sector error exceptions and properly handling them.The directx calls that the game makes should be handled nicely by those folks so other than performance issues and the copy protection business I think it would work.I would also suggest you consider doing it with FS2K2 since it has a lower demand on the CPU and especially doesn't use the SafeDisk copy protection scheme. I think with the mature DirectX calls you might have better success with Wine if you don't want to try WineX.Now for the visit from MS lawyers. Get the magnifying glass out and read the EULA (I did not) but recent EULAs talk about OS restrictions covering even the presence of another OS as a no-no I think. When I used to read the MS development groups they were screaming about that clause which included any mix of products developed from Open Source or mix of MS code with Open Source libs.