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Has anyone exclusively changed over to open source and how productive is it for you?

I am currently trying out various Linux distros on an old PC that i have upgraded. I am surprised at how much alternatives to expensive software there are out there and how good they are. I am a student and mostly work with media software (audio production, photography, office applications, etc). I have XP on my main computer and have been very hesitant in changing over to Vista. Thats been my main reason for getting so interested in open source. So my question is has anyone changed over to exclusively open source and if so how was the transition? Also what field do you work in, applications used etc? Were you surprised with the software? And to those who have dabbled in it is there anything you can't do with open source that is really essential to your work field. So much so that you couldn't make the changeover? Any formats that you couldn't work with that made it not an option to changeover? Any pros and cons you would like to point out? I would really like to make the changeover for good but i am still uncertain. I am pretty much using open source all the time now but keeping XP as a backup in case theres something i cant do. So far there is very little i can't do. Any thoughts?

Public Comments

1. Well, at home, I use almost all open source software (with the exception of a few proprietary codecs for MP3 and Flash playback) and am fine. But I don't do work at home. So OpenOffice, Firefox, and Thunderbird are fine for me. At work, however, I use software that is not available for Linux or that has no good open source alternative. It really depends on your needs. Some people can get by with open source alone. Others need proprietary software to get their work done.
2. i run XP still and do run vista because i have no choice without driver for XP so i moved to Solaris10 its unix and its free, i can do most of the things i need on it and then some. http://sunfreeware.com has a large amount of free programs to run but anything open source is not like windows it requires compiling the programs or starting them from command line. open source is great because any updates or bugs are squashed quickly unlike windows where you need to wait for them to declare it as a security fix or update..WTF I run linux and Unix from vmware workstation on Vista so i can jump between the 3 and it really works well for me.
3. Not exclusively, no. I would LIKE to, but my job as a software engineer and systems analyst preclude me from doing so as so many businesses are locked into Microsoft's treadmill, and I have to play keep up with the Jones' to stay in business. However, at home, I have Linux as my main OS and only maintain the Windoze machines because that is what is in my field of choice. I retired, errr...uhh... became unemployed a while ago and if it goes on for much longer, I may just give up and completely swap over. I'm ready. I just do not know yet if I can afford to retire and until I do, I have to keep MS around... YMMV...