[tlug] Newbie buying a computer and installing Linux on it

[Joseph Essertier <essertier@example.com>]

Hello.  I'm a newbie who's thinking about buying a Windows computer and 
installing Linux on it.  I've been using Mandrake for about a year now 
and, in spite of various glitches, it's been a worthwhile experience. 
 The main benefit has been that OpenOffice on that computer works 
great.  It's very fast and efficient.  MS Word, on the other hand, which 
i use on the Mac, has been very frustrating to say the least.  

The Mac is a G5 and everything has worked just fine on it, except for 
Word, and sometimes PowerPoint, Excel, and the email program that comes 
with OS 10.  But the main problem is Word.  I've heard that it works 
well on Windows computers, but it has not worked well for me on the Mac, 
especially when typing in Japanese.

The Mandrake computer, which also has Windows 98 on it, has a Celeron 
CPU with 700 or so Megahertz.  It's very snappy and 700 Mhtz is plenty 
fast enough for me.  Linux is still very new to me, so i still cannot do 
a lot with it, but the installation went very smoothly and quickly and i 
was able to start using OpenOffice right away.

Those 2 computers are in my office, but i also want a computer at home 
now, on which i can run OpenOffice.  I have 2 old Macs, but installing 
Linux on them sounds really hard and time-consuming, and both of them 
are too slow to handle OS 10.3, which is necessary for OpenOffice.

So i'm wondering, "What is the cheapest way to get a 
not-so-difficult-to-use Linux computer for someone in my situation in 
Japan?"  A native English speaker with over 2 decades of experience with 
Apple/Macs and very little Windows experience, who needs to write a lot 
in both Japanese and English, needs to share files regularly with 
Japanese Windows users, and doesn't have 1,000 hours in the next year to 
dedicate to learning Linux.  (Maybe 100 hours).

The ideal setup, i think, would be a laptop with its hard disk divided 
into 3 partitions--a Japanese Windows 98 partition, a Japanese Linux 
partition, and an English Linux partition.  On the Mac i've had trouble 
with system conflicts several times before after installing Japanese 
software on the same volumes that American software was installed on, so 
i'm guessing that it'll be the same for me with Linux, and that for 
someone with my lack of knowledge of Linux, it would be a huge amount of 
work to successfully run Japanese and English software on the same 
partition.  Rebooting from time to time is not such a problem.

I have already ordered TurboLinux.  I ordered it, instead of Mandrake or 
some other distribution because it seemed to have the easiest 
installation of the fully-developed Japanese distributions, and because 
it has Atok for Japanese input.  I read a post on this list about 
installing Japanese on Mandrake, but it looked too hard for me.

Akihabara is about a 4 hours away by bus and subway.  Would i save a lot 
of money on a computer purchase by going there, and would i find a Linux 
expert there?  Or is it not worth a long, expensive trip?   Could i just 
go to a computer store around here?  I read another post here saying 
that if one is going to buy a laptop, it makes sense to buy a new one, 
but if i'm going to install TurboLinux on a Windows machine, i need to 
find a machine that is compatible with TurboLinx and none of the new 
machines i see in the computer stores are listed as compatible at the 
TurboLinux website.  I assume that this is because TurboLinux and 
TurboLInux users have not had a chance to try out their software on new 
machines.  So maybe a used laptop, that had already been confirmed as 
compatible with very few glitches (like "mouse does not work"), would be 
a good option for someone like me?  Even with the risk of it dying on 
me?  I would have a hard time fixing glitches, and although i know it's 
asking a lot (and i sincerely mean this, don't mean it ironically), it 
would really be nice, if at all possible, for the Linux installation to 
go smoothly and for me to be able to start using all the basic 
components/peripherals (the mouse, the keyboard, the printer, the 
speaker, the monitor), right after installation.  I don't need anything 
fancy.  Initially, i'll probably only be using OpenOffice, Mozilla, and 
email.  I see myself using Linux more and more for other purposes, like 
for digital photos, music, the Linux equivalent of PowerPoint and Excel, 
etc. as i learn more about it in the future.  I've been forewarned that 
expanding my usage of Linux in this way is going to require a 
significant amount of work and time, but that's okay i guess, if i do it 
a little at a time.

I'm at "squre one" in migrating to Linux from Mac i guess, and i'd 
appreciate any advice.  I read about 20 earlier TLUG posts on cheap 
computers and Linux, but i didn't see any for people in my situation 
(e.g., who have to write in Japanese often, who are Mac users, who have 
little Linux experience, and who need a laptop), but if my questions 
have already been answered, please let me know and i'll search the TLUG 
archives again.

Thank you.
Joe Essertier