I've been thinking of giving myself an open source challenge and trying to work for a week with just open source software.  I think its possible, but not easy, so the question is---how hard is it?  I won't let my work suffer because of it and I don't have a lot of extra time to be configuring things and loading them up. 

So, with that in mind, I repartitioned my laptop and installed Redhat Linux 7.3 (Valhalla) on it yesterday.  I've been a long time FreeBSD user (built a whole company on it), but have used Linux in my class and on my home Samba server for the last couple of years. 

I actually started out to install FreeBSD 4.4 just to see what it was like lately.  I got it installed, and started fiddling with the X server config and got tired of it.  Redhat was a dream in comparison.  It recognized that I was doing a laptop installation, found the right X server and fired right up with 1400x1050 screen resolution, audio working, etc.  I'm thinking that getting the wireless card working will be a chore (I did it once last summer). 

I also installed OpenOffice 1.0.1.  I've been a longtime StarOffice user, but find it difficult enough to use, that I usually go back to Word when the chips are flying.  I'm sure OpenOffice us similar, but on Linux, there's no Word to go back to.  I was happy to find GAIM, an AOL Instant Messenger replacement that works well since that's one of my other "must have" apps. 

Two things I know right now aren't going to work: Groupwise and Radio.  I can run Groupwise in a Windows emulator.  I'll probably just have to keep using Windows for Radio.  One nice thing about being on Linux is I could go back to using MH in emacs for my personal mail (no finer mail reading system ever devised by man).