New Debian user
Welcome.
You have made the right choice. Or at least I think so :)
Debian releases may have been slow but its built on a solid foundation and as can be see now its release times are getting shorter. Debian may take awhile to get to where other distributions are but once it gets there it is rock solid. With the ingenious new GUI installer, installing Debian is very easy. The GUI installer is simple, easy to use and follow without all the fancy crap. It also looks good (plug for the Debian installer team).
If you have partitions you want to keep, during installation you can tell the installer where to mount them and leave their file system(s) intact. Or you can just tell it to ignore them and mount them later yourself.
Currently when you chose to install desktop support the installer installs GNOME only. Hopefully we can change that to choices for either GNOME or KDE or both. (hint, hint, Debian installer team.:)
From what I understand Debian will never/can never be bought out by any company or entity. Therefore it will always be free and open.
As for AutoCAD I've been looking for a drop-in full opensource replacement but so far no luck. Hopefully this will change soon. I've found drop-in full opensource replacements for everything else: office suite, drawing/graphics, audio editing, video editing, educational, financial, business operations, teaching, communications and more. Most of which can be found in Debian's repository. If you install the desktop, Synaptic is great for browsing through the Debian packages available.
I have not had a look at MS Vista. To be honest I most likely will not. After working on MS OSs for years and being certified by MS, I've had my fill of MS OSs. Know how much of a pain it is to install MS Exchange server and what a nightmare it is to recover it when it fails! In Debian it takes 2 minutes to (re)install Exim4 and then just copy e-mail onto the server from your backup. Simplicity that works! :) Its been a year since I've moved all my machines over to Debian and I haven't looked back since. :) The learning curve may seem to be great but one just as to think logically. As one should with computers. Then learning Linux becomes simple. We've just been taught to think illogically when it comes to computers by MS. Just be ready to scratch your head and kick yourself in the a*s when you think "its that simple, why didn't I see that straight off." I've had a few of those and I'm sure I will have more. :)
I've being having lots of fund learning Debian Linux over the pass year and a half. Sometimes its difficult but that can be said of any OS. You may want to check out this web site and buy these books.
http://www.aboutdebian.com
Debian GNU/Linux Bible
The Debian System
Moving to Linux kiss the blue screen of death goodbye
The aboutdebian website deals with Sarge and you can support the site by buying related books (including the ones I've listed) via its links. The instructions there can get you up and running with many different type of servers; DHCP, SAMBA (MS share), Web server, NFS, FTP, Webcam sever, etc. It shows how quickly and easy it is to get these servers up and running. Please read the introduction page fully.
The latest versions of both Debian books are based on Sarge. You may want to wait and see if there are releases for Etch. You can still use the Sarge release but a lot of things have change between Sarge and Etch; procedures, program configurations, etc. But you can learn on Sarge and read the updates for the Etch versions. For example the default location of Apache's web folder and home-page file have changed between Sarge and Etch.
Moving to Linux.... list Linux drop-in replacements for popular programs in MS and how to use them under Linux. The book is not a Debian specific book but is very helpful.
As other here have stated Etch is frozen and about to become stable so you may as well go with it. Upgrading is simple. So you can always upgrade after its become stable. I've been using Etch since it became "Testing" and have had no serious problem and besides it lets you join in the bug crunching. You can doing testing and supply bug reports which help to reduce the amount of time it takes for "Testing" to become "Stable".
You may also want to look at the docs on the Debian site. Read the definition of "Stable", "Testing", etc. You may find that the definition of Stable is a bit paranoid in relations to workstations and some types of servers. Debian Stable is judged in relation to servers; high security, reliability, zero reboot, 24/7 operation, zero crashes, strict access controll, etc. Which is great!
If you're running a workstation to do e-mails, download pictures from your camera, write a novel :), do some spreadsheets, listen to music, edit the family videos, watch DVDs, brows the web, learn Debian, etc. you don't need to worry to much about the above but its good to know that you can or will have that stability on your workstation.
One of the things I like about Debian is that there is no real distinction between server and workstation. There is no separate server distribution and workstation distribution. Just install the user applications and/or daemons you want and off you go. And the best part is that you can change this whenever you like without doing a clean install. Just take out what you no long need and add what you do.
A piece of advice on new hardware especially new complete computer system. Download and burn onto CD a live distribution like Knoppix. Knoppix is based on Debian.
When you go into the computer store to buy that new zing bang faster-er computer, take the Knoppix CD without and ask the sales rep. if you can test drive the computer with your Knoppix CD. Do explain that it does *not* change anything on the computer. This will give you a good idea of how compatible the computer is with Debian. If the sales rep. refuses tell him it wasn't a problem at his competitor's place and he's now forcing you to spend your $1K to $20K there. Would you spend $1,000 on a new stereo without testing it? Would you not test it with one of your own CDs to hear how it plays your music? :)
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