This page presents some steps you may follow if you want to switch easily from Windows to gNewSense.
Note: this page may be updated with a switch from Mac OS when the Power PC port project will be completed.
Contents
Switch to Free Software while in Windows
First of all, you need to replace proprietary software you were using on Windows by free software equivalents. You should have a preference for free software which is available for both Windows and GNU/Linux. Some of the most commonly used free software applications are listed below.
Editors
gedit is the default gNewSense editor. It supports syntax coloring, unicode and tabs.
GNU Emacs is a very powerful editor with syntax coloring, complete unicode support and more.
Vim is as powerful as GNU Emacs, but different…
Internet
Firefox, for browsing the web. You may be interested by wikipedia's article on Ice Cat, a fork of Firefox which removes links to non-free addons and plug-ins included in Firefox by default,
Thunderbird, an email client.
Office
LibreOffice, a complete office suite.
Graphics
Blender, a 3D content creation suite,
the GIMP, a powerful Image Manipulation Program,
ImageMagick, a powerful command line image manipulation program,
Inkscape, a vector graphics editor.
Multimedia
VLC, a multimedia player, that plays most multimedias files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols.
Mathematics
GNU Octave, a high-level language, primarily intended for numerical computations,
Maxima, a system for the manipulation of symbolic and numerical expressions.
Command line
cygwin, the power of Unix command line in Windows.
More
Wikipedia has a page on Free Software alternatives to proprietary software.
Free Formats and Free Software
You must be aware that some formats, mostly multimedia formats, are closed and difficult to implement with free software. Such formats include:
flash, a widely used, but proprietary video format. There are two free software alternatives to read this format: gnash (developers' site) and swfdec (developers' site), which work relatively well but may fail on videos made using latest versions of flash. A summary of decisions taken by Adobe to "open" flash technology can be found on the gnashdev website.
An other concern is DRM, which are technologies to restrict the use of an audio, video or even document file, by forcing the user to use a given application to read what (s)he bought, and by limiting his (her) right to copy it wherever and with whoever (s)he wants. This kind of technology, often refered as "Digital Restriction Management" is also widely used by Standards publishers.
Be aware that those technologies may not work correctly, if ever, on gNewSense.
Switch to gNewSense
Once you're familiar with free software for doing whatever you want, it will be easy to switch to gNewSense. You first have to download and burn the CD image of gNewSense. After this, you can try gNewSense in live CD mode, and if you feel you are ready, install it on your computer.
Related links
There are interesting articles on the http://www.getgnulinux.org/ website that help you understand what may change for you by switching from Windows to GNU/Linux in general.