Recent problems with my PC running Windows XP – well, maybe not strictly an OS-related issue but also some hardware faults there as well – have once again driven me to ponder migrating to Linux once and for all. In fact, I had another error last night after a recent total reinstall due to harddisk failure: “rasapi32.dll is not a valid image…”

However, I am still reluctant to make the switch because of a heavy reliance of many, mostly open source, tools that work only on Windows, such as for video editing, disc burning, and audio compression, etc. Perhaps this is more of an deep-bred insecurity thing?? Well, I guess I will need to study The table of equivalents/replacements/analogs of Windows software in Linux. a bit more closely from now on, to see if it is possible to have the same sort of support? Yet another option is run a live CD distribution such as Knoppix or even Ubuntu.