hey,

Going away from MS is good thing. I am trying same. And i am looking to buy a new PC on LINUX. Currently I am using a PC provided by my father's office for his official use.
Cheapest desktop i am able to findout is from one company known as bigapple, it cost shade below 7K and it is good looking, but i am thinking if it is useful or not. They do not supply mouse and keyboard is also 'laptop like' means they are saving on providing a full feature keyboard.
This being group pretaning to Shimla so I will not write anything on that here, I am forwarding some mails regarding 'bigapple'. Sadly it is not available in Shimla, closest one for u will be at New Delhi.

Viplav

bnityin@... wrote:

Hey Viplav

Good to see you back.. thanks to the monkey.. -) 

Sea Monkey is netscape navigator in the new avtaar. Looks good to me but
firefox and opera are my fav. I am shunning all MS products now. Call it
the fatigue thing and there are some very interesting products available
once you get out from the MS mindset.

I found Open Office OK. Mind you as a free utility it's a lot better and
I think this product should be encouraged to be used in schools and
offices. I removed my MS 2003 and am using OO. For emails I am using
Thunderbird and now this Sea Monkey looks ok.

Nitin