Star Office has an MS Word clone that can open existing Word Docs and save in Word format. I'm running it under Windows and Red Hat and it's almost identical under both. It really helps with getting used to Linux. LF << OK. I'm going in to Fry's tomorrow (Sat.) to buy a bare bones 450 MHz computer they advertised. It costs a mere $219, and that includes a 1-year ($100) sub_script_ion to CompuServe. Once you've got that system, you can also try BeOS. I'm a bit of a BeOS advocate. Having been a long user of Windows, I tried Linux to find that I was unprepared for all the configurations for it. BeOS has the stability of Linux, but better performance in general. Each have their uses, but I find BeOS much easier to use than Linux. A little sexier, too

BeOS has a productive package as well. It's called Gobe Productive. It also opens MS files. BeOS will be free for download March 28, however unlike the operating system, Gobe Productive sells for $99 I think. Still far more reasonable than Office. It's not free, but then again Im a true believer that you get what you pay for, and in this case, I guess technical support is what is offered. Thats how RedHat makes money, now that they've gone commercial.