In case you missed my previous post on how to save money with open source software, here I go again.
Open source software can help entrepreneurs
i. save lots of money by not paying excessive software licences;
ii. tweak the software to better fit their business models
iii. protect their environment better because Microsoft software is usually prone to many security flaws (for many reasons including a large installed base helping hackers-wanabees play with it, insufficient focus on security at Redmond - although this is changing, vaporware side-effet as products need to get on the market fast without enough testing, etc.).
So why don't you enjoy some of the best efforts and latest releases of standard desktop packages on the cybermarket ?
1) get yourself a real cheap computer (nonetheless powerful) WITHOUT an operating system. Companies such as Maxdata from Germany will sell you those, with a plain DR-DOS 7.0; you will bring costs down immediately. They are delivered with mouse and keyboard. On-line store Wstore.com carries them as well.
2) buy a used screen from ebay.com or whatever on-line service. Alternatively get a new one from cheap discount places such as Rue-Montgallet.com. Remember you are in the process of getting a cheap computer that might break down (you are doing backups right ?) not something that has a brand and that has approx. the same probability of breaking down such as dell.com.
3) now get yourself a free Operating system such as Linux (*BSD are also good candidates): My personal preference goes to Red Hat's Fedora Core 2 (easy to install, graphical, non geeky) over Mandrake 10 (slightly better performance and look and feel, more difficult to install) and Yoper 2.0 (waow, no way to reduce that big screen fonts in a snap). Relax it is really really easy to install, even for beginners. If you would like in-depth discussions on all these OSes, check OSnews.com. It has everything.
3) after a couple of hours of setup (hey, just clicking now and then), get yourself a great Office suite with complete documents, presentations, spreadsheets. It is only missing a database GUI (but hey PHP and mySQL are around, and a number of easy tools to manage them float around). I am talking about the latest release of OpenOffice.org 1.1.2. It will read and write to your favourite Microsoft formats, so your friends / colleagues won't even know you are on the right side of the force ;)
4) now, no desktop would be complete with a great browser and mail program. I recommend the latest releases from mozilla.org: firefox 0.9 and thunderbird 0.7 (that's what I use on a daily basis - no problem whatsoever). Quick and fast, and no virus exploiting IE bugs here...
5) lastly, should you need to install any extra tools, learn how to use the apt or yum programs and get new stuff from sourceforge.net and freshrpms.net. Otherwise just install synaptic (a GUI front-end to all this package management).
Finally if all of this is too much if you're trying to build a server (test server or workhorse server), you can try to rent them online. Yes dedicated servers with bandwidth. Some of the best places today are amen.fr in France and servidores.com in Spain.
Or if you don't want to install anything, get yourself a real cool alienware PC.
Service providers such as idealX can also help you migrate your existing installed base to open source. Don't believe anti-linux propaganda from Microsoft. IBM has bet a big chunk of its business services on Linux. The Bavarian government has gone open source. The French government annouced last Friday they were trying to migrate part of their almost 1 million computers to open source (or at least renegotiate their MS fees...)
