Before I get started, what is Open Source is all about ? Open Source website has a good exlanation on this and I'll not repeat it here. There are also a few posted on Smach 98 Forum about open source.

Switching to open source is not a one day task. It needs understanding at the first place before going down to make your hand dirty. Open Source website, again is a good place to get started. Reading through the magazines and local newspapers also will give you some idea what is open source. The Star InTech (Tuesday & Thursday) and NST Computimes (Monday & Thursday) is my favourites. I'm myself take quite some times to really embrace. Most of the early days are about reading and surfing the WWW for information regarding open source.....The next step is to decide what open source's application that we would like to adopt. There are large number of application ranging from operating system, programming language to the critical business and scientific application. Operating System is really a good start as it would be the heart of our machines. Among the popular OS is Linux (of course...), FreeBSD, NetBSD etc.

Once you've decided what to take on, it's time to make your hands dirty. Study your application thoroughly and make sure at least you know what it does even you're not using it yet. Again, the WWW is the best place to go. Drop at google for example and a simple keyword likes 'linux tutorial' will give you thousands of result and I bet that what are you looking for is on the first or second page. Forum websites also a good place for help but please try on your own first before asking helps. It's just a manner. Don't teach ourselves to always depend on others. Be independent. However if you're facing any problem, the good guys there is always willing to help you.

I'm not going into details on how to install open source application as this is only a general guides on how to embrace open source. Maybe next times I'll provide more specific tutorial on how to install linux (I'm a linux user ..) or anything else.