New laptop - EF techies GTFIH

[ponyfitness]

My girl just got me a new HP G50 for my birthday, which I'm totally excited about. It's my first experience with Vista and I can't wait to get my new toy up and humming.

Here's my question: Which would be a good operating system to have on it and where do I find it? I know I can get an open source version of Office because I will need those apps, but any other things you guys can recommend? I only use it for writing and net surfing, but I'm planning on taking my A+ cert course later this year.

I'm thinking about exploring the Linux realm with this one.

 

[ortiz34]

UA of Iron and dialtone are the men around here with pc knowledge

 

[mrplunkey]

I'd use Firefox for the web instead of IE.

Openoffice is decent stuff now (I still prefer MS 2008 -- you can get the student version for cheap).

 

[ponyfitness]

Firefox was the first thing I downloaded. That and Spybot and CCleaner. I'm not sure if I should have another firewall because a lot of people say the Vista one is fine.

I also found a hack to register the Office 2007 that the unit comes with for free so I think I'm clear there. This is fun!