Does Linux provides everything what Windows OS provides 3432

However, in an office with 5 PCs it is unlikely that there is a "dedicated IT team, well trained or otherwise.

The fact is that for such an office Windows is a *disaster*, and Linux is a breeze.

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That is questionable under any circumstance, but once again this is a 5 PC office without an IT staff. Windows is a disaster.

The OP does need to keep in mind that despite all of the flexibility and advantage of Linux, Bill Gate has been *very* successful at making Windows indispensable. If this office does business with others who use MS products they will almost certainly run into occasions when they need to look at something using the proprietary facilities available only via Windows.

For that reason I would suggest that an office with 5 people needs have at least *seven* computers. The 5 people can run Linux on their desktop PC's, and the whole thing can be networked with a Linux based server. (I'm buttuming the firewall-router function is separate, but that might well be Linux based too, even if it is a Linksys black box, for example.) And...

There should be, off in a corner somewhere, well protected behind at least one firewall and for that matter perhaps even restricted from various parts of the local ethernet, a Windows box that can 1) never be used for email, and 2) is used for anything which can only be done with Windows (e.g., look at spreadsheets in a proprietary format). This machine could also be a laptop...

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