All the work is done in a higher level. It requires different software, and Sun has developed Star Office which is a free suite, similar to Microsoft Office. It works with documents created in Windows and is comfortable even with older computers. WordPerfect has actually written a version for Linux. Up to now, I had shied away from Linux because of the reports of the complexity of getting it to work with various drivers.
Drivers are the utilities required to make the system work with the hardware.
In addition, it had been recommended that I create a separate partition and file system on my hard drive. This week, a friend gave me a CD which he received with his subscription to an English computer magazine. So with a group of nerds we plugged the CD into my computer and our collective jaw dropped in amazement as it started to recognize all my hardware. It placed three temporary files on my hard disk. The biggest surprise is that it used its version of Netscape and allowed me to log onto the Internet through my cable modem.