Randolpho said:
It's so much fun to watch the penguins come out to lambast Microsoft every chance they get
News flash: linux aint all that great as a gui OS. Hell, linux itself doesn't even *have* a gui, it's just got a windows 3.1-style shell program for gui stuff. Which isn't *nearly* as stable or even as secure as the first release of Windows 95 was.
You don't know very much about X window do you?
It is FAR more powerful and flexible that Windows. It can be served across networks, its stable, its well supported and predates windows. And if an errant program crashes, you can shell out to the console to kill it, or restart X server without having to reboot your whole system.
If you want a nice command-line batch-processing OS, get any flavor of unix you like. If you want gui, get the latest version of Windows. Or OSX, I rather like that (although I'm worried about Finder legacy). But if you get a Mac, for gods sake, drop that stupid hockey-puck of a mouse and get an Intellimouse Explorer (still the best damn mouse out there)! Oh, and make sure there are actual programs that you want to run for MacOS. Macs are notorious for not having jack 
for software... 
News flash - OSX
is a flavor of Unix. I'd like to get one myself actually. You can get Linux apps running with a little effort. And they have Office and IE so you won't miss your MS viruses
Windows has its place, hand holding people who have time to kill and don't want to learn. Linux I find to be educational and powerful. I don't need someone protecting me from having to *shudder* edit a text file. Give me text file configuration over that hacked mess they call the Registry.
In any case, if you're a fan of consumer electronics, you probably already have Linux
. Its really taking off in embedded systems, like DVD players and Tivos.
MS has a couple good programs. Powerpoint is great - you can have good looking presentations done quickly with virtually no learning curve. Excel isn't bad, and despite how most techies sneer at it, I actually like Access. Quick and dirty database for small applications. Not everything needs Oracle.
Word I despise - when working on windows I'll usually type it in notepad then copy to word to format. I can't stand the program trying to correct me as I type, or moving the placement of everything around when I make a change.
In closing.... some PvP:
[/B][/QUOTE]
Funny, and to a certain extent true, though I'd add
- anyone who takes four months to figure out how to install a current version of Red Hat probably has trouble following simple directions, and won't have much better luck with windows.
- Try installing a sound card that isn't on the HCL in Win2k or XP and see how stable it is.
- There are thousands of good programs for Linux.
I honestly try not to bash Microsoft these days. Linux doesn't need to tear down its competition, it stands on its own. Its being adopted by the techies and will trickle down to everyone else eventually.
