Some time ago I was thinking about switching to Mint (which is basically tweaked Ubuntu) or even to Debian. That was during 9.10 era - I have updated like month before 10.04 went out and I was getting really pissed by sudden influx of broken things even after five months from the release.

And bringing Linux to the masses, well that's one thing I'm not sure whether it's good or not. I think they should accept the difference and stop focusing it towards the average Joe crowd who thinks Windows is the computer and the big blue E is the Internet. But that's just my opinion and feel free to ignore it.

Linux is not something or someone that should do things that you want it to do. If you want Linux to have better marketing or better usability then it's up to YOU to get it done. You either do it yourself or you pay someone to do it. Don't expect anyone else to do it just because you want them to.

I think Mint switched back to being a debian based distro. Almost all of the Ubuntu derivatives have switched to Debian. Probably because even debian unstable tends to be more reliable, or less of a moving target than Ubuntu.

Probably has something to do with delay times too. Ubuntu only syncs from Debian sid on 6 month release schedules iirc, so after the release it will not generally pick up new/changed packages from debian, bug fixes only. And distros that sit on top of that, will just have to wait.

Nope. EDIT: Or rather, there are thoughts of switching in the future. Anyway, how can you switch back when they were originally started from Ubuntu

I could only find two that did that, gNewSense and Eeebuntu. Hardly most. The former because their goals align closer to Debian's, and the latter because they want to make a rolling distribution.

Yeah... while I was looking them up, I found quite a large number of dead ones. I think a few new ones are popping up from time to time though.

Well, I'll just say from my experience Fedora has been ok, on par with XP but a little more generic and I might move over to Ubantu because there are too many bugs with fedora. And no I don't submit those bugs to fedora because of the difficulty in setting up the error reports.

Every so often I get some new version of Linux to try out to see how things have progressed. I currently have Ubuntu 10 running on VirtualBox. — Things have definitely progressed... it's a decent OS. But there are stacks of little things that I dislike about it. The general theme of my complaints would be that the UI needs more polish, and the bottom line is that if I was to buy another computer tomorrow I'd still buy a copy of Windows 7 to go with it. I think it's worth the money.

I happen to like windows 7 too. Or at least I don't hate it. But I don't think its worth the $300 or whatever they charge for the retail copy of Pro or Ultimate. NOT WORTH IT.

And before you suggest going the OEM route, MS changed their EULA with w7. You're not technically allowed to use an OEM copy for yourself. According to the agreement, you have to be installing it on a machine you are selling to someone else.

That said, I don't even think its really worth the $150 they want for the OEM copy $50-$80 maybe. $100 would be my absolute limit.

If it were $50, I'd go out and buy a couple copies right now

Well that sucks. I guess that means my copy of Windows isn't as legit as I thought. Please don't tell Microsoft.

(actually, I bought my computer from one place an my OEM version of Windows from a different place, so I suspect it was shady right from the start. I was under the impression that they weren't meant to sell OEM Windows to me unless I was buying a computer from them...)

Anyway, when I said it was worth it, the OEM price was the price I had in mind. I'd probably still buy the full price version if I had to, but somewhat begrudgingly.

Does this sound retarded to anyone else?

The limitation in XP times was that you had to be buying it WITH a new computer you're building for it. Except that legally all you needed to do was buy ONE component with it. Most times a store would include a mouse or keyboard with it and it'd be legit.

While I do find these limitations retarded, it doesn't mean I shouldn't follow them.

If I bothered reading them I would try.

As it is, I try and not do things that are against any agreement I have knowingly made.

The point is its against the contract you made with Microsoft, and that is litigable.

If you wish to take the risk, especially for a business, that is up to you.

The main reason for me to have even tried linux was my first desktop computer came with a preinstalled OEM copy of windows 95. I upgraded the motherboard and harddrive and the install disk would no longer work.

So I told MS to take a long walk off a short pier.