I know this is completely off-topic and I am not in the habit of posting here or anywhere, for that matter, despite the fact that I spend a considerable amount of time browsing these forums, especially when off-topic; however, considering the relatively high zealot to logical user ratio among Linux users is quite high, I feel it is important to represent the denominator from time to time, despite undeniable fact that my text will be simply lost in the sea.

Personally, I am glad very few people use Linux. I use Linux myself and every percent of the market share Linux doesn't have is another deterrent to not make viruses, ad-ware, and spyware on Linux, which, of course, means I don't need to be bothered with anti-spyware programs alerting me to every registry change and anti-virus programs eating resources over their time consuming scans. The firewall portion is covered by my router, so I have little to worry about there. Meanwhile, my hardware has perfect support and I already know perfectly well how to use Linux. Also, considering I don't play computer games, all programs which I find essential for daily tasks are found on Linux. Furthermore, applications open when I click on them, buttons still go down and up with my mouse button, keys appear on the screen seemingly the instant I click on them, and any games I run for testing purposes, even if developed for consoles and need to be run in an emulator, run at least fast enough that I don't notice any glitches in movement; however, this may all be because my mind is not quick enough to see the milliseconds piling up.

Also, I believe it is important to note that there truly is no reason for anyone to switch to Linux. As long as they have any sort of argument, that is reason enough. Linux users seem to have this misconception that having people convert from worshiping colored boxes to worshiping penguins will lead the across the river to the promised land and eternal bliss, saving them from eternal damnation; however, this is not the case. In truth, they do no more than lead them from a field of sparse grass shoots and the occasional pothole across a polluted river carrying corpses in a swift current to, at best, a slightly different, but not better, field, and at worst, a garbage dump and the same eternal damnation from which they sought to alleviate the user from in the first place, giving them no choice but to once again cross the perilous river. Religious allegories aside, I have never even seen a Linux user present one truthful argument based solely on fact as to the superiority of Linux which cannot be countered with either an equally, if not more, valid argument, and this is putting aside the trouble must first go to before the switch is even complete. Furthermore, whenever one posses an argument against Linux's support of hardware, Linux users always seem to respond something along the lines of "That isn't Linux's fault" or "Yes, but it is amazing that Linux supports the amount of hardware that it does, considering almost no companies produce native drivers for it". Well, it might not be Linux's fault that it has poor hardware support but it most certainly is its problem, and considering that hardware support on Linux will not be taken care of by companies until Linux has a considerable (read: outside of the "other" piece on a pie graph) portion of the market share, which in turn wont happen until Linux has fantastic hardware support, this argument amounts to little more than a whine from people to lazy to crack their knuckles and start writting hardware drivers. I find the second quote I presented to foolish an argument to justify with any more words than this sentence contains, for it is equivalent to telling your boss after turning in a half finished project that he should congratulate you for accomplishing anything at all.

I would type more on the subject, but I feel this contribution, though incomplete, is already long enough to be immediately skipped over by any person to whom it applies. Furthermore, I smell food cooking and am quite sure the meal is complete.

I'm rereading most of the thread to pick up on stuff I missed.

What a waste of a month

Not quite. Config files vary greatly. And look at the hell in xorg.conf. You'd have to have a very specific reason to try to make that file from scratch with xorgconfig and such that will do it for you.

Also, James, your tactics of blaming all problems of lack of availability the hardware/software vendors is plain ignorant. They make money off their programs, why would they just want to throw source code out in the open? And why try for Linux compatibility? One binary will never work on all systems.

Be careful how you say that. Some people, such as me, know both Linux and Windows. I use Linux on BAFServ, and my own personal server (which I run KDE w/ nx on), for example. Windows is by far the better choice, at least IMO, for desktop usage.

I had no problem with Gentoo and wireless (and I had to use ndiswrapper).

CD-RW's stink. They take too long to erase/reuse/burn, plus they are more expensive. I've only reused a CD-RW once or twice before, and for that price, it's easier for the few cents it costs for a CD-R.

Haha, that's so funny. What was your stability problem? Tell me your reasons for not using Windows, so I can offer explanations or alternatives.

How do you know? I don't want to play some half-assed OSS alternative for UT, I want to play UT. And you have yet to mention an OSS alternative to those games.

Until an upgrade introduces a new configuration file or deprecates something, then you're fucked and have to hack at it more. Been there, done that.

Having a clean install w/o spyware and all kinds of random context menu hooks helps. My 1.5 year old install still shows right context menus immediately, unless something is using 100% cpu.

That reminds me of Vista. To change the graphics settings, it asked me about 3 times if I was sure I wanted to change the setting. If I run Vista after it comes out, it better have options to disable all that shit.

Might I help you? I don't know what Kolf is, Kaffiene is a movie player right? Use Windows Media player. Amarok is countered by Winamp. KMail is countered by thunderbird, and Konq by firefox. And, you are wrong. There are ports of KDE to Windows that you can use.

Also, ironically, in most cases I find support on IRC and such much better for Windows. You ask a question, they tell you point blank what you want. With Linux, sometimes you can get a good response, other times you have to explain your setup for 10 minutes, just to find out it's not possible. Funny, I've been trying on EFNet and FreeNode for 2 days to get help with suspend2 on my laptop, to no avail. Too bad I took so long configuring it all how I liked.

I thought Linux wa too secure for that? That's what everybody says in the list of pros for Linux. Thanks for backing up another one of my ideas. Ironically, a lot of people on Linux (I can recall a thread where binaries/source were discussed) say security through obscurity is bad, although, that's all Linux's security really is! And, I don't get alerts every registry change, I don't run antivirus software, I don't run a software firewall.

You must be lucky with your hardware support, but I don't see where anything yuyouaid there is an argument against Windows. Properly configured windows won't have any problems that you insinuated are there. What makes you think an idiot using Linux would turn out any better? They'd end up breaking stuff badly with config files and such, at least Windows is somewhat tolerant to idiots.

Well put!

I'd read more, but as you said, it doesn't apply to me. Enjoy your meal.

I agree with everyone here that says Linux can be a pain to set up, but [opinion] if you take the time to set it up correctly I find it's better than Window's in every way [/opinion]. That said, compared to ten years ago when I first started using Linux, it has come a long way in the ease of use department and only gets better. Personally I don't mind learning a few things if they'll save me time and give me more flexibility in the long run.

Regarding video performance, I get the same results in both.

I'm not trying to convert anyone to Linux though. If you're happy with Windows I don't mind. As long as you don't try to take my rights away like Microsoft is doing with all the DRM in Vista that is.

[ot] liLinuxas? hahardwareupport? Spellchecker bug again? I'll have to edit and fix that. [/ot]

About assumptions, I was just assuming at first you were against windows, then as I read more I realized you weren't attacking, and never edited what I had read (I typed my response as I read your post).

That's the first time I've had it happen to me.

XP is a much better OS then linux for day to day use. Primarily due to driver support and friendly UI.

I use windows because I don't have to think about how to use it, I can just use it.

I use linux for hosting servers because windows is extremely expensive for that sort of thing and still doesn't support all of the stuff I need.

Pure oppinion. I've been using Linux as my primary desktop machine for over 5 years. I used windows for an entire year, on what was my first "real" PC, before I gave it up entirely.

If a major computer n00b can manage to install and switch to linux a year after he got his first real computer, over 5 years ago, when linux and KDE/Gnome was far less polished, it's ready enough. And would be totally ready if not for hardware manufacturers reluctant to support linux in any way, even if its just releasing specs to people or teams that have signed NDA agreements.

There is one, but it runs through X11 rather than using the native GUI, so it is clunky. But I've found a fork called NeoOffice now, that is a proper OSX program. It seems to work ok.

When one company and product dominate a certain market, such as is the case with Microsoft and Windows, it makes for a socially and economically very dangerous situation. Just think of the possibilities for control and government opression, or what would happen if for example Microsoft suddenly died. Not to mention how embarassing this is for the advocates of capitalism and democracy. Again, think of the potential for government control, lack of competition between software companies and lack of choice for the end consumers.

Therefore it is a good thing when individuals, companies and government and independant organizations use or at least contemplate using alternative software such as Linux and other Open Source Software. This hasve several benefits. It increases our indpendance from a single software provider. For example if the provider of your Linux distribution goes down or doesn't satisfy your needs anymore, the migration to a different distribution is relatively easy. It increases our security and privacy because governments and one government in particular have a much harder time influencing many software companies than just one. And it increases quality of software products because of increased competition between different companies and increased cooperation of independant developers.

So, everyone who speaks for Windows, directly or indirectly supports a political system in which governments have the means to control all aspects of your life, and an economical system in which when you walk into a store, the shelves are filled with one and only one product. Your choice...

I say that something is user friendly if it is easy to use for both a newbie and an experienced user. This isn't really anything to debate. Lot's and lots of experienced Linux users (not me or you) agree that it yet isn't as user friendly as it needs to be.

The thing is that people can't be helped in a lot of situations. The issues in my first post for example, unresolved.

As I use a dual-boot system there's got to be something I like about Linux? And there is.

But it still has its "unsolvable" issues like crappy support from hardware manufacturers and most major application developers. It also has a lot of solvable issues which probably will be solved/improved in the future.

Yes and I thanked you for it. I think you missed my point? I said that people can't be helped with a lot of issues as there are no solutions. Did I make myself clear now?

I thought that you took offense to something I wrote, but I'm glad you didn't.

Actually most people don't even know what an operating system is and don't care to know. When people see my computer, they usually say just that my "Windows" looks a bit different than theirs.