"Distro hopping" is indeed what most beginners tend to do. It does take some time and dedication to get into any distro and get it working the way you want. Me too I began as a distro hopper. Started out with RedHat, Lindows (linspire) and ended-up with SuSE (that I am still happily using now for years).

Windows is a product of a manufacturer with lots of money and a big marketing machine. Linux is not a product backed by a large company, neither does its target audience include "ordinary households" (please forgive this expression). Linux is made by "the Borg", collective intelligence of many good thinkers, if I may speak this way.

In general, it is thought that - so to speak with a flavor of humor - Linux users must be able to think binary and talk hexadecimal and have a certain level of technical creativity, whereas Windows users would do with the regular alphabet. I am not saying that Windows users are dumb, for the record.

Linux distros get better - read: user friendly - all the time.

On the marketing side, Windows is largely sold as an entertainmentlike pc environment, and Linux is largely sold as technically solid businesslike pc environment. So the target audiences are different.

It has reasons of course. One of these is that Windows can run complex games, such as the Flight Simulator. Yes, Linux runs a flight sim too, but that game is nowhere near the one from Microsoft. Okay, it is for that reason why I also have a Win2k machine.

And unfortunately, a lot governmental websites (here in Holland) such as the tax office, run their applications only under Windows and MSIE. So I cannot declare taxes using my Linux box. This smells to OS-racism. In Germany, the entire government migrated from Windows to Linux, to Bill's great dismay ;-)

The Asus Eee PC 200 Dollar Linux laptop is a great example of how to promote Linux to the crowd. Especially the young ones. And Dell comes with Ubuntu PCs.

But there is still a long way to go before Linux can take over the target audience of Windows.

probably linux needs a hardware compatibility site that is more prominent than sites about the arrays of linux distros to choose from ... do it together and make it the most prominent among all without any signs of compatibility with any named linux distro ...

dont goes for individual hardwares parts like graphic cards , net cards and audio cards etc etc ... only goes for "bundled" machine package like pc , laptops , phones , cameras , printers , scanners and hand-helds etc etc ... showing the brands , the mades and their models ...

with these "bundled" machine package , only goes for compatibility level no lesser than lets say 90%(but probably a bit too low , i'm not sure) for live cd or local installation ... anything lesser than that(for those individual hardwares parts only) will be stuffed into sister pages way out of prominence ... this doesnt matter , people who need those kind of things will know how to work with them and where to search for solutions ...

make it as prominent and as obvious as wikipedia , google , yahoo and youtube ...

[EDIT ::] preferably only one site of that kind is allowed ...

maybe we can see a 50% of linux usages on buisness(big and small) and home desktops ...




//my take ...


.

I,ve bought Exandros Linux, have tried every other distro but this one rocks, easy usability.
It cost me $29USD on special at Amazon.
I paid $39usd for a years worth of networks updates. [Firewall, updates , evry thing you can imagine in media updates, openoffice, acrobat. Easy as to instal, PLUS when I RPM a Debian file through Exandros Networks it finds the dependancies for me if they have them. Pretty good.
TO GET TO THE POINT.
Instead of running duel boot,. why not run windows, within its own little box inside your Linux OS.
VMware.
I hope the home use registration for VMware is reasonably priced, but how much would windows charge for a system.
Then all your actually doing is running windows as software, instead of an OS.
That puts them back in their box,
You can run your linux , firefox, emails, mp3s in window one.Windows updates is not interfering with anything as they do.
Amd those GASTLY Windows programs we,ve all just got to have, and I,ve got 1 religious libary that wont give me a choice and wine wont run it.

Regards Graeam

Surely some of you wiz bang prograners out there can develop a open soucr similar program for this use. We know you,ve got it!

I thought wine was pretty good at running things...

If that's what you really want, there's VirtualBox. I've never used it myself, as I have no use for it. I only dual-boot for games (and if anyone could show me a tutorial on how to get Halo working on Linux, I might drop that).

i actually have some more things to add ...

if you are using linux ... try stop using "layers" like wine , cross-* and such to run windows apps ...


//i personaly consider that a bad habit ... most of the time you cant have a "50-50" mindset when doing tings ...


.

quoting Graeme
"Surely some of you wiz bang prograners out there can develop a open soucr similar program for this use. We know you,ve got it!"
response:-
Isn't Computer Science a secular scientific forum?

Quote "And those Windows programs we,ve all just got to have, and I,ve got 1 religious libary that wont give me a choice and wine wont run it.

For ALL those GHASTLY Windows programs pertaining to religion ... surely you don't need WINE ... for God will provide.

Just something interesting I'd like to toss in:

According to my spreadsheet reporting how much a new PC would cost me, it's currently at 339$. But no optical drive, I have a spare CD drive I could use until I find a nice DVD drive on sale.

I have a ton of options for OSes:

1. Windows XP Home, for 99$; (Equivelent to 29% of just the hardware) (I wouldn't need Pro)
2. Windows Vista Home Basic for 99$; (29% yet again, but not even worth the disc it was stamped on)
3. Vista Home Premium for ~140$; (41%)
4. Vista Ultimate for ~230$; (67%)
5. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop for 49$; (14%, but comes with a big honking manual last I checked)
6. Ubuntu 8.04 (Or 6.06 until 8.04 comes out) for 0$; (0%)

Had I not been introduced to Linux, I'd be considering paying 29% extra just for a 6-year-old OS. That would be a totally bare-bones one, too. And I'd be paying an extra 29$ for a copy of Corel WordPerfect, and for a copy of Adobe Acrobat Pro so I could make PDFs.

Free software, in both senses, makes me so happy I don't see any point to returning to Windows. Even Alpha Centauri can't convince me. That's some powerful stuff.

QUOTE >>>>.6. Ubuntu 8.04 (Or 6.06 until 8.04 comes out) for 0$; (0%)

>Had I not been introduced to Linux, I'd be considering paying 29% extra just for a 6-year-old OS. >That would be a totally bare-bones one, too. And I'd be paying an extra 29$ for a copy of Corel >WordPerfect, and for a copy of Adobe Acrobat Pro so I could make PDFs.
>
>Free software, in both senses, makes me so happy I don't see any point to returning to Windows. ]

Thank You all for your comments.

You know peaple, you,ve all made some good solid points.
I set up win4Lin the other day on this Exandros Desktop, and immediately I noticed the slowdown.
Boot slowed down, computer slowed.
Computer seems to be getting an error or two, and its system is only a couple of weeks old.
Sounds to me that I had better go through and remove any Wine, Win4Lin, crossovers already gone.
As you have pointed out whats an old computer worth anyway, nix. Just use the screen switch to swap overI,ve also got a windows laptop I use for work when I bring some home, I,ll play with networking this to the Desktop.
My desktop is only a AMD XP3200, 2.2ghz, and is probably more happy keeping everything straight Linux.

I converted my laptop to Suse 10.3 from Vista business about 3 months ago. The performance increases were expected but I was surprised to get longer battery life(from 3.5hours to 5hours). I have also virtualized vista in order to use visual studio for work. Besides that I have no need for M$.

I've never actually used Windows too much... Yes, I can live without it. And have been living without it for many years...

This thread is very old; some things posted about Window$ and Linux are no longer true. What OS is best for you will come down to your application, hardware, mental, and physical needs. Home office and automotive environments create special needs.

I use Linux at home. The only time I use windows at home is when I let out a really smelly fart, then I open them to air out the place. ^_^

somebody will say it's weird. But i can't browse internet and print in windows cause i've lost their driver cds.


and i can do almost everything with Linux but 'commando: the call of duty'

you know we have newer threads with the same topic. this thread is too long to follow it started in 2002!