This is completely the reason I use *nix as well. Except my desktop is never turned off so the switching on needs to be replaced with logging on (I log out because my sister frequently uses the computer as well).

I sit down at my computer and just know it is going to work and I can focus on getting the job at hand finished. I never start it up and suddenly need to run the adware remover because the computer is acting funny or start it up to find that it won't boot all the way and just keeps rebooting over and over (darn automatic updates... they break the system as often as they fix things)... or any of the other 9 billion things that can (and frequently do) go wrong with Windows.

My sister loves my laptop (running fluxbox -- with idesk -- of all windowmangers) because she can log on, click on an icon, and watch a DVD without having to do anything special. Or browse the web, write and email, type a paper, watch a video online... whatever. She does this from my "unfriendly" laptop without second thought and loves it. She is NOT a computer geek... she is currently taking a computer course and got a low 70 on a test regarding WORD!!! How can you get a 70 on a test with Word? It doesn't even seem possible but she did. Proof enough to me that she isn't a computer geek. But she finds it easier to use my laptop (or desktop) then the Windows XP machine in the other room. She'll often ask me to get off the computer (the desktop) because she has stuff to do and can't I just use the laptop because she likes the big monitor.

:D

I'm always happy to let her use the computer. Pleasantly shocked doesn't even begin to describe how I felt the first time she asked that.

Well, I don't theink its a usability problem, its compatibility thats stopping it, most users think Only MS Word can open up simple .doc with almost no formatting. My mom didn't know MS Word for the Mac and MS Word for windows files were even compatible (please correct me if I'm wrong)

Then also you have to know it exists, Most people I know wouldn't even know Macs exist if the schools(elementary and middle) didn't use them. After all they're only sold in Apple stores so people think they're specialty computers or something

I'm not sure if this was a question or not, but in the case it was, I'd like to answer it ;). FreeBSD uses a similar system to Gentoo's portage called ports. It downloads source and dependencies and compiles everything. It also uses a binary management very similar to Debian's apt-get, called pkg_add.

@ Debians:
Now, on the Debian greatness: The difference between Ports and Portage and apt is the ports and portage actually works. The drawback is that it get's a hell lot of time to compile certain programs. Apt-get on the other hand, work's fine for a while, but sooner or later something always get broken, at least for me. My most recent example is python-pygame, which I use to program very often with. I've apt-get installed a package and it automatically updated python, thus breaking pygame. It was no way around this, either install the other program and upgrade python and brake pygame or forget about installing that program (can't remember which program it was).

I've used Debian Potato long ago as server. Later, I decided to upgrade to Debian Woody (clean install) on the very same machine. During the install process of Woody, I had to specify my network card type (just as I did with potato) and, even though parsing the very same name and model of the inbuilt network card, the module failed to load.

That took Debian out of my table (or HD) for hopefully all of the eternity. I love the philosophy of Debian in theory, but in practice, it gave me a lot of headaches from the installer to running a Desktop.

well i can officially quit whinning about video

http://www.jahshaka.org/index.php

if i get a new video card (preferably matrox) that can handle linux, ill be giving this, cinelerra and Maya a shot.

Yes. If you don't want it, just opt out of X and/or stay in runlevel three. Have fun.

In actually playing games, getting work done, playing movies, watching television in a window, etc. - not in cursing ATI and other vendors while trying to hack together a FULLY-working Linux box.

Uh, no, we wouldn't. You obviously haven't been working with Linux very long - or computers in general. ;)

Oh really? Have you ever run Windows XP, properly configured, on a dual processor box?
What about OS/X on a dual G5?

Those operating systems really fly then (I generally don't do single processor boxen - I tend to multitask heavily with six or seven large apps open concurrently)

Even on single processor boxes, Windows XP runs just fine. In fact, a common complaint on here is that Linux is slower than Windows - it all comes down to how you configured it. If you run Windows and click on every popup add, "free" toolbar and software offer out there, etc. then sure - your Windows box will be slow - and it isn't M$'s fault, it is the user's fault.

You're in the vast minority then. I'm all for making it truly PnP, easier to use, with better admin GUIs (why must all the administrative GUIs be broken and force you to go to the .conf and .rc files and change settings by hand? That's so . . . 1991). With Linux, or any *nix (except OS/X, which is the castrati of Unix), you have the option to NOT run X. Everyone else will take that option, just don't install it if you don't want it. Your desire for a command line ONLY should not bar everyone else from getting the nirvana of graphical user interfaces.

$.02 and then some :D

Has anyone mentioned Tax software?

Even the IRS's Adobe form fill documents require a version of Adobe that is not yet available for Linux.

yea but who gives a rats *$$ about the IRS?

For me, I would be much happier with linux if it had a better ocr. Gocr works sometimes, but it is a lot less forgiving than its windows counterparts. Either gocr or one of the other ocr projects will have to get a lot better. Beyond that linux does just about everything I want and it does it for free so it's already there for me.

I think the forward advance of the wine project will be important for anyone who invested a lot of money in windows apps. Wine is probably the single most important project for selling linux to a windows user.

One of the big problems with getting WINE to work properly, from what I've been told, and I can't vouch for the truth either, is that even with the court decisions made against Microsoft, there are still api calls that have not been released.

Windows code - and that of most of its applications - is not open source. Hence there is bound to be difficulty in hooking into its closed code.

So I have been told anyway. So it is likely that that particular nirvana is way off, if ever.

I have also been told that the Windows OS is also not truly backwards compatible with applications... meaning that a more recxent version of an application written for Windows may well not run in WINE because a different set of DLLs are needed. That comment seems to fit the facts, whether true or not.

I have noticed that apps for win95 and earlier often don't really run that well in win98 and sometimes don't run at all in Win2000. What I just described could well be the reason why.

My 2 cents, and I don't need the change <grin>

I agree with you all the way. I really enjoy the OCR in Windows that comes with my Canon USB scanner.

I don't know how my remarks led you to that?

Let me explain myself.

The IRS is part of the US government. The IRS supplies forms for ALL the citizens of the US to prepare their taxes on. The IRS now provides electronic tax forms e.g. Adobe PDF Form Fill Documents. These forms are available to the "Netizens" of the US, however, these forms are not useable by ALL "Netizens." If you want to use these electronic forms you must use a Windows PC or an Apple computer. Where are the tax forms for the Linux/UNIX computer users.

People want to do their taxes on their computers. I do it every year, but I have to keep Windows installed because there is no Linux Tax software.

People who actually pay their taxes to the US government. Tax software made it soooooooo much easier. I remember before tax software where it would take weeks to get your taxes in order now you can do it in a day or two.

Well I guess Adobe or IRS heard me cause we now have Adobe Reader 7.0 for Linux.

Woot!

lol, I'm glad to know I was not the only person having fits of joy to finally have acrobat7. Finally... there are some things I have been wanting to do for a long time (Cut and paste text for example) which just did not work before.

Oh i know, im just saying, not like anyone enjoys it. I guess I'm old fashioned here, our family has always gone to this business that does our taxes, but thats because we own/race/sell/breed horses, so tax software is kind of out of it for us.