How silly is it to use Open Office instead of MS Office or the GIMP instead of Photoshop or anything instead of Internet Explorer?

I maintain that, except for big graphical Windows games, the average Linux user has few reasons to start out with Wine while he's still learning how to use Linux unless he wishes to make it run just because he can. I'm also not saying that Wine isn't a great app, just that it's not a good starting point.

Nor am I saying that excellent Linux games are not available; I'm saying that a lot of Windows gamers who come to Linux don't want to give up the Windows games that they have played for years.

I'm not a gamer, not because I'm not interested, but because I know I don't have the time to get good and I'm already mediocre at enough things not to add, say, World of Warcraft to the list.

The only app I run under Gnome because I use it regularly and because the Linux equivalents are deficient is HJSplit; it runs easily and smoothly from my Fluxbox menu.