erg. I get sick of the windoze bashing after awhile. on FC3, I find myself wishing that half the programs i NEED to use worked with wine without having to jump through flaming hoops and that my wireless card could just be plugged in and worked. There are very many little necessities that the distros I have used lack that windoze does not.

seasoned *nixers forget how easy things *should* be because they know workaround for everything. I don't feel like downloading 8-10 packages just so I can get my wireless card to work. And I don't feel like having to ask about an error message everytime I go to install something. And I don't feel like having to look up each peice of hardware that have in my box so I can download just the right tweak and edit just the right .conf file (which is buried deep in some unknown folder somewhere) just to get my operating system at a functional level.

The newer distrosz are getting better at this. But they are no where near the level of windows. For me, its worth paying the extra money for an operating system of that caliber. I probably wouldnt pay for linux at this point. At least not for RH, Slackware, FC3, or Gentoo. I plan on trying Ubuntu soon though. :cry: why can't things just WORK without me having to babysit them?

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Member-Successstories, and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Congrats. I have been free of Microsoft since September 10, 2003. Ran Mandrake 9.1 for 5 months, FreeBSD for 13 months, Now I am running Mandrake 10.1.

Later
Bob W.

Crossover office is an enterprise cversion. Youcan get teh evaluation copy.
The Cross oevr ofice will work out for u.

I have had a choice since '01 and I HAVE BEEN FREE!!! since mid '02.
Once you have used linux for awhile windows just doesn't cut it anymore. It's kind of like going back to win 3.1/DOS.


Read this and you will NEVER go back, no matter how nice it looks.

http://www.euronet.nl/users/frankvw/...eMS_intro.html

Now stay with linux for 6 months, MAKE it do what you want, and windows will never look nice again.

windows is crap, xp is worse. bill's charity work is just for pr. it's still a very small chunk of what he has.

Thats very cynical to suggest that the charity work is for PR only, and that it is still a small chunk of what he earns... I wonder how much of your favourite musicians earnings go to charity?

Even if it were for PR... does that matter? After all there is good from the use of those monies.
Just a thought

well yes it's cynical and of course the money goes to good use but the fact is it's still a tax write off and he didn't do this before when he had even more money. he's doing it to help his and his companies reputation if his only interest were that these charities needed mony and he had a bunch of extra money then why do it in such a high profile way. I won't bore you and qote it here but anyone read Matthew 6:1-4 ?

fair enough.

Not sure what the heck a mistranslated book (bible) has to do with anything though lol

/me senses a thread about to be closed rofl

Congrats on becoming free. I'm working on it, but it will be a long time before it happens. I'm brand new to Linux, and can't make that jump yet. I also have a 6 year old, and since kid's games don't come in linux flavor, it will probably be even longer before I'm completely free.

For me, it started with OpenOffice.org. Saw what was available out there and started making the move. Once I'm able to get dual booting, I'll get on the fast track to being free to choose.

F_M

i actually like windows (xp) for its simplicity...but again, that may be bcoz of the fact that i've got used to windows, since 3.11 at schiool ;) and if hardware and s/w companies would write drivers/programs for linux, things would be much easier, i think. so thats one benefit of using linux (manufacturers wont be able to ignore a growing market). my interest with linux began at my computer course, where we were taught shell scripting on a rh9 box :) since then, i began fiddling with the os, looking at different distros etc, just out of interest. all i use the comp is for browsing and listening to music (and sometimes some p0rn vids ;p), and for that, my mandrake box works gr8. i use windows xp to:

1. scan (my hp scanjet 2400 is not yet supported on linux)
2. compose documents like my resume on ms word (coz i cant expect companies to use openoffice writer to view my docs ;)

what i find irritating is that some audio streaming websites dont work on linux, and that sucks. (eg: www.dishant.com). even after installing the realplayer plugin, the site wont play. its a case of the website itself not supporting linux. again, if a critical mass of users use linux, such websites will be forced to make their sites linux-compatible).

nothing much else. windows works for some, linux works for some. the happiest thing is that if someone is not happy with windows, he has a choice to switch to linux. (and vice versa ;p)

-guy24x

i forgot to add: i am not too comfortable using windows xp, or leaving xp running the whole night, bcoz of security concerns. though i have norton antivirus, and xp firewall enabled, i'm aware that windows security can be flaky sometimes, coz i've heard that trojans, etc can easily infect windows systems, more easily than linux etc. the other nice thing about linux is that we're not encouraged to login as the root user for day-to-day tasks, but instead sudo for that. i once created a limited user account for myself in xp, but found it too restrictive, as there's no sudo equivalent (or is there?). i've also heard that windows os design itself is flawed, and is not built for security, though i'm not sure about that. also, i've read that windows is less secure bcoz virus writers target mainly windows bcoz of its widespread use. maybe a combination of these 2 factors make windows less secure.

as you may have guessed, i ditched IE some time ago, and use firefox instead, bcoz there were a lot of reports that IE is crazily insecure.

all in all, i like windows' ease of use (which helps novice users who dont care about how a computer works, but just want to get the job done...like my mom), and the power and freedom that linux gives to its users.

-guy24x

My understanding it that with XP and 2003, Windoze changed their philosophy on security. They started having services turned off by default instead of everything on. That's a step in the right direction.

As for viruses, if you are looking to do the most damage to computers, what are you going to hit, the 98% Windoze, or the 2% everything else? It just makes sense for Windoze to be the target. Add onto this the intense hatred that many have for Micro$oft. Coupled with the fact that it's a large company vice a group of volunteers working as an organization, and that's a heck of a bulls eye on M$.

F_M

There are quite a few kids games for a 6 yr old.

Look for childsplay and gcompris. Or just do a search for kids games at sourceforge and freshmeat.net

I have Win4lin for that :p . With the exception of the clone tool, GIMP adequately subs for Photoshop-and I do a LOT of photo editing; and all I really need Windows for is Illustrator and so I can have audio on IRC.