Compelling information to ditch MicroSoft

Are AMD and Cyrix and all in with Intel regarding the 'Fritz chip' and Palladium? I have no problems with Intel processors as such - all my computers are - but I'm having a problem with the company. It'd be nice if the other manufacturers would provide an alternative. But maybe it's a legal thing and not anything the chip makers have any choice about?

Reading about Palladium was a big push in the Linux direction for me. That and having to register my XP. That and my XP being slow as hell and crashing a lot. That and...

thats kinda creepy im glad a finally got myself a linux box

slow and creepy? how about this, my brother has a win xp laptop, and to get his cdrw/dvd burner burning cds, i had to install an upgrade to the software already installed for it to work, the cd came packaged with the machine. but in the process,sometimes when it told me i needed to rebot, i had to try 5 or 6 times clicking the 'reboot' button before i gave up, logged out and clicked THAT reboot button, and my mom has a win98 machine, it was harder to get those machines talking with tcp/ip than with redhat linux go figure Microsoft really sucks, bill gates is the napolean of the computer wolrd

Wow, I haven't looked at this thread in a while. Lot's of replies, and they all seem to be on the same side of the fence.

It's unanimous : MS sucks.

And not necessarily because of product quality, but because more and more computer users are developing an FU MS attitude, due to their tactics.

I read some about "Paladium". And as with everything that I have seen so far from MS, it starts out with seemingly good intentions (like copy protection), but once implemented things get ugly.

For this example - "Wpa" (Windows product activation). At first I thought that MS or any other company is entitled to protect their software from being copied and used on unauthorized machines.

That was until I read the details, and experienced the wpa system first hand.
It's f__cking garbage. For one - doing a simple thing like changing the host name of your computer, or the comments field for the machine, will trigger wpa to ask you to reactivate upon reboot.

Another nuisance - changing hardware. It seems that the magic number for "allowed" hardware changes is 6.
Let's say that you are a hardcore gamer, and you have now bought your third new video card, and before that you changed you NIC, soundcard, and added ram (adding ram does count towards a hardware change).
You are excited to take it for a spin. You install that bad boy and reboot XP. Instead of enjoying your favorite game upon next boot, you are greeted with an ugly message.
It's telling you that it's time to activate Windows.

You have made six changes to your machine,and this makes your hardware abstraction layer different, so you CANNOT use your original activation code.
It's time to call good old Microsoft and deal with their customer service, and talk them into giving you a new activation code.

Now I am well aware of the fact that you can get around this in several different ways, but that is not the point.
The point is that this is BS. You should not have to deal with this shite. You should be able to plug whatever the hell you want into your computer, and not have some Ahole company (MS) making things hard on you.
Microsoft is making hardware swapping a pain in the ass with their wpa system which will be included in one form or another, on all of their future OS releases.

And as for Paladium :

Just like wpa, it starts with good intentions. Microsoft wants to implement a hardware solution to copy protection in a chip which would reside on the motherboard of your machine.

This is all well and good, but I don't even want to think about how Microsoft will abuse this type of technology.
MS says that you can turn it off completely. I'll believe that when I see it. But I won't hold my breath.

No one wants Microsloth, or any other company, trying to totally own their computer.
Your PC does not belong to Microsoft, it belongs to you.

And when they make it tougher, with each OS release, for you to load an alternative OS on your PC to coexist with Windows, they are most certainly treading on you and your rights.

They are NOT trying to make your computer safe.
They are trying to make sure that your machine is mostly Microsoft.

F that.

When you purchase a PC, you are not buying a "Windows" PC. Windows just happens to be the OS that is loaded. You are buying a piece of hardware, and you should be able to install whatever you want, without the presently installed OS intervening in any way.

End of rant.

I chose to escape Microsoft, and I have turned to Linux. And so far, I am very impressed with Linux.

I chose one of the more difficult distros - Slackware, but I don't regret it. I have spent hours upon hours configuring my machine. But it is well worth the effort. I now have a machine with fully functional hardware, and file and print server capability.

I feel like I have accomplished alot in setting this machine up with Linux. I feel a sense of pride, which I can now share with the rest of the Linux community. I have joined a group, growing in large numbers, who have realized that we do have a choice.

Get bent Microsoft.

JC

I miss some of the programs, especially my electronic dictionaries.

I may be missing the point, or confusing what sort of 'dictionary' you refer to, but if you are looking for an app that searches a bunch of online dictionary's and returnes the result all you need is Kdict.

If you have kde installed, you may already have it.

Originally posted by bulliver [B...if you are looking for an app that searches a bunch of online dictionary's and returnes the result all you need is Kdict. [/B]

Yes, that's good but what I didn't make clear is that I miss the electronic versions of American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Collegiate, and Random House Unabridged dictionaries. They all exist in versions for Windows but not for Linux. I wrote to Merriam-Webster and was told there wasn't sufficient demand from Linux users to make it feasible to port to Linux. Which I certainly understand, but it's too bad. Microsoft has virtual monopolies on a LOT of things.

But I will stop using computers altogether before I'll go back to Microsoft.