Linux24, are you sure you do not want to keep a Knoppix CD and User Guide around for Windows repair, file recovery, or hard drive failure?

Having tried literally a dozen or more distros before I settled on the one I'm using, I think you just didn't find the right distro for you.

I'd suggest getting both a Knoppix and a Knoppix Gamer LiveCD. Then you can mess with it on your free time without installing it. Also, Knoppix is the most newbie-friendly distro I've tried. You rarely need to open a terminal for stuff and it has an amazing hardware detection suite.

The Knoppix Gamer distro is a spin-off of Knoppix. It's designed for gameplay and gameplay alone. Good time waster.

In my opinion, these threads have already existed before now and many forums other than LQ that I browse regularly discourage this kind of thing.

The moderator would simply lock the thread and say:

This is not your personal blog. Go get yourself one.

And close it.

And sometimes they are justified in doing so when the content of the rant serves absolutely no purpose other than to seek either approval or disapproval from the members. As a general thing, I say that there are already many threads that proclaim "Goodbye Linux!" While the member has a point in stating that he has left Linux, it has absolutely no discussion value whatsoever and doesn't help anybody else here. Therefore I think that such threads should be discouraged.

Lucky for us, you are not a mod here.

Then we might as well get rid of the "General Forum"

You mistake me. I did not say that I would discourage it. Many people on other forums are a lot less tolerant to threads like these and I just mentioned it.

And no. General Forum is there to discuss topics that are of "General" interest to many people, not for discussing your personal rants, especially if you are not seeking help from anybody.

Just my two rupees

I actually liked very much "resume" of furfurdemon666!

As for me, I have not got any of M$ Products, and I do not I miss anything....

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As for those who wears pants in family, unfortunately as I have already pointed in the post above, men still have tendencies to follow the...........

If you found you plateaued with Mandrake, perhaps next time you give it a go, you could try another distro that doesn't give you a lot of GUI tools and autoconfigure things. (I don't like programs that do things automagically, because they probably guess wrong as to what I want.)

Harishankar, how much are rupees worth? Just curious.

I disagree.
The "I am leaving Linux..." threads are just the flip side of the "Why I ditched Windows..." threads.
While I hate either when they are just getting easy jabs and digs in, a well written thread is going to be of interest to someone considering using or leaving Linux or Windows.
Personally, I do not feel there is a good reason to candy coat Linux by telling someone everything will be okay or to send them on their way with an "I guess it was just too much for you".
Linux24's OP seems to be his opinion, which I believe, contrary to the statement "This is not your personal blog. Go get yourself one." is allowed on this forum.
I do NOT agree that the reasons cited would be enough to make ME stop using Linux, but I do accept they may be enough to make someone else stop using it. Perhaps an honest opinion will be of interest to someone else.

45 rupees ~~ 1$

I think the original poster makes a pretty good point about dual boot systems. In the end, for most people, they are more hassle then they are worth. I can completely understand the idea of how the hassles of each system both combine instead of alleviate each other. Like linux24 said, he didn't get to stop worrying about antivirus software just because Linux was unaffected by it... and just because windows setup all his hardware without any need for user action, it does not mean he avoided setting it up in Linux.

I'll also add that I really didn't hit the bulk of my learning curve until I stopped dual-booting. When I was dependent on *nix to meet all my computing needs I ran right back into the curve again. Like Linux24 I had started to plateau but it was not because I was running out of things I needed to learn... it was because I was learning to use one OS to compensate for my weakness in the other. Which meant I needed to switch operating systems fairly often -- when I needed to switch whatever task I was doing for one I was better at in the other OS -- and brought about the whole frustration with dual-booting.

Unlike some people, I think this post does provide some benefit. It allows us to reflect on another person's opinion and experience. And he does bring up some of the downside of dual-booting which we often ignore because we try to think of it as only getting the BENEFITS of both operating systems instead of also getting the hassles.

We are all well aware of every aspect of Linux vs. Windows. But yes. I am glad that the question was asked at LQ and not at some other forum where the original poster would have been flamed even by moderators!

To come to the original point, I use a dual boot system. I don't find it a hassle because I rarely boot Windows. It is not a hassle to dual boot. I never felt the need to boot into Windows for almost a couple of months now and even then I boot Windows only to update the firewall and Antivirus software (I recently booted to install AVG Free 7.0).

Why should dual-booting be a problem? I don't find it a problem at all. If you boot several times a day then you should get used to the order of items in the boot-loader menus pretty quickly.

"How can people say Windows isn't stable? It has never crashed for me."

I appreciate your comments but the reasons dual-booting can be a problem were listed by the original poster (as well as partially by myself). It may not be the case for you as each person has different needs, patterns, and frustration levels.

I know it was an irritating factor for myself when I dual-booted and I understand the original poster's viewpoint. If you don't find dual-booting a hassle because you rarely boot windows how can you claim it would still not be a hassle for a person who might need to switch operating systems several times a day?

It is a slight irritation, I agree. But why would anybody want to reboot several times a day?

If you find yourself booting both Linux and Windows several times in one day then you must probably use one or the other. Not both.

In an ideal scenario, you would keep one OS for your important work and the other for rare occurences or things you cannot achieve with the other OS.

I suspect it would have to do with his wife wanting to use the same computer and thus he could not leave it sitting in Linux.

Or, an example from my own days, he might want to take a break from working on a project to play a game which only runs in windows. I had a network game of Rouge Spear that my floor in college played together and it was the only reason I would load windows. So someone would come in and say, "Let's try to beat that mission," and I would need to stop what I was doing... save everything in a state where I would know what I was doing when I came back to it... then reboot the computer... play the game for an hour or so... reboot again and try to get everything back to the state of productivity I was in before. If I had been able to just minimize everything or even switch to a different virtual desktop it would have been hundreds of times less irratating.

Stuff like that. I went in the opposite direction though when dual-booting got too frustrating for me. I decided that *nix was the one operating system that was best for me. Linux24 went in the other direction. It happens.

Right now I would never imagine dual-booting with windows again. I get frustrated enough when I have to fix someone's windows computer for them because it reminds me that I left windows specifically so I would NOT have to deal with those problems.