I have always liked Windows, considering pre-XP types, for some of its strengths. On older computers like for a 486, it provided ease, function and speed, that up to now that gap is still wide with GNU/Linux. There has always been ample amount of software and the overall configuration has been simple. My favorite Windows has always been Windows 3.1 with DOS even though it eventually lacked compatibility with software for Win95 and up.

Ever since I have touched GNU/Linux, well, I have rarely gone back. It rarely or never gets slow and there is always new stuff to learn. In fact, when I do go back to Windows it always feels weird and my old know-how is fuzzy. In DOS, I have a habit of typing ls when I'm suppose to type dir, and my BASIC is out the Window.

I have tried and I am always curious to try new distributions, but I have fallen into two for general use; I am split between Slackware and Ubuntu. When I turn on a Slackware, I feel like I want to work and code. When I turn on a Ubuntu, I feel like I have ADD and want to play. The difference may be between KDE and GNOME and not the specific distribution. Still, I like GNU/Linux.

Excluding Windows 3.1, now I remember why I don't like Windows. The Easter Driver Hunt and the million reboots. Viruses. On XP/Vista, the computer starts off fast and ends up extremely slow, which requires an expensive list of software or an annoying registry procedure to fix the problem, or a cold format. Aside from the blue screens, the most annoying attribute to Windows 95 and up are the RATS. It's calm and quiet, I'm in the middle of doing anything, important or not, and the hard disk's head starts to move, and then I KNOW it will get VERY SLOW. The head moves sporadically and it almost feels like the computer will freeze, so it's time to stop everything to let the rats of Windows do their thing or crash my program that I am using.

Here are some of the Windows users I have met. Trying to introduce anything from upgrading a web browser or trying alternatives, they think it's too complicated or that this is imposing on their "normalcy": PC = Windows and Internet = Internet Explorer(the version the computer comes with). GNU/Linux looks European, so aside from Cars, that apparently is bad in America. Another question I got is, "Is it a Mac?"

*By GNU/Linux I mean any distribution with the whole package, X Windows and some software that comes close or competes with aspects of Windows.

(Shrug...) Can't say that I know where this thread is supposed to be going . . .

People's apparently (to you) "simple-minded" approaches to Microsoft Windows, are very simply a reflection of the notion that they just want their computers "to work, period." They want the computers to work because they want to do things with those computers, and although they could (if they put their minds to it) learn a great deal about how the system does what it does, they emphatically don't want to.

And I don't say that I blame them. I don't service my own car, and I haven't stepped into a Home Depot store in many years. (Instead, I write great software and use that to pay mechanics and contractors and handymen. Come to think of it, people pay me to write great software, so I reckon it all works out fine in the end.) All I really want to know about how my car works is the location of the key-switch, the clutch, the gearshift and the steering wheel. That's it. I simply want to drive the thing, and to never get stuck by the side of the road. Even so: I love to drive a "stick," but my mom wouldn't have a clue how to begin. So it goes.

Windows, of course, could be a lot better than it is with only a little more effort on Microsoft's part. (The situation is such that it has always baffled me why the company continues to maintain a status-quo that Apple so easily and so frequently lampoons ... when MS certainly does not need to.) But to guess why the very-smart executives at the company have chosen to follow this course is just an idle speculation. Really, Microsoft is and always has been a business applications development company, and they make a lot of amazingly good stuff in that arena. I wish they'd sell-off Windows to some fool (who would promise to promptly bury it), and concentrate fully on what they're really best at... business applications.

If you've learned some more about Linux and think that it's terrific ... "Terrific! I agree with you!" Just don't take that line of reasoning too far. Windows is not going away anytime soon, and neither is Linux or OS/X or any of a half-dozen other major operating systems you might never have even heard of. They're all established players in our industry and they will continue to be for quite some time to come.

Actually, that's the same mood that I was expressing. Not a bash, or troll on any of the operating systems, but a light and short discussion. All the operating systems have their pros and cons. I totally agree that Windows and Microsoft is much stronger for business; and I do like Windows even though I use it much less. The non-tryers bothered me a little, yet like you I understand; I have a similar analogy like the car and mechanic type, except for patient and doctor. It's like grandma who has her methods of doing things and us younger generation think "that is nonsense", yet they work when we listen. The opposite is true too.

Sorry to say this, the GNU/Linux first appeal is really for developers and tweakers even though there are very simple distributions that exist. The simple distributions can become complicated for pre-Windows user, but not so much for the completely new computer user. Simple distributions can turn sour when a new user decides to install a new card or device that the distribution lacks in driver, or when the computer somehow crashes, or when there's a superblock error. The driver issue is much less with Windows albeit the annoying Easter Driver Hunt. Even some devices that are purchased at a store for Windows according to some are very complicated, it's as if these smarties develop for their same type with no consideration that some people just want to use the device.

The one or two cons I truly find with GNU/Linux is the lack of creativity or lack of a very easy version for those who just want to "plug and play"; of course there's compiz as a creative leap. There is a lack of risky creativity, and I know that some of the creativity is based on volunteers gathering at "look" forums such as these. They only come up with stuff after the fact. It's a copy look of either a Mac or Windows, which I gather is why the first impression that I have received of GNOME is Mac. GNU/Linux isn't a business; however, a great one listens to its clients, responds to its competitors or tries to be ahead of the game. I have been surrounded by strictly-Windows people all my life, so I know a lot of the various views.

I find that the older Windows with DOS was beneficial compared to our current "plug and play" types. It "forced" people to think and follow procedures to install and use the system, to configure it in DOS. I think if I were born in the current generation I may be like a lot of the others, perhaps be oblivious of the other non-advertised operating systems or of how the internals work.

I agree with you, I wiped out my Windows (and a Linux Mint dualboot, I upgraded it which didn't work well so it was left kinda broken) because of some virus problem that was taking all the bandwidth, and I installed Debian amd64.
Debian is much faster than Windows and installing drivers is less annoying for me than in Windows. The themes aren't as good as Linux Mint's, but I wanted a stable system with AMD64 support and I have more choice with the repositories.

I never liked Windows a lot... I always broke it from time to time, it is too buggy.

Come on ... windows aint all that bad ... It's got it's own merits ... and it does have its downsides too ... That much I give you !

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