Here's my success story, tried slackware 3.5 when it came out, didnt have the patience to figure out what I was doing and put winblows back on.Some time went by, a few reformats later redhat 5.2 arrives at my door, tried that for awhile, but open source wares were buggy as could be, it was stable but apps were not nearly what they are now.So, once again, windows goes back on.Then redhat 7.x came out, gave that a try and stayed with it, and later went to slackware after finding im not an RPM fan.About this time I acquired broadband and a video addiction.TV,movies,movie editing,ripping,tv cards, small LCD displays, multiple monitors, all of it.So I began to search and try to find software, along the way after some side by side comparisons of another identical machine running windows, I came to find when it comes to video linux does quite well, and often better in many ways.Then I opened my own business and the search for office apps happened.Well open office fixed that, and I wrote some software to do my billing and im working on something for dispatching bikers and cars for when I get bigger.So now at this point, im windows free.Not much I cant do anymore, and I didnt pay a dime for the software.Ive got a small mosix cluster for video processing, been working on a mini distro based on slackware, and my uptime numbers are getting embarrassingly high All I can say is WOW, linux makes a PC all it can be and more, a little imagination, ingenuity, and patience, and I honestly dont think there's anything you cant do with linux.Like anyhting else in life, you get out what you put in, and linux delivers.

Excellent news, a real success story! These are the types of stories I am always looking for when someone asks about the uses for Linux. A small company with a limited IT budget that switches over is, in my opinion, an ideal tale to tell someone.

Little addendum, Ive had people ask me lately, well, what do you do about support?

Answer, come here, or elsewhere, linuxquestions.org is the first place to start though, by far its the best.Ive found, you can usually get answers within hours or minutes usually provided you word your question properly and ask something specific no matter how weird.You guys are great, some very very talented and knowledgeable people around here.

The site is well laid out, lots of tutorials on stuff normally not found elsewhere.Its places like this that truly make linux worthwhile, you just cant get this kind of support with other OS's.I know,im starting to sound like a linux salesman, ive used other OS's, and they have their place, but when it comes to getting real work done, I will stick with linux.It always hasnt been the best OS to use, but I feel like its become something really special, nowadays its not a matter of what can you do, but what are you willing to try, the only limit is your imagination really.The amount of freedom and tools is mind boggling, none of the limits like in windows or OS X to hold you back.

For those in the support and development areas of linux, thank you, thank you ALOT.My only hope is now I can pass some of that on to the newbies out there.

Peace