Byron Q. Desnoyers Winmill wrote:
In this day of mega-cheap computers, don't forget cost. These days you can put together a darn nice PC system from scratch for $200-300, maybe less. Tack on Windows XP and you've doubled the price. Even with a Mac, OS X adds an expense. If Linux is capable of suiting needs, there's no reason not to use it.<snip>
I was disputing the need to switch from your typical Macintosh or Windows environment to Linux unless you fit one of those esoteric needs. While there may be needs which I didn't enumerate, for the most part they would remain esoteric.
Byron.
Incidentally, Linux has been my primary desktop OS for almost a year now. Granted it was the death of my Windows HD that prompted my permanent switch, but I've had overall less trouble and difficulty, even in setup and installation, than I ever did with Windows. I'm told I'm charmed though :)
I've also been using Thunderbird, Firefox, and OpenOffice at work which is fairly strictly Microsoftian and had very little trouble interoperating. The only document I've had trouble with is our customer contract which is full of checkboxes, formulas, and exclusions. We do also have a database system that exports XLS files, but they're rather badly damaged most of the time for some unknown reason and Openoffice opens them right up without trouble while Excel chokes and dies.
My personal opinion is Linux is ready for two niches - people like me who are techy and can get down and dirty and fix/configure things if need be, and the kind of person who does web surfing and e-mail and not much else. Linux is about ideal for such things as you don't (yet) have to worry about viruses and worms, and things don't mysteriously change or degrade. With KDE/Gnome progressing, and distributions with more config tools and auto-config capablilty, it's rapidly closing in on the middle.
Scott Holder
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