Your not completely wrong. I have been working with Linux since circa '95 and at
first I was of the opinion that Linux made a wonderful Server, but was to
"unproductive" to be used as a full time desktop. I mean sure, the
customizability of of the desktop environment was cool, but it took forever to
get it just right, and when you were done, you still couldn't get as much done in
the real world By real world, I mean the MS controlled universe that some 90% of
the rest of the business world uses. No however, Linux is my primary OS. I
haven't booted into an MS OS in 6 months at least. Granted I use VMWare to run
some of the NT server tools I need to do my job, but aside from that I never miss
Windows. In reality, while windows applications are "nicer and fancier", they
aren't that much more efficient, and they are all buggy. I will grant you that
MS has the GUI down to a science. Everything is cohesive, and clean. But with
Gnome and KDE, Linux is making this up by leaps and bounds. I have recently tried
using Corels Office suite, and while I concede it does run in WINE (A windows
emulator) but it's very useable, and it doesn't have the conversion problems that
are inherent in Staroffice and Applix. there are a ton of E-mail apps out there.
Granted none of them are as pretty as Outlook, but many are far more functional
and much more secure than any MS product. At the end of the day, Linux is now the
only choice for me and I wouldn't go back, but you have to make your own choice.
--T.
