Todd wrote:

There is no version of those OS's that are shrink-wrapped and
one-button-installable by the average home or soho desktop or
laptop user that is in any way a coherent and ergonomic
replacement for windoze. And not just the OS, but all the
personal and business apps that go along with it.

For better or worse, it's about time you fools realized that.


Hi Guy,

(irrelavent link to *nix something or other)

And, it is getting easier every day.

After 20 years you've finally figured out that *real* people want to do
more with a PC then enter arcane syntax into a command-line shell?

By the way, I am a business and I am a Fedora shop. There are
lots of Business apps, just not from Microsoft.

We were just fine running Office 2k Premium installed from MSDN CD's (in
violation of the EULA) across all our PC's at $dayjob 10+ years ago.
About half our PC's still run Office 2k, the other half run office 2007
(courtesy of Technet, again in violation of the M$ Eula). We don't run
Office 2010 (even though we have it, again courtesy of Technet) because
it's not compatible with Exchange server running on a Win-2k server.
Our website and SMTP server is handled by a pair of boxes running NT4
(Gigabyte BX440 chipset, circa 1998 or 1999). Talk about rock-solid
24/7 performance. No AV software running on any of our servers or
win-98 systems as of about 4 years ago (no point, never detected
anything). Some users and developers run their own AV on their XP and
Win-7 boxes.

We're running a version of AccPac from 2001 (it was expensive then, and
we're still squeezing value out of it 13 years later). Contact
management courtesy of Janna Contact 1999. For graphic design and
faceplate layout I use CorelDraw 9 on my win-98 system. I forget what
software we use to design and program our Altera FPGA's - we bought a
license probably 10 years ago and downloaded a more recent version (with
hack or keygen) about 5 years ago. A few machines run Parts 'n Vendors
(P&V), and that's about the size of it.

Oh yea - we had an SGI Indigo back around 95-96. Graphics was kick-ass
for the time. But then in 97 or 98 we got a dual-core pentium
motherboard with a graphics card that beat the pants off the Indigo.

Linux's only downfall is its lack of off the shelf apps.

Na - it's more than that. It's not really an OS for users. For servers
running apache - yea sure.

But, you do have a point. Trying to get Windows users off of
Windows is like trying to get an addict off of crack cocaine.

Again, most people don't know what's going on under the hood - and if
you want any real productivity out of them you don't want them to know.