| It doesn't require new hardware and the setup takes a couple of hours, for
| most of which you can go off and groom the cat or something. Yes, there
are
| some specialized applications that are only available on Windows but how
| many casual users have them installed? Browse the web, do email,
| LibreOffice, and so forth and Linux has it covered. If you absolutely,
| positively have to have Quicken and will accept no others, stay with
| Windows.
|

As a box with a web browser, yes, Linux might
not be bad, but it's far more than a couple of
hours to learn an entirely new OS if one really
uses a computer beyond web browsing and email.

I wouldn't discourage anyone from experimenting
and exploring, but it's misleading to present Linux
as a great, simple, Windows alternative. It's a
perennially half-finished geek project, maintained
by people who have religious devotion to the project
but who really don't get the importance of finished
software that works properly, with a properly made
installer, and with good documentation.

As Dan Espen tellingly said: "I can get by in GIMP."
Probably he can. Apparently he doesn't do much
with graphics. But that's hardly a convincing sales
pitch. I'm not religiously devoted to Linux, so I'm
not satisfied with "getting by". The last time I tried
GIMP it wouldn't even save files in normal formats.
It only saved in GIMP format. Files had to be "exported"
to save them in other formats. A separate menu option!
Why? Because the Gimpsters are hard-nosed and
humorless about trying to convert people to their
particular trip.

GIMP/OO/Firefox have
been the answer from Linux fans for many years now,
when presented with the paucity of Linux software.
The problem is that their attitude comes from the
angle that one uses Linux first, and figures out how
to make it work later. It's Linux as religion when it
should be Linux as tool.

And that's not even getting into the other half-
finished aspects of Linux. After initially exploring
Linux many years ago I went back twice to see
how it was going. I thought that if I could get a
basic setup going easily then maybe I'd stick around
for awhile. Both times I set simple goals: Get the
system set up and get a clear, easily usable firewall
that would allow me full control over incoming
and outgoing processes. Then maybe get something
that would allow me to make disk images, so that
time I spent setting it all up wouldn't be wasted if
it crashed. That would be the basic requirement so
that I could plug in the network cable and begin using
the OS. That was my aim before even considering
whether there might be enough software to do anything.
My other basic setup requirement was that I should be
able to get that setup done without having to resort
to primitive command line operations in a console window
and without having to dig through obscure config files
in /etc. Both times the experiment was short-lived. One
can hardly do anything without needing a console window.
That's inexcusable in a post-1995 OS.

Even if Linux had pleasantly surprised me, it's
a very long journey to go from being intimately familiar
with Windows to feeling similarly comfortable in Linux
or any other OS. There are a thousand little details.
Just going from XP to Win7 I spent a couple of weeks
learning the details of the new OS. There's no such thing
as "a couple of hours" to switch OSs.

But I'd agree that if someone just wants a consumer
device for web browsing, and they only use webmail,
and if they can somehow keep the creepy spying
and control of Eric Schmidt and Mark Shuttleworth out
of the equation, then some kind of Linux device might
not be a bad option.... as long as it's dirt cheap.