1. its more stable
2. its more secure
3. its FREE

aside from needing to know the basics of computers (and with KDE you barely need to know a command line, its all graphical), its really easy to use.

I cant figure out anyone who has an excuse not to have tried it. sure no gamer in there right mind would give up a stack of games for a stable system, but aside from games most functions can be done on linux the same or better than windows. plus you get things like OpenOffice, which is a free virsion of office (and open source) http://www.openoffice.org/

linux can run on anything. supprisingly enough, the best Xbox front end is linux. there is even a PS2 virsion of linux. :D </font>[/QUOTE]I've used em both and I'd have to disagree... somewhat.

1) In my experience Linux is far from more stable than 2000 OR XP. I've got two Windows 2003 servers running at home and I just rebooted them (after a power failure)... they'd been running since I initially upgraded them sometime last year... september or october IIRC. The only serious crashing problems I've had with 2000/XP/2003 have all been harware or driver based. Linux has the exact same problem, bad drivers will bring it down in a hurry.

Microsoft has a lot of technology that is light years ahead of the rest of the market. Visual Studio.NET is by far the most powerful and well constructed development environment I've ever seen, there's nothing within 2 generations of it in the Linux world to my knowledge.

2) As far as security, I'd bet a dollar that if Linux were subject to the organized attack that M$ products are it would fare at least as badly (I'd wager it'd do a lot worse due to the open source nature of the product). Of course when hackers target M$ the downside is they're helping Bill and company to improve their product, to the point that now it seems like Microsoft is finding and fixing problems before the hacking community can exploit them. If I were anti-M$ I doubt I'd be spending all my time helping them improve their product. [img]smile.gif[/img]

3) Free is good, that's why I experimented with Linux in the first place. Another advantage is that you can get variants that take advantage of hardware long before Microsoft can. I'll probably go back to Linux when I get my Opteron box later on in the year... the SUSE version has some capability that I think it'll take Microsoft a while to catch up with (specifically support for NUMA... Non Uniform Memory Architecture, which is how MP Opteron systems are configured).

Overall I think Linux is a great alternative for the budget minded, giving you a lot of the same capability in a less polished but functional package. I don't however think it's necessary (or even logical) to put down Microsoft in order to discuss the advantages of Linux.

[ 03-04-2004, 09:21 AM: Message edited by: Thoran ]

Just a note on the 'free' nature of Linux. If SCO catches you using it they will sue you for $700 per server it is installed on [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Isn't that for business use? Like in open-source shouldn't be used to get economical profit from? Also for home users it's free for sure.

I'm getting more and more fed up with windows right now. For the games it's sadly the only good choice :( If not for games and the money I spent on office I'd be using linux for sure now.

Does anyone have experience with running a dual install of windows and linux?

Well, as far as the extended support goes, it seems it's a good business decision. Though I hope windows will get sued for abusing their monopoly position. Just as I hope games will be more available for linux (if possible with open source licenses)

Isn't that for business use? Like in open-source shouldn't be used to get economical profit from? Also for home users it's free for sure.
</font>[/QUOTE]Uhmm nevermind this... Wasn't really thinking

BTW SCO are just stupid that they think they own rights on parts of linux. I read about that sometime ago, is there a verdict in the case already?

Yup. i did a triple boot of 98 XP and Suse linux last summer. good to use, but 3 OS's took up more space that i was willing to let go of. its not that hard to do though, and if you do it right you can use the Windows NTldr to make the selection at boot (i like it more than lilo(?) etc)

Isn't that for business use? Like in open-source shouldn't be used to get economical profit from? Also for home users it's free for sure.
</font>[/QUOTE]Uhmm nevermind this... Wasn't really thinking

BTW SCO are just stupid that they think they own rights on parts of linux. I read about that sometime ago, is there a verdict in the case already? </font>[/QUOTE]Yeah, i didnt hear that SCO won either. as far as i can gather, SCO couldve just copied and modified linux, then claimed they made it first. i suppose that is the problem with an open source project, you will allways get people claiming they wrote it :rolleyes: :(

Yup. i did a triple boot of 98 XP and Suse linux last summer. good to use, but 3 OS's took up more space that i was willing to let go of. its not that hard to do though, and if you do it right you can use the Windows NTldr to make the selection at boot (i like it more than lilo(?) etc)
</font>[/QUOTE]Thanks for the info! I'm foinf to get it when I have time. Getting some linux skills for when I step over [img]smile.gif[/img]