Ahhh.... XP and Vista on the same machine.

[Mr No Name]

In just the last 2 years Linux has really narrowed the gap in hardware support, The only hardware driver that I have to install is for my video card, but even that is in the repositories.  Even my wireless card worked right out of the box, I only had to install the one driver.

I am no Linux only fanboi as I said, it's just a FREE way to have a great working OS instead of paying a MINIMUM of $100 for win7. (I do LOVE Win7 btw)  I have yet to find one task that I could not perform but without paying one cent for the software, and there is no need for software piracy.

I highly recommend if someone who is new to linux wants to give it a try, some distros can be installed under windows as if it was just another program... or there is always the LiveCD which you can run without installing anything at all...  I am no mega-geek but over the last 4 years I have enjoyed learning the OS.

[321BAR]

I never have to defrag, nothing to maintain, AH and many many modern games run great (using cedega)  ALL of the software I will use is on the distro disk, there are so many distros to choose from, you can find many tailored to your exact needs, including gaming.  TONS of free software that do ANYTHING under the sun are available.

BTW, I am not a strict Linux user, I also use Win7 - Which is AWESOME!  It is also EXPENSIVE.  I really believe Win7 is the best thing MS has put out in quite some time, MUCH trimmer than Vista with speed as good as XP, in 64-Bit it beats XP IMHO.

I also run XP (and all MS OSes back to DOS 5) as a virtual machine under Linux when I MUST use a MS specific program - perhaps I could use Wine but Virtual boxes are the way to go for seldom used programs, etc...

I was just pointing out that Linux is a cheap way to get speed and security

ahahah yeah its really expensive... my laptop gets a free upgrade because i bought it a month before it came out. now i just gotta go get it

[OOZ662]

I love toying around with Linux, but with the last fiasco of attempting to make a dual-boot system that took essentially two days to restore the ability to use XP, not too keen on doing that again. I've been trying to find a past-its-prime computer to shove under the desk specifically for messing with Linux, but all I can find have severe catastrophic hardware failures...so, there ya go.

[Irwink!]

In just the last 2 years Linux has really narrowed the gap in hardware support, The only hardware driver that I have to install is for my video card, but even that is in the repositories.  Even my wireless card worked right out of the box, I only had to install the one driver.

I am no Linux only fanboi as I said, it's just a FREE way to have a great working OS instead of paying a MINIMUM of $100 for win7. (I do LOVE Win7 btw)  I have yet to find one task that I could not perform but without paying one cent for the software, and there is no need for software piracy.

I highly recommend if someone who is new to linux wants to give it a try, some distros can be installed under windows as if it was just another program... or there is always the LiveCD which you can run without installing anything at all...  I am no mega-geek but over the last 4 years I have enjoyed learning the OS.

I agree completely on the hardware detection of late. Hardware detection/driver installation is very low on my list for Linux suport problems. The only problem I've had in the last couple of years was with a wireless nic on a laptop. In that case I used ndiswrapper(I believe) to convert the ms driver and was up and running quickly.

The lack of polished software that the masses can find, install & use is my biggest complaint. I expect to pay for quality software. The prevalent opinion in Linux circles seems to be that everything should be free. Well, that would be great. I'd like it very much if housing, healthcare and food were free too. A problem arises though when no one has any kind of incentive (being PAID) for producing said quality software or anything else.

I am a Linux fanboy to a certain extent. I have contributed $$$ to certain distro's that I'm fond of. I paid for Xandros 4.1 3 years ago. Since then Xandros though has seemingly abandoned the desktop and gone after the server and netbook market. Linux has great promise for the future. But I'm also a solid realist. Linux ain't ready for primetime for the masses IMO. That said I will never discourage anyone from getting their feet wet and giving it a try. If you are indeed the techy/geeky type you'll learn alot and realize that in some cases there are solid alternatives to MS or Apple.

[Spikes]

Personally, I never had problems with Vista. Just hated it when my mom first got her Vista machine, onto when my laptop came with it, up until W7 was released.