donbenni
Jensen, what dis of Linux are you running?
Looks like Gnome (or is it KMD?) by the footprint start-button.
Linux rocks, believe it.
[/pointless rant]
I'm using Slackware 10.0 right now, and it hasn't given me any problems. I've done some upgrades, like upgrade XFce4 to the latest in the slackware-current branch, but I'm not doing too much of the current, afraid that it might break some dependencies if I'm not careful. Gnome and KDE are both Desktop Environments, much like what the GUI is for Windows and Apple's OS's. They can be run on any distribution, as long as they have the proper packages installed (X11, either XFree86 or Xorg these days, along with their libraries.) Lately I've been switching between XFce4 and Gnome2.6, depending on whether I'm craving performance or if I want easy access to programs through menus and stuff. Every once in a while I'll load KDE for Apollon, but if I ever install the plugin to get that running under Gnome, then I think I'll just be sticking with XFce4 and Gnome. Anyway, here's my new desktop:
Shannon
You must admit that XP is one of the better OSes. In the 2 years I've been using it, it's never crash/BSOD'ed on me once, and Windows has the greatest support for software. Win2K/XP and Office are probably the best things Microsoft has ever done.
...and have little support for software. When you think about it, why do people run OSes? For the applications that will run on it. Why do you think I'm so hesitant to switch to Linux, if all my apps run on XP and it doesn't crash? I don't see the point in switching to a new OS and finding new software just to please the Gates-haters.
I'm not saying that people HAVE to switch from Windows to something else, I hate people who try to force things down other peoples' throats, much like how I hate it when people tell others what religion to be. Just find something that fits you, and stick with it as long as you want to ride the wave. If you don't care, just stick with what you've got. If you love what you've got, there's no reason to change. If you'd like to understand what goes on and be able to customize to the whazoo, then change to whatever you think can give you that, be it Linux, BSD, OSX, Windows (If you're craving a challenge, it's doable, but a lot of it requires knowing how to access programs that Microsoft explicitly left out of the Control Pannel and the like, like regedit and gpedit.msc). Do you want to know why I use Linux? I use it because it's something different, which also gives me some security, knowing that the majority of the virii out there aren't written for my environment. Plus, if anything is targeted at Linux, I can just shut off the service that's left the backdoor open, like Apache or SSHD if people find openings in those. I don't need to wait for some giant corporation to release a patch to close the port when I can do it myself. I don't need to purchase a firewall because the one that I have on my computer was put on when I installed it, and it's just as powerful as commercial ones, and much more secure than the one built into XP. I also like the notion that I don't have to reboot regularly because Linux manages processes and resources very well. Windows XP does much better than its predecessors, but it still lags behind Linux there. I also like that development grows much more rapid in the Open Source environment, and you can track the status of the different projects. People are also able to see what exactly the programs do, providing more security because they can make sure there aren't hidden backdoor trackers in the programs. The worst I've ever done with Linux so far is getting it locked up a few times, but I've never had anything serious. Windows has crashed maybe a handful of times on me, giving me the blue screen of death but those were hardware-related, and the problem turned out to be my video card (wasn't cooling properly, crashed the system whenever I tried to run a DVD). I also got tired of Windows losing time, it just wasn't keeping my clock synced with the atomic clocks, and would lag further than 20 minutes behind before I forced it to re-sync. Using NTPD, there's no problem, it connects to north-america.pool.ntp.org or pool.ntp.org, depending on if I want to have regional servers or if I don't care where the servers are.
As for programs, just about all of the programs I use, I can find equivalents for Linux. They might not be as robust as what's out there for Windows, but for me, they get the job done. For you, they might not, who knows. If you don't care, no problem, you have the power to think for yourself. Anywho, here's my basic program list:
Music/MP3/etc: XMMS - Winamp2 equivalent
Videos, DVD's, etc: MPlayer & RealPlayer
Internet Browser: Firefox (both 0.8 and 0.9.3, depending on my purposes, some plugins don't work with 0.9.3, like my spider plugin, which lets me mirror websites, very handy for downloading directories full of pictures)
Instant Messaging: gAIM, works with Yahoo, AIM, MSN, ICQ, and possibly others
Filesharing: giFT - Have plugins for OpenFastTrack, FastTrack and Gnutella
CD Burning: XCDRoast and K3B. K3B is very similar to Nero
eMail: Thunderbird - works well with Firefox. Has great junkmail filters and is very expandable thanks to plugins and extensions
Games: Unreal Tournament 2003, Unreal Tournament 2004, Quake 3, America's Army, and the latest Wolfenstein games all have native clients under Linux, among other games. I also have Caesar 3 running under Linux, as well as Civilization 2, maybe I'll put on Civilization 3, but 2 is more fun for quicker games.
Image editing: Gimp - Very powerful open-sourced tool. Equivalent is most likely Paint Shop Pro. People also can get Photoshop to work under Linux, but I havn't tried to do that, no need to.
Web server: Apache - also found for Windows
FTP Server: ProFTP - very powerful and robust
Word processesing, spreadsheets, etc: OpenOffice - Can use StarOffice if you want something that has an official company that provides support over telephone and such, but I havn't had any problems with OpenOffice.
PDF viewing: Adobe Acrobat Reader - native, found off of Adobe's website
Coding: Bluefish - where I do HTML coding, very nice for people like me who actually know how to code, rather than just have a program build everything for you.
FTP Client: GFTP - on par with CuteFTP for average use.
That's just a short list of stuff I use. I have tons more loaded, but that would make the list even longer, and the post is getting long enough as it is. Like I said before, if Windows or whatever you're using right now makes you happy, go ahead and use it, there's no reason to change. For me, however, Windows just wasn't cutting it, so I decided to jump onto the Linux boat.
