Comments

Linux is not hard to learn to use. My 87 year old father learned to use Linux and liked it better than Windows. Linux is not Windows Linux anymore than Mac is Windows Mac. I found switching from Windows to Linux to be easier than I found switching briefly to a Mac I had been loaned when I had hardware problems. That doesn't make the Mac interface bad. There is a tone among the respondents that Windows is the standard and Linux must live up to the standard. Wake up. Windows is a far from perfect standard. Windows users simply accept with little thought the problems they have with Windows: lack of support - unless you are a mega business; lack of security; viruses, trogin horses and spyware that slows machines to nearly a halt; and a bloated Vista OS that requires half the processor power of a dual processor computer while the other half does the work you need your computer to do. Vista is too bloated to run on an Eee. Even Windows PC magazines damn Vista as a terrible OS. Nor is Linux perfect. When I adopted Linux I thought mounting and unmounting drives was a very good idea and not difficult for even this computer retard to manage. But in 2001 hardware driver problems were a real issue. I simply accepted that I would have to make sure any equipment I bought had Linux drivers before I bought it. Now Linux has no more driver problems than Vista has, but that means there are still problems. And there are other problems as well. Far fewer though, than the problems encountered in the Windows world. I say this because, though I am not a geek, I do hang out with geeks who make their livings as system admins. Windows is their cash cow. Repeat customers. One of these geeks encourages people to try Linux. Those who do stop being repeat customers and he only hears from them when they buy a new computer. Another problem with Linux is that most people use Windows and save their data in proprietary formats rather than Open Standard formats. For the most part Linux programs deal with these formats seamlessly, but to share your data with people in the Windows world you have to save your data to formats their programs can handle because their programs are less flexible than your programs are. The numerous Linux distributions (flavors, like flavors of icecream, what flavor do you prefer) and the wide variety of choices in user aps is NOT a problem, though several respondents have referred to it as a problem. This is what gives Linux its strength, utility, and rapid innovation. However, I empathize with being overwhelmed by reading names of programs you have no clue about about. I went through it when things were even more obscure, but I didn't have to choose from ignorance. Back in 2001 I simply chose the standard installation rather than the custom installation. Today Linux programs are better known and as mentioned above, some notable ones are available to Windows and Mac users. If you are fearful of all this choice, simply choose the most popular Linux flavor, currently Ubuntu, and you will have a complete desktop with solid easily usable user aps to do all the tasks you are used to doing with a computer. From this stable beginning you will be able to explore and decide whether you like the standard Ubuntu installation or prefer this or that other program to do this or that task. Googling will not just get you support but allow you to find out what other people like and do not like about various programs, and you will come to form your own opinions about which programs suit you best. So what problems do you want to deal with? I chose the problems I would encounter in the Linux world because I would not click "I agree" to the XP end user license agreement. I had had problems with Windows before I switched and I had problems with Linux after I switched. Just different problems. You will find it to be the same today. I would not give up the Freedom and choice I have in the Linux world for anything the Windows world has to offer me, and I will never again put up with the viruses, trogan horses, spyware, and security problems of the Windows world. Again, what problems do you want to live with?