Comments

Well, I have to agree with the author on past distributions of Linux but disagree irt modern distros. In 2000, RedHat thrashed me soundly with driver problems, the need to mount drives manually, and a host of other things that I have since repressed... but rather than live in fear of Linux, I just waited. I knew developers would make it easier to use if they wanted a greater market share, and they have. Early in 2007 I purchased a new laptop, an HP dv9000 with a dual 2GHz CPU, 2 gigs of RAM, 160 gigs of mass storage, and Vista. For all that power and space, it didn't run very fast so I did what I had been wanting to do for a while and tried another flavor of Linux... this time it was Ubuntu Feisty Fawn which was released that April. The install was simple and fast, I was able to get everything but the wireless (the nefarious, Linux averse Broadcom) to work and since an ethernet cable provided twice the bandwidth, it didn't really bother me. The rest of it just worked and it took a day of playing to learn the GUI... I'm a Gnomester although I've used KDE and have XFCE (a lighter, less resource intensive GUI) running on an older Pentium IV that has only 256 megs of RAM. Since Hardy Heron, released a year later, wireless has worked flawlessly due to the driver wrapping being more automated (if that is the correct way to refer to it) and although I still dual boot, my secondary partition isn't XP... it is Xubuntu, tweaked out for gaming. I happen to like Sauerbraten and update it faithfully whenever a new release for Debian based distros is posted. As for the installation, it is a no-brainer. The only part that should even come close to intimidating you is the partitioning, and if you are not dual booting, just accept the default. At this point in time, after about a year and a half of installing various flavors of Linux on a number of machines, I ALWAYS use the manual partitioning... if you can call clicking, pointing, and typing a few numbers "manual." So, for those of you put off by the author's fear and message of "run from that scary Linux monster" - pay no attention. If I can learn to use Linux, then you can learn to use Linux, and advance from the Windows v Linux flame war to the battle of the distros (I like openSuse, too, it has a cool opening jingle...) and the battle of the GUIs which is typically between Gnome and KDE. (Blows raspberry at KDE.) Seriously, I think the author should revisit a modern distro with an open mind and a willingness to learn. His article reads like someone receiving a paycheck from Redmond.