In the long term, cost savings. No licence payments ever again and no need to run such high specification machines in order to do the same job.

In the short term, with re-training, hardware config testing and the like you're probably no better off.

You're also better covered in terms of support.
The product has a never-ending lifecycle and evolves rather than is replaced with something different every few years, as is the case with windows.
When a bug is found you've got a million beardies working on a fix right from the word go, no doubt publishing fixes within hours.

 

BUT
For me using at home I wouldnt necesarily be able to find an application to do what I want, especially right now when I want it.
At least with Windows I can do a Google search relating to what I need to do and it will list lots of applications that will do it.
Then just a simple case of downloading application and off I go
TBH thats why I havent upgraded to the "pretty" Vista, may be 64 bit but in that guise half my old apps wont work, not even all the functionality of my vivo tv graphics card, and things like Nero etc dont work so well .

Steve

 

In some area's it is bigger than windows, clustering, virtualisation and embedded devices to name but a few, the LAMP environment is very large also in the dedicated server market

all new Asus desktop motherboards feature splashtop the bootable OS on the bios which is Linux based,
Google one of the largest hardware builders in the world is building cloud services running on Linux.

The company I work for allows choice and we have over 300 Linux desktops in service with various distribution

I must admit I am doubtful that Linux will become dominant on the desktop, but then again IBM was all powerful once, if the mighty IBM, Sun, Silicon Graphics can fall from grace there must be the possibility Microsoft could as well. With company's such as Dell and Acer, and Asus now shipping Linux and it being supported by IBM, Novell, Intel and Google its coming of age.

Simple Linux distro's such as ubuntu are good enough for the normal man in the street and easy to use, and the desktop effects from compiz/beyrl/xgl surpass what windows is capable off by far

I think the biggest problem windows has is XP, its pretty stable and capable of doing what people need in general... the need to upgrade in hope of escaping the blue screen does not drive the market any more

 

I should have added for the home market.

people dont like change.

 

Tell me what you need to do and I will tell you a linux application that does it.

in many cases installing applications in Linux is easier than Windows

take for example if you want the latest firefox in a fresh install of Ubuntu you would simply need to open a command prompt and type the following.

apt-get install firefox

that would download the application, install it, and put the icon in the start menu I would not even need to visit the mozilla website

 

Can't argue with you there, simply because its true

im dysfunctional tech wise anyway, I was raised on classic mac OS9 and os2 warp. My childhood explains how i ended up on Linux

 

I had Spectrum Basic

 

Bet you touch type well

Do suffer from daley thompsons decathlon rsi

omg showing my age now do you remember starting to play jet set willy at 6 years old and finishing it at 14.. then realising ten years later every level was the same

 

The Spectrum was awesome.

Spy Hunter, Sabateur!

I get pains in my fingers sometimes lol. I dont know if i ever finished jet set willy lol.

Jetpac.

god the memories LOL

 

http://jsw.ovine.net/

 

there goes adulthood thanks..

feel 12 again.. lol

 

PMSL PMSL,,, there goes your fingers you mean LOL

most spectrum games are on the net for playing LOL

 

Anyone wanting to try the switch from Windows to Linux download the CD from http://www.ubuntu.com/ or the one I recommend http://www.mandriva.com/ and you can use these without it making any changes to your system to get the feel for Linux and see if it's for you.