As you, I go back to the days of the 150 BAUD modem. There are a lot of things in your rant that I appreciate, because we've both been to that set of parties. I still have two machines that run DOS. One governs my hot water heater and furnace, and the other one runs a very primitive CNC device out in the shop. Linux is my preferred system of operation for anything I own myself. If the boss wants to subsidize Brother Bill and the rest of the dimbulb dumbifiers of Microsoft (I still maintain that we did ourselves hurt as a people when we abandoned language to go back to drawing stick pictures in the mud, which is what a GUI is, essentially...) I'll use it until I can teach him better.

God bless, and Go Linux....

tnx for the comment... in fact i use the KDE GUI in linux, because it's convenient. i still however keep a terminal or two open most of the time, because there's stuff that works better from a CLI than from a GUI. when i'm trying a newly installed program, even if it is a GUI app, running it from a terminal gives me any error info i need to get it running correctly. it used to be that even windows software could be run from a command line window, but M$ seems to have even gone away from that remaining "holdover" from DOS. try it with most software anymore and you get an error.

if one of your DOS hard drives ever takes a dirtnap, there's an open source replacement for DOS at FreeDOS | The FreeDOS Project
i still have a couple of copies of my DOS 6.22 install set floating around, but don't know if they're still any good, since i haven't had a floppy drive in a machine for a year or two. btw, DOS 6.21/6.22 was the only exception i can remember to the M$ "even numbered version curse". if i remember correctly, M$ used a piece of copyrighted (and buggy) compression code and got sued for it in ver 6.21.
DOS 6.22 corrected the "oversight", but 1) couldn't fix trashed compressed drives created with 6.21, and 2) didn't have it's own compression.... i remember losing 100MB of data with a DOS 6.21 compressed volume crash and having to restore everything from floppy.....

Am always happy to see and read others impression of and path to Linux. i finally found it about 3 years ago and finally settled on a flavor called PCLinuxOS. Since i don't do much with it, except use it, i have found it to be really great - easy to install and easy to use. i've been able to install it on our foundation's computer, my wife's, my mother-in-law's and several friends. It just works - plus - like you mentioned, the help forums are really great.

Great post and have a wonderful evening!

Anyone who wants to try linux -buy a magazine and get a "Live" disk with it .Or download an iso from a distro
Run your Browser and webmail email on it and leave everything else on windows .

When ready install Linux from the "Live" as a dual boot if you want and delve further

As the majority use windows everything starts off as Windowsonly and gradually Linux versions come out so its always a little behind . Not as many people working to write or fix programs. New hardware can be a pain for a while.

Been running Linux for 12 years now - started with a magazine cover disk - Red Hat 6.2. I had to use the nascent fips to create a partition on my (first PC) win98 box. Very scary. Now running Arch Linux after I fell out with Ubuntu a few months ago. Feels like Linux again... Everything just works, and if it doesn't, I can fix it. When I use Windows now I get frustrated very quickly (usually because I'm only using it because I've been asked to fix it). Best version of Windows IMHO was win2k. I almost never use a file manager - do all that stuff on the console. Much quicker and easier.

Hi. Since I'm a certified PC technician, I though I would give a few (lot of) thoughts and opinions of my own on your blog entry and some of the comments under it. I'm most likely going to get flamed for this, you can file this in the trash if you want. Just know that I'm RESPECTFULLY disagreeing with you. This is only what I have seen with my own two eyes. I actually like Linux and would love to use GNU-Linux as my main machine, but I have tried many times and just can't do it. This is most likely because I have different usage needs from my PC than most of you. Anyway, I'll start with the Linux pro's first...

LINUX PRO's
It's free, especially useful if you want to do something that is common to do and expensive otherwise. Such as a [L]AMP stack.

It's *FAR* more secure... FROM SCRIPT KIDDIES. (Real hackers have your number [0day] for any OS).

It's open source. Making a person with code skills able to do anything with the OS they can dream up.

IT CAN BE more fast and more stable, since it is more flexible.

But the positive comment train stops here...

LINUX CONS
Dinosaurs need to get with the times, GUI OS is in... CLI OS is out. It's 2012, the GUI has existed for nearly 40 years. I shouldn't have to use a command-line for normal use if I don't want to. But with Linux it's becomes a requirement. Now I'm no stranger to the command-line, but I disagree with this command-line comes first mind set. The command-line should certainly be there when you need it, but not in your face all the time. And in the end, you can do anything in a GUI environment that you can with the CLI, it's called Batch/Bash scripting. So how is a pure CLI OS some how superior when GUI OS's include a CLI? Edit: I am not suggesting that Linux doesn't have a GUI of course. I actually like the newer Linux desktops look better than most of Window$. What I'm saying is that favoring Linux over Window$ because it has "better command-line" is IMO completely backwards thinking.

I have found Linux "free help" to be unhelpful AND unfriendly with a side order of slow on top. On the other hand, I have never needed tech support for Window$ because any problems I have had are almost always already well documented thanks to the OS's popularity. Just Google the problem and it's fixed in a few moments, in a few steps.

I have seen Linux crash it's a$$ off, it *DOES* happen. In fact, more often than not, it crashes MORE than windows when out of the box. An out of the box Window$ machine on the other hand is mostly crash free (full of security holes, but crash free.) Truth be told "crashing" is almost never the fault of the OS. It's actually the programs and drivers and bad users that end up causing crashes 99.9999% of the time. THIS ISN'T WINDOW$ FAULT. However, because less programers put as much effort into the Linux versions of software and drivers as they do for Window$, Linux does get screwed over. THIS ISN'T LINUXS' FAULT. But it does mean "Linux crashes more often" by default. Neither OS will have problems for an educated user on a machine with popular and stable hardware.

Malware is a problem with Window$ because of the OS's popularity, not because of inherent design. But this is only a problem for people dumb enough to not protect themselves properly. Back up your important files, don't run anything that's shady, don't download warez, use strong passwords, have a "safe" machine for banking and shopping [VM/clean windows/Linux/live CD] and above all else... use your brain. It has been said time and time again that it is NOT the computers fault, but the person using the computer who's usually too blame. A bad user on Linux is at greater risk that a good user on Window$, regardless of Window$ inherent flaws.

To many flavors of Linux make standardization impossible. Porting and compiling source every time I change flavors is a PITA.

FAR less hardware support in Linux. Most every PC component has a windows driver for it though. (not the fault of Linux)

Win se7en does suck, as does Vista, as does XP. But they are easier to use for the less PC savvy than Linux is.

Wine rarely works 100%, or even 85% honestly. It's really only good for the "must haves".

I believe in the mathematics of "software evolution" over time, more so than the expertise and effort of programers that work for nothing.

Bill gates has donated more money to charitable foundations than you or I will ever see in our entire life times. Do give respect.

Try playing the latest GPU destroying games on Linux... You can't... plain and simple.

Conclusion
I think this link sums up Linux/Open source nice and accurately.

Well i won't send your comment to the trash bin, but i think some of your comments should have been researched a bit better. For instance

"Dinosaurs need to get with the times, GUI OS is in... CLI OS is out. It's 2012, the GUI has existed for nearly 40 years. I shouldn't have to use a command-line for normal use if I don't want to. But with Linux it's becomes a requirement. Now I'm no stranger to the command-line, but I disagree with this command-line comes first mind set. The command-line should certainly be there when you need it, but not in your face all the time. And in the end, you can do anything in a GUI environment that you can with the CLI, it's called Batch/Bash scripting. So how is a pure CLI OS some how superior when GUI OS's include a CLI?"

Linux has quite a few different GUI interfaces available, as well as several different desktop managers. While the CLI is available if needed as a terminal window (as is a DOS window in Windows, it's no longer the primary interface. That actually changed in Linux about 20 years ago.

I have found Linux "free help" to be unhelpful AND unfriendly with a side order of slow on top. On the other hand, I have never needed tech support for Window$ because any problems I have had are almost always already well documented thanks to the OS's popularity. Just Google the problem and it's fixed in a few moments, in a few steps.

go to www.linuxquestions.org and browse around a bit, and you'll see that the strident "RTFM" attitude of people using Linux has mostly become a thing of the past.

I have seen Linux crash it's a$$ off, it *DOES* happen. In fact, more often than not, it crashes MORE than windows when out of the box. An out of the box Window$ machine on the other hand is mostly crash free (full of security holes, but crash free.) Truth be told "crashing" is almost never the fault of the OS. It's actually the programs and drivers and bad users that end up causing crashes 99.9999% of the time. THIS ISN'T WINDOW$ FAULT. However, because less programers put as much effort into the Linux versions of software and drivers as they do for Window$, Linux does get screwed over. THIS ISN'T LINUXS' FAULT. But it does mean "Linux crashes more often" by default. Neither OS will have problems for an educated user on a machine with popular stable hardware.

There are stable versions of software in both camps, as well as unstable development versions. I have been using a distribution of Linux (Slackware) that only includes stable versions of software in their distribution, I have seen Windows come out of the box with various unstable components, often requiring patches or service packs to correct. There's a very old joke about "never buy an even numbered version or a .0 revision of Microsoft software. Wait until they fix it, then buy it." This joke (with a few exceptions) has been quite true, from DOS2.0 onward.

Conclusion
I think this link sums up Linux/Open source nice and accurately.

actually that link is more of a rant than mine was..... one OS that has become quite popular, had it's origins in Linux and Open Source, and that's Android....
The idea that Open Source software is clunky and poorly written sometimes has some truth to it, but I've also seen my share of poorly written Windows software, and even Microsoft has laid their share of rotten eggs (look up "Microsoft Bob").

Wow - I like Microsoft Bob! Shame they stopped doing it.

spam deleted with extreme prejudice