Dislike it as you will, but most people are familiar with windows, they use it at work, in schools even on a range of smartphones and pda’s, I have just bought my 10 year old daughter a laptop and it came preinstalled with Vista, which she is quite happy to use as both my desktops run it and the PC’s she is learning on at school all run XP so this system is one she can use straight out of the box.

Linux for all its potential isn’t going to supplant Windows until our kids begin learning on it at school and our employers decide to switch to it at work. The one advantage of Linux is price, but microsoft can always cut prices to the bone, and sheer sales volumes will keep it in profit.

Then again I could be wrong, and Lord Lucan could come riding down Kensington high street brandishing his new Sinclair PC with Linux preinstalled!

I disagree, for a few reasons. Firstly, Linux still has serious problems in terms of user friendliness. I love it, but I’m a geek. Secondly, Windows has a huge advantage in DirectX, which is one of the things Microsoft has gotten right – if you exclude DX10( which actually is pretty nice, but more of a bridge between 9 and 11 than anything substantial – certainly very little the end-user would notice ). Especially since OpenGL3 has been introduced to as much public loathing as the Millenium Dome. I know die hard OpenGL programmers who have installed Windows, in spite of their hatred for it, as a dual-boot for when OpenGL3 kicks in purely so they can use DirectX instead. That’s how big a problem alternative systems have with OpenGL right now. This combined with the fact that for a mere 60 quid MS will provide you with an API to write games for your 360 console, which even as an avid hater of the .NET platform I must concede is exceptionally nice( and curiously easy ) to play around with.

This doesn’t mean much to the average home user, sure. But lots of people play games and Windows is vastly more viable a gaming platform than any Unix/OGL variant.

I also kind of disagree with the OS rants of the MAC users here. Apple operating systems are hugely proprietary. The only really OS systems are linux based – which again, brings a user friendly issue – they are so OS that they refuse to include proprietary drivers for hardware( ATI/NVIDIA chipsets being the most notable ). This also ties into gaming again. Basically, any fledgling newbie has to find their graphics driver and install it manually – this isn’t as hard as it used to be, but it’s still not as simple as running a file and clicking “next” a few times.

I guess my opinion is pretty much. I love using Unix based systems. But I very much prefer the DirectX API to the straggling mess that is OpenGL2 and with the current temperature surrounding OpenGL3 I suspect that, at the very least, indie/basement OS graphics applications are going to become more prevalant on Windows systems.

The rest is really down to choice. You don’t have to install Microsoft Office, or any other closed source software. The internet is full of open-source Windows applications. The difference is in distribution I think. Most Linux variants have in-built distribution systems and package managers – Windows does not.

Microsoft have no viable product, and are unlikely to have in the next few years. “Vista” is just a re-spin of XP with added eye-candy and DRM. It STILL uses the fundamentally broken NT kernel that was thrown together to “get something working” in 1991.

“Windows 7″ – their next attempt at world domination – is just vapourware at the moment. MS are in such dire need of real programmers that they are BUYING IN a kernel. No doubt “Windows 7″ will be outrageously expensive, require more hardware than anyone actually has (much to the continued delight of the hardware manufacturers), and still have all the restrictions and problems fundamental to MS’ closed-source rubbish.

It’s good to see prominent people promoting FOSS. It’s not going to take long to persuade the thinking public that they shouldn’t squander their money with MS!

I love it. The things I do the most – read, email, surf – it does beautifully. I have the teeny tiny 2GB version, but that only means I can double its memory with the thumb drive on my keychain.

The best thing about it, really, is that it leaves room in my lap for the pug.