Sean,

As a former Mac and Windows user and in the last four years a Linux convert (Ubuntu 7.10 on two laptops), I must ask some questions:

You do not say WHY to "I don't think I can sell a mass deployment to a CFO yet", please give us a reason! You left me hanging with that one after singing Linux praises.

You mention almost in passing "I lose most of the benefits of my video card because of driver support" yet you do not tell us what video card. Both Nvidia, ATI and Intel have great Linux drivers, I use them all, with next to no problem.

Finally you say "Windows XP, despite its many failings, is vastly more friendly to the unwashed masses and the various support people I can hire off the street." IMHO, I have yet to have a novice user complain about the Gnome interface and switching from XP to Gnome takes about 10 minutes of friendly "show and tell." As for support people, if they understand the difference between a hard drive and a NIC they can learn in a few days the essential differences between Linux and Windows (C: vs sda1 for example) or they can be sent for training for FAR less than an annual Windows enterprise licensing scheme.

Please help us more than this article gives us...

Although your article was well written, I found that you did not really delve into Vista needing to be faster. Faster that what? I agree with the last commenter and the three questions you barely touched on (albeit on purpose) Back to Vista being a pig. How do you mean? How much memory does your machine running Vista actually have? What specific events are you finding that cause you to feel Vista is not fast enough? I don't get it, and I certainly don't get why people are slamming a perfectly good OS. Yes I run Vista. I have Vista Home Basic on my Dell Inspirion 531. It has these specs: AMD Athlon 64 Dual Core 4000 2.10 MHz | 4 GB DDR2 clocking at 800 MHz | NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT 256 MB graphics card | All viewable on my 22" Dell flat panel monitor. I have zero problems, and never have. I did opt for the Home Basic as I too have used Linux before so I appreciate a more streamlined GUI. I think all OS's have there place and their all great in their own right. I really do not get all the negativity about Windoze Vista. Quite frankly, I am sick of it, especially when these comments come from industry experts such as yourself. I am beginning to think people voice these fraudulent statements to jump on the "I hate Vista too" bandwagon. It is unfounded, ludicrous, and most certainly ignorant. So in your own defense, please relate exactly why you say Vista is a pig. Shame on you!

Sean

Happy New Year.

I hope you skin didn't get too thin over the Christmas Break since it looks like 2008 came out with both barrels blasting (and pointing at you!)

Have a good 2008!