All your computers need are electricity. If nothing changes, they'll keep working. XP security support will continue until 2014, so that's not an issue yet either. The Russians knew how long XP was going to be supported when they bought it. That EOL date has been pushed out since then, so they already got more than they bargained for. What excuse do they have for not maintaining their computing infrastructure? If they don't want to buy Vista, they don't have to, but they shouldn't expect the alternatives to be free.

Not again! It seems like this is a popular answer lately to tell people to not ask Slashdot, as if Ask Slashdot feedback isn't useful. Why read this section then? Personally I would value intelligent advice over a lawyer's advice if it wasn't intelligent. Neither source is flawless - no, a law degree does not mean you always know what to do. In fact, in this case, it's not primarily a legal question, but a question of business strategy. Will you now tell him to get off Slashdot and hire a business consultant??

It almost goes without saying that you can always pay a professional to get answers to your questions. Hearing the experiences of others for free is still a great value - and clever and unorthodox tactics from from a group like Slashdot is priceless.

Dell's Linux offering includes DVD playback. You seem to be unaware of the customization and additional quality control that OEMs already do for their Windows PCs. You simply do the same thing for a Linux PC, and everything works out-of-the-box. Yes, the professional Photoshop or AutoCAD user wouldn't be served, but presumably those users are aware that they need Windows.

I'd agree, except that does not apply in this case. Since it already happened to his child, it would be logical to assume that the odds of losing his child is greater than 1/7,000,000,000. Keep in mind that it's not only to avoid a headline-grabbing abduction, but any prolonged loss of contact. They may say his child was never in danger, but that is small comfort when you have to spend hours searching for your child after the school calls and asks why your he/she is absent.

I can also sympathize with the submitter not seeking a solution that depends on the school. Although that might seem a reasonable thing to do, after talking with them, he probably got the impression that they don't think they did anything wrong and would need to see multiple repetitions of this error before taking any corrective action. Parents are a school administrator's #1 enemy - expect to be treated as such, unless they're trying to get money or volunteer work out of you.

I tried to allow ads on slashdot. They are in my whitelist for AdblockPlus, but the ads still don't come up, because NoScript is blocking scripts from doubleclick.net.

I was open to ads on this site, but I will not be unblocking doubleclick.

Currently, it's actually much cheaper to get a Windows XPS laptop, since they have an "up to 25% discount" offer, which is only available for the Windows versions. Does it make any sense that it costs more to discount one or the other?

Some other observations:
1) The Windows versions have better CPUs. The Ubuntu version's CPU cannot be upgraded. WTF?
2) No 11n option on Linux. That's understandable.
3) 1 yr warranty for Linux. 2 yrs for Windows.

I'd buy the Ubuntu version with no savings, but I can't even get an equivalent deal. I'll just have to wait to get an M1330.

Dell can demand driver fixes directly from the manufacturers as part of the cost of selling to them. Can you do that too?

On the other hand, I don't know how good their QA is. Maybe their customers find the bugs before they do. Then you might have to wait for driver updates to make things right.

Thanks for that, but I'd rather show my disapproval by not giving them traffic. What I'd really like is an easy way to remove those results from my searches - experts-exchange, about.com, and a few others.

Ah, the infamous, "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page"

I blame Google for this more than Scribd. You might think if I took the time to customize my search by including words that won't appear on irrelevant sites then Google would actually check if the terms I've entered are there! When I search on a result page for a term and get nothing, only then do I realize I've been duped. I don't even see a way to work around this limitation. Using something other than Google seems to be the only solution.

Nonsense. One of the advantages of buying pre-installed OSes is that the OEM has done customizations and additional system testing with all the hardware configurations they are selling. Dell also sets up DVD playback and covers the license, which is one more thing that will "just work" when you buy from them. They do the same for Windows, but as a percentage of sales, it will cost more to offer a second OS, regardless of what it is.

That said, I do look forward to more people getting their distributions this way. So many of the Linux-not-ready-for-the-Desktop arguments fall flat on their face when it's installed properly.

When you start treating politicians like there's nothing they can do to you, they quickly remind you that you're wrong.

They found their middle ground, and now they're pushing back against the smaller group who didn't sign off on the compromise. It's called picking your battles. This was a wise moev for craigslist both legally and for PR - or hadn't you notice that they were getting a bad name from this one section of their site?

He said it's not worth the investment - without supporting the statement in any way. Even if we assume that's true, and everyone agrees with him, there is still plenty of people who would do it for recognition or just to prove it could be done.

Don't worry, there are still reasons to buy Windows. It's just that security isn't one of them.

Exactly!

This would be like installing Windows yourself and complaining that you couldn't even play a DVD, let alone burn one.

So they're only vulnerable to the hobbyist hackers... where are the successful malware examples from that group?

If the argument is that it's not worth anyone's time, then shouldn't you say that we don't know how vulnerable it is? I don't trust Apple implicitly, given how buggy early releases of many of their product seem to be, but this unfounded speculation does seem to be a popular troll that's used equally effectively against Linux. Try being a bit more responsible.