So Optarse are volunteering for the trial eh?

I couldn't ask for a better test case really. Those cretins are so goddamn incompetent that they have not a hope in hell of getting it working to an acceptable level.

Roll on the trial I say!

P.S. Yes, I realise the NTUSER.DAT is a problem for moving the profiles rather than My Doc's, I should have proof read my post before hitting submit

"Right click My Docs and see if you can't figure out how to do that on Windows."

Been there, done that. Once you reinstall you have to go through (every user) and reinstate those "non-standard" My Documents locations manually, all the while hoping that each NTUSER.DAT file doesn't spit the dummy because something has changed in the god-forsaken clusterfuck that is the registry that it doesn't like.

No thanks.

"if you want the profile you'll have to right click my computer and change some settings in Computer Management."

You have obviously never had to re-instate a Windows box with multiple user accounts. You make this process sound easy, whereas in reality it can be a huge pita, which multiplies by the number of accounts you have to do it for.

By contrast, on Linux, you have to do . . . ummm, nothing

"On a network there is something called group policy and active directory that lets you set this for the entire domain"

Yes, well, when you have a domain at your grandmothers house please get back to us, until then you are nothing but a tosser with an overpriced MS certification looking to justify your ill-advised training investment.

"your[sic] assuming they update"

Ummm, no, I'm responding to the OP who said;

"Many people are going to shout "UBUNTU!!! They can just do the updates themselves."

and went on to recommend apple products as an alternative.

Please try and read for comprehension before posting in future.

"1.) /tmp is still under /, which he wants to mount read only "

See what the AC said or if you really want it is shit easy to symlink it to another partition.

"2.) And if /home were its own partition, does that necessarily make it immune to hard poweroffs?"

It means the whole system does not get hosed due to "Unnanounced poweroffs", just the latest "Mahjongg" save game or whatever. I'm sure you'll agree that this will lead to a lot less in the way of critical fuckups overall.

Uhuh, because we all know that mac upgrades never introduce problems, right?

Yes, because we all know the name Microsoft invokes such macho imagery . . .

(Yes, I realise you were joking. So am I)

"I never realised how much time I spent on fixing friends windows boxen until recently."

I'm probably a bit older than you. Quite a while back I learned to "just say no". It gets easier when you can say "I don't use Windows, you will have to find a windows person to fix that."

Inevitably, they then ask "Don't use Windows? What do you use then?" and I'm sure you can fill in the rest yourself.

As you've obviously realised, life gets sooo much easier after you've done this.

Whereas, on Linux, if you have been sensible enough to place /home on a separate partition, you can re-install the OS and reload all the apps you want with a single console command. Meanwhile the user's profile, desktop and all their data remains totally untouched, including the layout of the 1000 icons they keep strewn across their desktop.

Truly, Windows is a fucking support nightmare in comparison.

Plus, if you do a lot of upgrades you simply install apt-cacher on one of your machines and point apt to that.

Updates from a fresh-install-from-CD to all-the-latest-patches takes, literally, minutes. It takes longer to apply the patches than it does to download them.

"flash didn't install properly. So, I had to teach a 80 year's old how to untar and copy a library "

Nice attempt at a troll, but that hasn't been the case for several years now.

Now Mozilla simply asks you if you would like to download "flash-Plugin_nonfree" from the multiverse repository.

You click "yes", type in your password and restart firefox.

It's no harder than installing it on Windows.

But don't listen to me. You just sit there happy in your bitter little world and clutch that Windows safety blanket to your wittle chest shill-boy

"what if mahjong or whatever writes or wishes to write data like saves, high scores or something to the hard drive"

In Linux, all user-space apps write to /home/%user (and also /tmp)

If he has any sense (and I assume he does) then he will have /home on a different partition.

Anybody who installs linux without doing that is simply asking for trouble.

Uh, speaking of Captain Obvious, it is an obvious fact that "the only port open to the public network is the one running " applies to every single server on the internet, (unless it was set up by an MCSE of course) so what exactly was the point the OP was making?

Free clue for you.

When there are only two parties and they are both essentially the same then every vote is a wasted vote

It's like, uh, kinda the point.

There are four types of voters in modern politics.

1) The cheerleaders

These are the wonks that always vote the same way and remain totally oblivious to the shortcomings of their chosen "side"

2) The fanatics

These are the single issue voters that vote solely on the issue that concerns them. Mostly Greenies and Fundies.

3) The Morons

Vote for the best haircut or the best pork-barrel artist without giving much though to much of anything.

4) The Disillusioned.

These are the ones who realise that both parties are corrupt and essentially the same so they either abstain from voting entirely or try and find an independent local candidate who has reasonably sane views.

I count myself as #4