Sick of the bickering... (Score 1)

I'm sick of the bickering on here about whether or not Linux is good or bad or what. So frustrated in fact, that I signed up just to voice my opinion. When you buy a computer, you have the choice between Windows and Not Windows. Unless you get hit by the MS tax, ordering no OS and doing it yourself is cheaper. Just download your favorite distro, burn it, and you're in business in less than an hour. This will save you anything up to $300 in some cases. If you make $20 an hour, that's 15 hours of your time that you have saved, and you should expect that you will have to invest some of your time in exchange for the money you saved. This applies to anything. You will have to spend some time learning how to use Linux, some time configuring things the way you want, and some time defending your decision to the pro-MS crowd and even the growing Apple-elite crowds that will hassle you about your decision. Now, if you want to know if you will like Linux, or will be able to use it or whatever, ask yourself if you are willing to put in your time in order to save that money. If the answer is no, then don't bother. You won't like Linux, as you are just interested in getting something for free that will do everything your paid for OS will do out of the box. Nothing works like that in any industry. From my experience, Linux is getting closer and closer to working as well out of the box as any version of Windows ever has, and I find I'm getting my time back by not constantly having to do maintenance- no defrag, no virus scans, no hunting down spyware every 10 minutes. And all the Linux stuff works right out of the box, it's just the MS computability stuff that can be a chore. If you want an OS that looks, works like Windows and is fully inter-operable with Windows and all the other bits of MS software, then buy Windows. If you want all these things for free, call an MS sales rep and let him know. I'm sure he needs a good laugh.