NOT ready for the Desktop (Score 2, Insightful)

Hear, hear. I too have raged incessantly at some of the smug assertions posted by the Linux zealots, having been a proponent of the 'Nix OS for many years now. I am tired of 'bootable' isos that fail to recognize My standard serial mouse or function with older equipment whose BIOS does not support boot-from-cdrom, mandatory 1024x768 setups or those where you can but then you can not even read the Help-getting-started html page completely because the page goes below the bottom of the screen and there is no way to relocate it -AND some of the desktop icons do not even show up (being located on the bottom right of the -I assume- 1024x764 default window positions, and all the distros that will just simply halt when attempting to boot them because *EVERYBODY* has at least 128Megs of RAM. What ever happened to "Linux Allows You To Use Legacy Hardware"? Not to mention "Your Network card is not recognized". It's a bloody 3C509B, for God's sake! And do not even get Me started on those distros that require an apparently broadband connection to do more than just launch the File Manager.

Even despite those limitations, I would have switched to Linux on My main machine -no, make that ANY machine long ago if just two things were functional; a firewall that works like ATGuard or Outpost (NO Connection Unless Specifically Allowed Previously Or Just This Once)... and a decent CAD program. It just kills Me when I hear the stadard cry of "Linux has ports of all the Major Apps!" How about AutoCAD? Or ANYTHING even remotely close. I mean, bloody hell, My preferred low-end/low-resource app is a Visual Basic construct. How difficult could it be to port an older version to Linux?

And please, no comments from the 'What A L00ser, Just Type In (insert insanely long string of utter gobbledygook here) To Config The Firewall'. I was a DOS proponent for many years before I was forced to switch to 'Doze (Linux not being that common in the Corporate environment then). NOBODY wants to type in long combinations of letters, numbers, and switches to do something.

People switched to 'Doze from DOs (or Unix) because it was much easier. I have heard for years how Linux was Ready To Replace Windows. Wake up, people. If you can not even get 'Nix to perform the most basic of functions that 'Doze does automatically (Sound Configuration for one), then Linux/BSD will continue to be relagated to exist as a mere fraction of the marketplace.