The whole point of FOSS is that you can customize it however you want. I have an Asus EEEPC 701 4G with the worst screen in the industry, and have zero problems with it under Ubuntu. "As fast as it gets on net-books" using XP? We must be in alternate realities. The only option Microsoft has is to make windows open source, Linux popularity, and especially Ubuntu will take over, its small now, but will always get better and better. Why would you want to be a Microsoft Fanboi? why not put your time into building something that is owned by the people for the people. Consider the founding of the United Stated of America, Do you want to support England, so that the queen can tax you, or do you want to support the people. Will you continue to support a dinosaur of a corporation (Microsoft)that taxes you instead of working on the building blocks for the Peoples Operating System, or do you just like making Micro$oft rich, Why do you support something that does not give back?

The things that everyday user "joe-six-pack" uses on his computer are all available Free from Ubuntu, I have never paid Canonical or Ubuntu for anything. However, even if you pay them for something, you get a bargain price, For example "Ubuntu Landscape" http://www.ubuntulinux.org/news/landscape-system-management-tool would save the average IT department thousands of dollars even though its costs only $150 per node. Thats the beauty, for the average user everything is free. I just found out that I will be doing another Ubuntu install for my Grandparents, as it will do everything that they want and the learning curve is not steep. It's a no contest. They want Miscrosoft Office compatibility, email, web browsing, and a XMPP client to talk to the family with. Between the Windows OS cost, Microsoft office, the Ram upgrade its going to take, and the antivirus software, they are looking at about $500. They get all of that for no charge with Ubuntu, all on the install disk and can then spend time doing the important things in life, such as communicating with the family. They received DSL for 2 years as a gift, and now can use their old machine without extra cost to them to do everything that they need. It will take 2 hours between the install, and teaching them to use their new OS. I am proud to be helping older folks get into computing. They have been leery to learn under windows due to every new operating system working differently than the previous edition. Its a bigger learning curve with Windows, due to learning about MalWare, the lack of security, and the numerous programs that run under Windows always asking for more money to be able to do something that should be safe and free. Starting them on Linux will also save me countless hours of Phone calls and problems. Ubuntu now "just works" Windows is for people who don't know what they are missing.

I also have seen a strong trend among regular computer users turning to Linux. This last week i helped two users switch to Ubuntu. One of them switched his business computer and then wanted to shoot himself for all of the previous windows pain that he had put him self through. His wife on the other hand heard that he was switching to Linux. She owns a Mac, and said,"but its free, there has to be a catch, or something wrong with it" This brings me to my point, I think the reason that Micro$oft still has a leading market share, is because people don't know about Linux and how easy it can be. They have been suckered into thinking that if its free, it has no value. Is Microsoft Office Professional $389.00 better than Open Office? Is Windows Vista Ultimate Edition $179.00 better than Ubuntu 8.10 Is Adobe Photoshop CS4 $263.00 better than GIMP for the average user? I just hope that W7 is chock full of bugs and problems, like Vista was, Then Microsoft needs only to stop supporting XP. People are getting really tired of Windows. if they are shown something that works better, and once installed everything "just works" Microsoft is going to be in trouble.