Since January of 2007, I have migrated many times more computers and home,education, business users to GNU/Linux each week as I have experienced in the past ten years+ (since 1997). Multimedia works in GNU/Linux, and even Microsoft's restrictive WMV codec embedded videos and movies run smoother in GNU/Linux, than on the Vista platform! I am a Veteran and just finished running the WMV encoded MyHealtheVet introductory film staring Bo Derek... on my SimplyMepis7.0 (32bit version) system. GNU/Linux IS multimedia! Witness TIVO, and many Cellphones that play videos, and other consumer gadgets for MM display! None of the million Microsoft virus/Worms/Trojans/Malwares/spybots even exist in GNU/Linux. I do agree VISTA is horrible, (as is the DRM crummy junk, mandatory registration, WGA shutdowns of legit owners), and so do more than 500 individuals and business owners and educators, whom I have helped switch over to GNU/Linux in the past year! Some even run Fedora based VIXTA! (google it!) You damage your credibility as a journalist when the facts are misrepresented or you spread FUD. »

Folks, I have trouble trying to find a more diehard advocate than myself, but, I find that you are all correct! In the FOSS, GNU/Linux, *BSD, world, each user is allowed and permitted to find and use the tool that works best for their purpose, on their machine, at the moment it is needed. Most of us run multiple machines, in different OSes, to get work done fast and secure. I find that all the children of K-12 grades in the schools I support, take to FedoraCore7, Mepis, and PCLinuxOS, immediately. None of the "issues" noted by Mr. Mossberg exist for the average student, teacher, or administrator, or the parents who get free LiveCDroms. Perhaps Mr. Mossberg's mother is not able to function in a computer environment at all and learn new tricks, and Mr. Mossberg has no clue that there are free help forums, Linux Users Groups, and other free services in his community. Someone stated that computers are the most complex household appliance man has ever owned. Folks, if it is a new, different, most complicated machine, then you might have to invest some time in learning it! »

How about "over 26 Gflops of measured performance for $1256.00"? "It's dimensions are just 11" x 12" x 17", making it small enough to fit on one's desktop or in a suitcase. and is built from 4 microATX motherboards" and 4 PSUs. http://www.calvin.edu/~adams/research/microwulf/design/ "As of Aug 1, 2007, Microwulf can be built for $1256, improving its price/performance ratio to less than $48/Gflop. See the Cluster Monkey article for the details." http://www.clustermonkey.net//content/view/211/1/ It is getting difficult to write an article for publication without the technology blowing past your publish date with a complete new generation of increased capability! »

Arduous Compriz&Beryl? Yeah, right. Click the 'k' or syn-aptic button, scroll down. or search, the terms, instant install. re-start the Session to load it. The larger point we are hammering home, in lieu of doing the OEM market blitz of monolithic corporations, which, BTW is dinosaur fodder, is that the Internet users have power, and word of mouth. Dell might be a 'success' in the USA, but, Lenovo ships thousands of GNU/Linux systems to Asia and the Pacific, and the East, daily, out of their many factories. Your viewpoint is too restricted to the distorted rosy vision touted by M$ in all the legacy dead tree media. One point missed by lock-in vendors of hardware, and by the software companies targeting OEMs, is the market they are losing! Each GNU/Linux user who is pleased with hardware that complies to ISO and has released Open Source drivers, will push that hardware at least ten fold to business, government, and friends, most of whom pay RETAIL! If the PC market has been so flatlined since 1999, why are the monolithic corporations ignoring the one shot in the arm that will revive their lagging industry? True that start up of a high tech business is really tough financially, so any hope will lay in a resurgence of the markets through GNU/Linux in 165 nations who have so far adopted laws and rules requiring Free Open Source Software. Noticed that Microsoft is pushing the word "Open" in their closed source products? Yuck! Notice how many so called 'journalists' have jumped onto the bandwagon of praise for Linux? Hey, their jobs are in jeopardy, and they must follow the rules of the Advertising Department. Journalists as a whole have really trashed their credibility. NYT now refuses articles from Microsoft shills! Too late, we have all gone to live RSS feeds of bloggers months, nay, years ago! You just keep spouting those words, because most of what you state is not describing the real GNU/Linux that I am seeing, and running on 120 systems! Have two Microsoft systems left here, for government work, on old contracts. Both run XP Pro. Whenever either one has an issue we spend more time tending it, than we spend on the rest of the entire network in a year! Installed 48 systems, plus a Quad server, all donated to a Private School, by DisneyWorld, who even trucked it out here, and delivered it all. Installed Fedora Core 6, plus took some older systems and made them into IPCOP boxes, networked them all, and walked away. I live one mile away, and am on call. Went in a year later, updated to Fedora Core 7, and have had one unit that had hardware issues, in all that time. GNU/Linux is as maintenance free as anything could possibly be! Typical install is 9 to 20 minutes. I can administer the entire system, and server, remotely, from anywhere on this planet or in Earth Orbit. Per Seat Cost for licensing, install, updates, maintenance, is $0.00. Try to match that with Microsoft. CIPA compliance alone will bankrupt most private schools. Typical per seat costs for school computers is $2,000 per. A bit more than half is for licenses, and the rest is for the maintenace overhead. No wonder 41 state School Boards have mandated the switch in schools to GNU/Linux! And, it works on the same old hardware, whether workstations, or servers! Tons of native games, XMAME, plus ALL WIN32 API games, play on GNU/Linux. But, having the dedicated gaming consoles, why waste computer resources on games that play best on those consoles? »

Simply the fact that a computer can run any GNU/Linux distro is a plus for me, and my hundreds of clients. Now, Asus is trying to get into the game! Perhaps because their server, running M$, was pwned for a week? Although M$ dominates the US market, GNU/Linux is affordable, and on the leading edge, in other places, such as China, India, Asia, Africa, the middle East, developing nations, the Rest of the World! It is hard to shove the M$ FUD in the face of the reality of bad M$ experiences, and current government support of Open Source. Yes, I have seen a lot of reports of bribery of officials, by M$, in the US, and in the world, as reported in the local press of those nations, that I find online! I don't think M$ has enough money to bribe 1 billion Chinese, 1.25 billion on the Indian sub-continent, and the billion other Asians and Africans... My next laptop will be a Linux running Dell, unless Asus can get here quicker, cheaper, with their $189.00 Linux laptop! »