What's your favorite?

[SJ Zero]

This is a difficult question. Realistically, for what I use my PC for, there aren't as many great reasons to use Windows as there once were. I find KDE superior to explorer, I already use mplayer as my only media player, I prefer the Open Source philosophy, and the vast majority of my day is already spent in open source apps with ports to Linux.

The only reason I stay with Windows is the guaranteed compatibility. If I throw a program at windows (especially windows with coLinux ), it will run. Neverwinter nights, Mechwarrior 4, any one of the hundreds of games in my library, will run without a single complaint. WineX, on the other hand, does not give that guarantee.

If wineX was better, I'd use LInux in a heartbeat. I like having a customized kernel. I like the power of installing what I want. I like the debian apt-get system. I just don't like giving up everything, and I don't have the guts to erase my drive completely and switch completely over to Linux.

[eno_on]

If wineX was better, I'd use LInux in a heartbeat. I like having a customized kernel. I like the power of installing what I want. I like the debian apt-get system. I just don't like giving up everything, and I don't have the guts to erase my drive completely and switch completely over to Linux.

Why not dual boot? You can nondestructively repartition with qtparted - you can get a live cd with it at http://www.sysresccd.org. Then you get the best of both worlds. Linux doesn't need that much space compared to XP - you usually use no more than 15gb unless you are doing some serious video editing.

[adosorken]

15GB? Holy shit! Windows XP only takes up 380MB! I thought Linux was supposed to be streamlined?! :lol:

[SJ Zero]

Windows XP doesn't take 380MB, you're DREAMING. Mine's only a few months old, and it's 1.4Gb JUST for the windows directory. These live distros like knoppix are a working system loaded to the nuts with usable software in less than 700MB.

On the other hand, Linux isn't a way of life, it's an operating system kernel. Yes, the linux you can streamline to fit into a PC BIOS is small. No, the GNU toolset, X11 and a thousand little tools you can't live without are not. On the other hand, you use them in win32 as well, but you don't consider them part of the OS.

[adosorken]

A fresh Windows XP install is 380MB here. Over time, installing applications puts more and more things into the system directory but that's plain common practice. If you've got a new XP install larger than 380MB then you're doing something wrong. I find it funny that people go gaga about the "compactness" of Linux yet say that 700MB for a Linux install is "small". XP comes pretty well loaded with apps for only 380MB as well. Where's this legendary "compactness", eh? Bite me.

[TheBigBasicQ]

Freshly installed WinXP home edition on my lappy is ~2GB of course with Norton Security and dell's addon programs which arent much.

Mech, everyone feels at home somewhere. That "somewhere" is dependent on the person. I feel at home with Linux not with Windows/MacOS X/.... I trashed the licensed copy of Win XP on this laptop for Linux. I am not saying that Windows is bad :roll: but I just dont like it :lol: