[TChris]

You must have missed out on the fun of ATI video drivers on Windows 98, NT, and 2000. Some of those issues were far worse than even nVidia drivers on Linux!

You can find individual anecdotes to support any point of view. I'm talking about the overall hardware support picture. It's a simple fact of life that Windows has the best hardware support. The Windows driver is the first and most important code any hardware vendor creates. It's a purely market-driven decision on a vendor's part, and it's not fair or anything like that, but it's a fact.

Here's a hint: If Linux gets a centralized hardware driver manager like Windows' "Device Manager", where you can install and remove hardware and drivers with a single GUI tool, then they'll have Windows by the throat. A centralized device configuration tool like Windows' "Control Panel" would be nice too. I believe Linux is pretty close to that, if not there already.

[goldstategop]

The worst problem is resolving dependencies. Usually you download the required files from the same repository from which you install the software. I was able to upgrade Thunderbird and Firefox successfully to the latest versions. Yast is a great GUI tool for SUSE but Smart and Apt-get with Synaptic also come with GUI interfaces. You have to run those from the command line as a superuser.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[goldstategop]

Linux today has a GUI Control Center - KDE or GNOME for configuring various hardware and system settings. Its a lot easier than it used to be and you only need to customize your settings once.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[MarkL]

Like you, I've worked with many different OS since I first began working with computers, and I was just trying to make a very simple point... That people who blindly say that Windows is easy" are usually very wrong. You're correct in saying that hardware support is better for Windows than any other OS. It had better be if the manufacturers want to be able to compete in the market. Every OS has issues and problems. The easiest ones to deal with are monolithic, where everything, hardware, software, OS, and drivers come from a single manufacturer. But there are problems even in those systems. It's just in systems like Windows where you're dealing with different manufacturers and software that things can get really exciting.

Mark