[LibKill]

Unless Micro$oft gets off its sanctimonious @ss and fixes things XP will be the last version of their junk that I will use.

My next PC will be a laptop with System Commander to let me switch between OS at will.

DOS for legacy stuff.
XP for windirt stuff.
And some version of Linux for the internet and heavy lifting.

If some kindly FReeper would suggest a version of idiot-proof Linux with a nice graphical interface I would be much obliged.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

My next PC will be a laptop with System Commander to let me switch between OS at will.

Command Line scripting is so passe.

I have the intel Mac, on which (with VMWare) I have XP loaded as a separate Window on my Mac Desktop. If I need to go from one environment to the other, I simply drag & drop.

Macs now on intel -- XP certainly can't have an alternate OS in a window on its desktop -- it can't be the chip - it must be the OS and its limitations.

Who wants to be King of the Command Line in the 21st Century? Give me a break. We can do better.

[ShadowAce]

If some kindly FReeper would suggest a version of idiot-proof Linux with a nice graphical interface I would be much obliged.

I've heard that Ubuntu is very good, though I've never used it. Virtually all of the modern Linux distros have very similar graphical interfaces. Check out DistroWatch for other options.

[editor-surveyor]

"My next PC will be a laptop with System Commander to let me switch between OS at will."

You don't need system commander. I have several triple-boot machines (DOS-98SE-XP) that use the win98SE boot menu to control the DOS/98SE choice, and the XP boot menu to choose between XP and DOS-98SE.

The trick is to install 98 first, and iron out all issues before loading XP. For machines that will share another machine's web connection, the FAT32 file system makes XP run like a dream, and still be able to share the same disk partitions. For machines that will have their own web connection, it is best to let XP use its own file system, and just install it on the very last partition on the bootable drive.

[RhoTheta]

I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop. I got very tired of waiting for several minutes while Windows XP Pro loaded and it and other software all did their auto-update checks. This drove me to reconsider Linux. I had previously experimented with Redhat (3, I think), then Fedora, tnen Mandrake.

This time, I put on Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft. It mostly worked, but had some problems conveniently finding my wireless LAN. I updated to 7.04 Feisty Fawn, still had some problems, and finally downloaded the ISO and burned the install disk. A fresh install of Ubuntu 7.04 fixed most all the issues, and I'm really liking it. Gravy was that a few weeks later, Dell announced that it would be offering three platforms - one a laptop - with Ubuntu 7.04 as the O/S.

Life is good.

With HP getting on the bandwagon with a SUZE platform, and Walmart's machine with another distro, the Linux world can only get better and better.