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......"As time goes on, I'm really starting to take longer and longer looks at Linux.".....

I have already looked at Linux. It pretty much sux unless you are a programmer. The latest distro to take the windoz malcontents( me), was Ubuntu. Installs great! Then I put a music CD in. Needs a codec downloaded from Timbuktu. Put in a DVD. Won't play without a codec downloaded from somewhere else. Practically everything requires you to Re compile the Kernel. I don't savy that. If you want to run Firefox and read e mail and nothing else. Linux will do the trick. Anything else seems to throw a wrench in the works.

I consider myself an average computer user. I started with DOS 3.1 on a 286 in 1984. I don't have any particular love for MS. In fact, for years now, I've been looking at alternatives. The Linux people keep touting how good it is, but I don't see it. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is a hassle. Why, oh why, can't you just double click on an executable file and it do what it's supposed to do? I don't want to mount anything, or compile anything, or search newsgroups for 3rd party anything. If I'm too dumb to learn it, then about 98% of the known world is too dumb to operate Linux. The best distro I've personally seen so far is Xandros. I have a dual boot machine with that on it. To me, it just a little better than useless. I'm trying to learn the "Linux lingo" but it basically reads e mail and surfs the web. It will play music and DVD's with what's on the disk, but I just don't get how it is so much better than MS. It has even "froze up" on me( I was trying crossover with MS proggies).

Until the propeller heads figure out that Linux will never be squat till they get it user friendly, we are stuck with MS. Yes, I tried 2 Mac's. Glorified Linux. They are too expensive for what they do. Also, I have programs that ONLY work on a PC, so I won't quit using software I paid $900 for to try something else. I don't think MetaStock has a Mac version. and I haven't got it to work on crossover.

Getting something to boot on a PC isn't the same as beating Bill Gates. He's still way ahead,IMHO, even with all the warts. Hopefully he will come out with SP3 for XP so when I have to format C: about 3 times a year, I won't have to download 58 upgrades and reboot 32 times.

Until you start looking at other OS's, you can cuss Billy boy all day. In reality, it does pretty well everything people want right outa the box.

Your experience pretty closely matches mine. I really want Linux to be a viable alternative to Windows. I think every product does much better with strong competition. But Linux just ain't it yet.

I had to go through three different "live" CD distros before I could find one that would even run at all on my machine. (Slax finally fit the bill. Works nicely. But you have to do a bit of command-line typing before it starts into a GUI.)

I have very mainstream hardware. (ECS motherboard with nVidia nForce chipset, AMD Athlon XP CPU, 1.5 GB RAM, nVidia GeForce 7600 graphics on AGP, IDE hard disk, DVD ROM, Multi-DVD RW, USB, etc. etc..)

The hangup was usually on the graphics, of all things! I mean, come on people! You can't get much more standard on a PC than an nVidia graphics chip. But over and over again, X (or Gnome, or KDE) would tweak out and splatter my screen with garbage.

Windows has been successfully detecting correct resolutions and refresh rates for graphics for years now. Couldn't someone in the FOSS/Gnu/Linux world figure that out too?

Needs a codec downloaded from Timbuktu.

So download it.

What's the big deal? You have to download all kinds of stuff to get Windows in a usable state. Just different stuff.

There's no easy way to get around the codec issue on Linux, because of licensing and patent hassles.

And why the heck are you trying to play DVDs anyhow? Isn't it easier to watch those on a DVD player with a TV?