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My worthless opinions:

1. Linux is cool, even if it doesn't do anything useful for a typical end user except to let them browse the WWW.

2. Apple OSX is cooler than Linux, which is what everyone who fiddles with a Linux PC ought to really be using.

3. IBM's adoption of Linux is akin to what they were doing ten years ago with OS/2, which was another OS superior to anything MS had. OS/2 is still around running ATMs flawlessly. This is the future of Linux.

4. There's nothing that a Linux PC can do that a Sun system can't do better -- even though it may cost a little more.

5. Hell with all this Linux crap anyway. I use WinXP on my home PC.

4. There's nothing that a Linux PC can do that a Sun system can't do better -- even though it may cost a little more.

Entry level Sun systems are $1000 and anything decently big will set you back a lot more than that! LinuxPPC and Linux-Alpha brings more value than Solaris in low end systems. An entry level system for Linux is the cheapest off the shelf PC you can find. Solaris is also as useless as a tit on a bull for embedded systems. There are also no Solaris-based laptops. I can easily install a Linux-PPC distribution on my powerbook if I need to.

5. Hell with all this Linux crap anyway. I use WinXP on my home PC

Your point? I use it too, but I didn't buy my copy. It's a free MSDN copy from my CS department's academic alliance package. I can assure you, I wouldn't be using it if I had to deal with the product activation $hit that off the shelf copies have.

5. Hell with all this Linux crap anyway. I use WinXP on my home PC.

I have 2 PC's at home, one with Linux RedHat 7.1 (win98SE barely works on the same hardward and Linux runs greate). The other is a new one running WinXP. I've found that WinXP is only slightly better than Win98SE. The computer now occasionally hangs when I try to log out. I still can't get any useful tech support from the manufacturer or MS web site. This problem started after installing one of the updates, but there are so many I can't figure out which one it was!

My conclusion is WinXP is just more of the same....

The problem with AppleOSX is that it is really OpenBSD.

The problem with OpenBSD is that it does not have as many partisans (read, *really* good geeks working on neat applications). No doubt Apple will port a number of really cool applications to OpenBSD but it will, in the end, suffer the same fate as the PPC Linux versions for Apple hardware: its releases will lag the main PC platform Linux releases...

the new stuff will generally show up on the PC platform versions of Linux FIRST. Those applications that DON'T show up on the PC linux first will be ported or cloned soon enough.

Bottom line: since the PC platform stuff is SO, SO much cheaper than the Apple stuff, and the software is CLOSE ENOUGH, Apple will have a marketshare problem and be stuck as an also ran.

What makes Apple stand out is Apple software you can't get on the PC platform on software, and software that doesn't play well together on the PC platform.

I wish them luck in making the transition to OpenSource: it is NOT at ALL an easy road for a computer maker...

4. There's nothing that a Linux PC can do that a Sun system can't do better -- even though it may cost a little more.

Hmmm... Let's see.

Redhat 7.3 or Solaris 8?

Redhat 7.3! Solaris? Only as the platform for a Sun box, not an Intel one.