Dear Unca X,

If you feel that Windows 98 was the "peak" then you just stick with your Linux desktop.

If you're interested in this century, you should look at what the problems are with every OS:
-Patching
-Malware
-Firewall
-Defaults

-Patching: People hate patching. When last I installed Red Hat, it tried to pull down over 100 patches on a default install. Windows XP will now download patches all by itself. It took 5 hours.

-Malware: Antivirus is a necessity, thanks to all you folks who like to write "proof of concept" code which is 20 lines of code away from a working worm. Thanks so much! I treat AV as a last-ditch malware IDS.

-Firewall: The major complaint up to 2002 was that *nix had a firewall, and Windoze didn't. Now it does, but not enough of what we were hoping for. Now, MS is rewriting it to be more useful to normal users. It's about time!

-Defaults: People complain that Windows has too much running by default. Defaults should be read as "what's running if you don't want to have to turn useful stuff on." If you don't like it, turn it off. Yes, you CAN turn it off! You don't want to share any files, disassociate file sharing from your NIC. You don't want to expose anything to the network, then don't! There's a LOT of advice out there to handle these things.

Bottom line, there IS a better OS out there. Buy it. You want to teach your average user how to run SuSE? Good luck. Make sure you sign on the dotted line when you promise them it will be cheaper for them to support. Explain what "compile" means before that though, OK?

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