As discussed earlier I am in a quandry about what I should move my laptop to next, when I first started using (Linux) Red Hat around 1999, I did get a wow factor, it was more stable than Win 98, it was faster than Win 98. Linux improved my productivity. Now Win XP is as good as Red Hat, Suse and Madrake seem to have waned a bit and are not as popular.

It just seems that Linux is either Red Hat or nothing, only Ubuntu seems to have any traction or wow factor.

It looks like Apple OS X, which is a Unix BSD variant is the latest wow platform. My wife is an apple fan and long term user so I have to use apple too. It did take me a while to hack into root on an apple, but when I figured all this out I could really fix things, like emptying the wastebasket from files that would not empty. Now and again we need a big hammer to fix things.

Actually it was StarOffice that made Red Hat usable, without an office suite Red Hat, Suse or Mandrake would have never made it onto my laptop. Probably StarOffice (OpenOffice) is what has made Linux successful on desktops/laptops. People say that Staroffice/Openoffice is terrible, however I moved to it to get more stability and I have not used Word any longer, I even do not know what MS office looks like.

Recently there were some articles that Linux will not be sucessful as it is free and big discussion on slashdot

Must be a topical issue, just when I am deciding what to run for the next 3 yrs. A decision not to be taken lightly as I have to spend time fixing my families computers.