I'm in favor of the Open Source movement. I really am. I think that the best software is software that's freely available and open for review and changes. I'm dead-set against "similarity" law suits that the big software companies are launching against smaller ones for allegedly stealing interfaces, etc.
I've been involved with computers for 20 years. I really got serious about them roughly 12 years ago when I got my first 486 DX2-66 with DOS 6.22 and Win 3.1 on it. I grew up on WinTel, however I'm also quite curious and enjoy "tinkering" with new things on my computer.
I've become more aware of the Linux revolution as of late, and I heard a quote last week (can't remember the source) that said 1/4 of all the world's servers are now running some variety of Linux. That's a HUGE number.
So, in my desire to tinker and also make myself more marketable I've created a dual-boot machine that has Red Hat 8.0 on it, and also Win XP. My XP machine is configured exactly the way I want it, in almost no time (I realize it's because I've been using it my whole life).
I purchased a book on using Red Hat 8 that had 4 1/2-5 star reviews on Amazon...and there were a LOT of them. The book has more information than a Chinese Phonebook. I started going through the tutorials the other night, then I tried branching off on my own. The first thing I did was add a Lexmark Z22 inkjet printer. Nothing exotic. To my chagrin there was no plug-and-play support and I couldn't even BEGIN to figure out how to install the drivers, much less where to get them.
Next I wanted to increase the resolution on my display. I went to "Configure Desktop" (I'm using KDE, BTW) and saw nothing about it. I could setup my wallpaper...increase my font size, and a multitude of other things. Except change my display resolution.
A while back I tried installing FireFox for Linux. There's something wrong and I get an error message during the install (I don't remember what it was, but there were other people on the FF board having the same problem). I asked for help on the boards, figuring there's got to be an easy fix for a newb out there. The reply I get: Upgrade to the Fedora Core. What a freakin' joke!! I've got to install a new OS to make a supported browser work?
I've come to the following conclusions during this time: 1. An Operating System does not need to be overly complex in order to be "good". 2. An OS without a descent help system is almost totally worthless. 3. Any OS not offering good plug-and-play support at this stage in the game should give it up. 4. When I hear that I've got to upgrade my OS in order to use something as pedestrian as a browser, it's time to pack it in. I said the same thing about Internet Explorer 7 when it wouldn't work on my 2K Pro machine. If I've got to upgrade...go to hell.