Competing with Microsoft

[Merve]

We've come to the general consensus on this board that Microsoft is not an evil empire but is not a friendly giant either. What we know for sure is that Microsoft needs competition if it is ever going to ramp up the quality of its products. What companies do you think will ever be able to compete with Microsoft and give it a run for it's money?

[Chris_Evans]

Microsoft is not an evil empire


Finally I here somebody say what I've always believed! Good for Microsoft! :)

Linux is for people who like Linux and Microsoft is for people who like Microsoft products. Personally, I like Microsoft products and not Linux but I also know that Linux works very well as well, therefore I'd say "Linux" as a whole gives Microsoft some competition already.

[bad76]

I've voted "Microsoft will rule the world.".

Why? I've do it for exclusion...

My startup internet company... ANY startup internet company, is internet related, right? So it has nothing to do with operating system, browser and office. :D

The IBM... I'm working with IBM product (TIVOLI & CO...) and men, and I know they don't want repeat the Os2 experience... ;)

The each other one is a unix solution, and unix is the past, not the future... :p

[Merve]

But not one company owns Linux. Unless all Linux users can find some way of banding together to defeat Microsoft, Microsoft will always prevail (sounds like some sappy TV show).

That's why my vote is for Novell; they've got the products, and they're picking up popularity...

[Chris_Evans]

You don't want to defeat Microsoft, just give them some competition. I'd like to stay Windows personally so I wouldn't like to see Microsoft get closed down, I don't mind competition though. :)

[LordShryku]

This really needs to be broken out into different categories. On an enterprize level, I think Novell is going to do some great things. Packaging and OS Netware in a Suse OS can compete with MS AD. OpenOffice is already making waves in the Office Suite section, but has a long way to go. As far as desktop is concerned, all Linux distro's will have some work to do. I'd say it's a toss up.


Just saw that there's a lack of BSD in the choices...
*waits for dalecosp to rant* :D


[edit again]
Another interesting candidate....Google (http://www.kottke.org/04/04/google-operating-system)
[/edit again]

[Merve]

No single company owns BSD. That's the problem. And I don't know any company that develops anything for BSD (I guess I'll soon feel dale's wrath...:D)

GooOS on my computer? Highly unlikely...

[Chris_Evans]

Originally posted by Merve
No single company owns BSD. That's the problem. And I don't know any company that develops anything for BSD (I guess I'll soon feel dale's wrath...:D)

GooOS on my computer? Highly unlikely...

I wouldn't want the Google O/S on my computer either, they should stick to what they do at present. Their news service *can* be useful and their search engine is definately useful, I've yet to discover any use of the product search though, doesn't seem to work well for me.

Chris

[goldbug]

It's interesting that you assume a *company* will plague Microsoft.

Imho, it's open-source as a whole, and lawsuits/governments that will cause/have been causing Microsoft the greatest problems.

[Merve]

That's very true goldbug, but imo, Microsoft will not get its act together until a company can compete with it. Microsoft views these small lawsuits and open-source projects are mosquitos; they're hard to swat, albeit, they can be swatted. Until a giant mutant mosquito starts attacking Microsoft, Microsoft will not care about the integrity of its products.

[goldbug]

"small mosquito" (http://www.thestreet.com/markets/marketfeatures/10150390.html)

[Merve]

See what I mean? Peanuts to Microsoft!!!! :)

[LordShryku]

Actually, I'll need to find the article, but I read an interesting article saying that these cases brought against them are helping them more than hurting them. Puts them in the press, keeps them in the public eye sort of thing. Considering they make enough in a couple days to pay a fine like that, it doesn't matter too much.

[dalecosp]

Hmm, it's interesting to shoot the bull about business here; AFAIK, we are mostly geeks/programmers, not PHB's, nor economists....

Another potentially interesting facet to the discussion; barring "whom" will take down M$, how long will it take for company X to do it?

We do remember that before the Dark Ages the "Evil Empire" had three letters in its acronym, not two, don't we?

What will the technology be that grabs the trophy in 2020, and what will the company be like? How will the market be different? Sir Bill has stated that hardware will be almost free, and M$ will survive and prosper in the EU, given time....

Hmm, BSD rant: well, today's news: Free, Net, and Open are now being monitored at Distrowatch.com ...

Last week, O'Reilly was getting together a "BSD Success stories" book/pamphlet or somesuch. I wrote a story; I doubt it'll make the cut.

FBSD 4.10 is in BETA; 5.X is on about 3 times as many archs as the 4.X series was; and FreeBSD was on half (IIRC) of Netcraft's "most reliable hosting providers" top ten for the last reporting period (as has been true of most of the last several periods....)

Can't say much about Open and Net, as I don't monitor those communities. Either way, not bad for a "dead" OS. We all know those guys are trolls, anyhow....

It's more like BSD is the cousin that moved to California, got a decent job, spends the weekends at the beach or in the mountains and never writes....

[goldbug]

Heh, all I have to say about FreeBSD, is that I love it and it makes my servers happy :D

[LordShryku]

While I've never had the *pleasure* of installing BSD, I do use it on all of my IRC servers, and as long as they're not getting DDoS'ed, they run like a top :)

[tekky]

Originally posted by LordShryku
While I've never had the *pleasure* of installing BSD, I do use it on all of my IRC servers, and as long as they're not getting DDoS'ed, they run like a top :)

I've never seen a top that didnt spin down and fall over in short order.... :D

[Merve]

What about those Tippe Tops, you know, the ones that turn over and change direction?

[tekky]

dunno, never seen one :p or even heard of it for that matter... :confused:

[Merve]

You've never seen a tippe top! :eek: Go to the nearest dollar store and buy one right now! It'll amuse you for hours!

[dalecosp]

Originally posted by tekky
I've never seen a top that didnt spin down and fall over in short order.... :D Well, then you ain't seen BSD :D

My take on that pic: *BSD is quite a bit harder to learn to use than Windows; However, once you've got it, you can see that it does run longer without crashing and does more with less hardware ....

Now, there are some shortcomings in the Open Source world, not the least of which is no stack of green the size of Sir Bill's wallet; with a chunk of that, we'd have multitrack audio editing (there's one that I know of, but I've not tried it ... not compatible with my 8 channel sound card) and better video editors (haven't got into that at all), and GIMP would be better than Photoshop ... ( oops, wait a sec, it might be already ;) )

Some guy trolled a FBSD list and the entire San Diego BSD User Group this week (both of them...j/k) and stated "you've got to sacrifice to run FreeBSD as a non dual boot OS" ....

He was at least half wrong, but that's another thread, and probably not even one we want to open here.

Use what you want. Use what works for you. Learn to deal with it, quit griping and back to the salt mines ;)

I voted for my company :D

[Chris_Evans]

My take on that pic: *BSD is quite a bit harder to learn to use than Windows; However, once you've got it, you can see that it does run longer without crashing and does more with less hardware ....


Ever since 2000 onwards, my servers + pc's have never crashed and they usually are kept on for months on end. I've only ever had to shut down a server due to a faulty network card or a faulty power supply. Windows is the business. :)

[Elizabeth]

I think Microsoft will continue to dominate because they have successfully tapped the "joe clueless" computer user market. Until some of the others can make using a computer as easy as operating an answering machine, Microsoft will rule. Think of how many clueless people are out there - still clueless even though they're using windows - with tons of cash just ready to be spent. Face it, right, wrong, or whatever- Microsoft products appeal to the masses and that's what will keep them afloat. As long as they don't allow themselves to become obsolete.

[Chris_Evans]

Are you saying I'm clueless or just that people who are clueless about most of the operating system environment typically go to Windows first because it dominates?

[laserlight]

Dont worry, she's talking about the masses, so probably didnt mean to insult you...

at least unless she talking about the masses of server admins as well, of course :p

[Merve]

I think that Lindows and SuSE are also for Joe Clueless...and those are Linux distros. Linux can be for idiots as well!

[Chris_Evans]

In my opinion, all the operating systems do their job properly... at least all the popular ones. RedHat, Windows, SuSE etc. I think it personally depends on what you first look at or how you first ago about using a PC for the technical means.

I'm qualified in MCSA, MCSE etc... with Microsoft but program in PHP purely because I got my first hosting account with Lycos, which is of course PHP. If it hadn't of been for Lycos, I would not even have been on these forums.

I used MS-DOS originally, sometimes still do today, but I mostly use Windows as I like the advanced features that you can get from 2000, 2003 etc.

I won't go on as I may cause an argument! :)

Chris

[swr]

Nobody is really in a position to compete with Microsoft on the desktop. Microsoft can release a program and have it included on over 90% of all computers sold. Windows is not simply an OS: it is a distribution channel, as powerful as all the OEMs combined. All other distribution channels pale in comparison, and Microsoft has exclusive access to that channel.

As Chris_Evans said, "I'm qualified in MCSA, MCSE etc... with Microsoft but program in PHP purely because I got my first hosting account with Lycos, which is of course PHP. If it hadn't of been for Lycos, I would not even have been on these forums." That seems to be a fairly typical thing - people often don't look beyond the first tool they encounter. And most of the time, the first tool people encounter is whatever Microsoft decides they should be using.

So I really don't think anyone is in a postition to compete with Microsoft on the desktop. Microsoft OWNS the desktop; everyone else is just fighting over MS's table scraps. That said, outside of the desktop, MS is just another vendor (albeit a very well-funded one). Which is why Linux and BSD have been able to flourish in the internet server market, PHP and Java for dynamic web sites, various OSs and Java for cell phones, and so on.

[Elizabeth]

Originally posted by laserlight
Dont worry, she's talking about the masses, so probably didnt mean to insult you... Yes, laser, you were correct- I wasn't insulting anybody- hell, I use Windows on every machine I have except one and only recently begun exploring Linux- so what do I know? :D I was just making the comment that Microsoft is one of the few companies that can make it so my 73 year old mother-in-law can get on the Internet (but yet she can't use a VCR) - and there is a huge market out there of those just like her... all with money burning holes in their pockets.

[Chris_Evans]

Originally posted by swr
Nobody is really in a position to compete with Microsoft on the desktop. Microsoft can release a program and have it included on over 90% of all computers sold. Windows is not simply an OS: it is a distribution channel, as powerful as all the OEMs combined. All other distribution channels pale in comparison, and Microsoft has exclusive access to that channel.

As Chris_Evans said, "I'm qualified in MCSA, MCSE etc... with Microsoft but program in PHP purely because I got my first hosting account with Lycos, which is of course PHP. If it hadn't of been for Lycos, I would not even have been on these forums." That seems to be a fairly typical thing - people often don't look beyond the first tool they encounter. And most of the time, the first tool people encounter is whatever Microsoft decides they should be using.

So I really don't think anyone is in a postition to compete with Microsoft on the desktop. Microsoft OWNS the desktop; everyone else is just fighting over MS's table scraps. That said, outside of the desktop, MS is just another vendor (albeit a very well-funded one). Which is why Linux and BSD have been able to flourish in the internet server market, PHP and Java for dynamic web sites, various OSs and Java for cell phones, and so on.

I did originally start out with ASP.net but couldn't find a free host and knowing the security risks of running a web server, didn't particularly want to open up my network.

[Chris_Evans]

Originally posted by Elizabeth
Yes, laser, you were correct- I wasn't insulting anybody- hell, I use Windows on every machine I have except one and only recently begun exploring Linux- so what do I know? :D I was just making the comment that Microsoft is one of the few companies that can make it so my 73 year old mother-in-law can get on the Internet (but yet she can't use a VCR) - and there is a huge market out there of those just like her... all with money burning holes in their pockets.

I like that! Can operate Word, print a document and seal an envelope but can't operate Sky TV. :-)

[laserlight]

Originally posted by Elizabeth
YI was just making the comment that Microsoft is one of the few companies that can make it so my 73 year old mother-in-law can get on the Internet
I read an article entitled Linux For Grandma (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,115411,00.asp) :)

[tekky]

Originally posted by laserlight
I read an article entitled Linux For Grandma (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,115411,00.asp) :)

I could probably give my grandma a set of Mandrake install CD's and if the computer had a NIC, she would be online in short order.... (linux has made leaps and bounds in the "user friendly" industry these past few years...)

Its amazing what "FREE" and 1 man who many people despise for his greedy business methods can do for something like this... :p

[Chris_Evans]

No point in being in business if you don't make money. Even Mandrake charge for certain bits of their software. In all, Microsoft and Bill are not greedy, and I personally can't stand it when people just make that assumption.

Regards,

Chris :)

[tekky]

If he wasn't then he wouldn't be where he is today, sure Mandrake charges, but they do CARE how stable their product is, that its relatively free from being exposed to popups and everything else, and they don't threaten to sue kids whose name + soft just happens to be similiar to Microsoft in pronunciation (Mike Rowe -- If i recall).. thats not "just business"

[Chris_Evans]

I'm not going to reply to that as it would just cause an argument but obviously:
- Linux to you is the best O/S
- Microsoft to me is the best O/S without question

But as I said, let's not discuss what we just said or problems arise and I don't want that. :)

[tekky]

Originally posted by Chris_Evans
I'm not going to reply to that as it would just cause an argument but obviously:
- Linux to you is the best O/S
- Microsoft to me is the best O/S without question

But as I said, let's not discuss what we just said or problems arise and I don't want that. :)

1) no, I just dont agree with his "business" ethics
2) you would know, My first post was merely stating the advancements in the linux communities drive towards user friendliness

Time for me to go home, bed time finally

[laserlight]

- Linux to you is the best O/S
- Microsoft to me is the best O/S without question

hmm... but Microsoft isnt an operating system.

[piersk]

Originally posted by Chris_Evans

- Linux to you is the best O/S
- Microsoft to me is the best O/S without question

Geez, do we have to go throught this again?? :(


picky, picky, picky dale...

[Chris_Evans]

Originally posted by laserlight
hmm... but Microsoft isnt an operating system.

Ha! :D You know what I mean. :) Windows then. :)

[dalecosp]

Originally posted by piersk
Geez, do we have to go throught his again?? :( Through his what?

Pockets, for loose change?

And are we talking Sir Bill's, or Mr. Torvalds ... I imagine we'd rather it be the guy with the Winders suspenders ....

:D :D

[Merve]

Man, I'm a Joe Clueless when it comes to computers, but I was adventurous enough to install Mozilla...so I say, why won't the Joe Clueless use a Joe Clueless Linux distro?

[Moonglobe]

Re: Dale; you'd think torvald's making a decent living though :D

i voted Apple and Red Hat. I seriously think that OS X's market share will start to rise quite soon (can't say i'm a user myself, but then my copy of windows isn't exactly legal, so i guess you can see why). Their hardware is absolutely excellent (emphasis on the "excell" bit) from what i've heard. As soon as I become proficient enough in Linux to make wine work (i'm an avid gamer), i'm dropping windows entirely.

Unfortunately, this is in no way the idea of the common user. they want a system that works:
quickly
easily
slickly (has to be pretty) and
without making them think.

The first point can be addressed by OEMs, by selling (and marketing!) boxen with a joe-user (I suggest Red Hat myself - i've never liked SuSE or Mandrake; maybe it's 'cause i don't like french or german products for some reason (i'm no racist, don't take that the wrong way)) distro.
The second point can be addressed by X gui projects -- i think that a 'windows-compatibility mode' is a must -- and by wine's (and similar projects') teams.
The 3rd point is on X's shoulder, from what i know (admittedly not much). This could be more a gui project thing, but i from what i've heard X's feature-set doesn't stack up to Windows' yet.
This is Linux as a platform's problem. i see the need for either a)more standardization or b)more modularization of standard apps (remember this is from a user's PoV -- i like the system as it is.)


and that's my two cents canadian for the day.

in any other forum i'd say 'flame away' here, but i expect more from you guys -- critisism welcome though.

[LordShryku]

Wine doesn't do games. At least, not the recent, graphic intensive games. Tis the only reason I still have a windows box at home. Though, there is hope (http://www.transgaming.com/)....

[Moonglobe]

yea, that's what i was talking about. forgot it was a fork -- my bad.

[goldbug]

Feh, who needs WineX/Transgaming..... UT2004 runs native :D

[Merve]

Who says Linux is going to be competing against Microsoft? I don't think it'll be Linux that does the competing. I think it'll be something completely unexpected...that just rises out of the blue.

Don't get me wrong; Linux is great, but Linux has been branded a geek o/s by many, especially teenagers, stuck in the world of MSN Messenger and all that....and to them, after the big iMac flop, Apple is the worst computing company ever...what can be done about it? Who knows? All that I can say is that it'll have to something amazingly brand new and cool...

However, most computer users are adults, but many of them are Joe Cluelesses who did not grow up with computers...what're they going to use? Windows! The Joe Clueless O/S....what're we going to do about it....we can't do anything....unless we can compete, which at this stage, we can't....we should be content that SuSE, MandrakeSoft, and other Linux companies, are making even a profit.

[Moonglobe]

that's another point i forgot to raise - the education system. if linux were used in schools, kids would grow up used to it, and would be _far_ more computer literate.

[Merve]

Good point moon, but we use mostly macs in schools where I live...


Okay, who voted for all the choices that had no votes? :mad:

[dalecosp]

Anyone still in High School/pre-college?

I don't recall, in my ten years in front of the classroom, that many instructors had much concept of what I've learned since I've been learning ...

Any smart computer teachers out there? And, if we really wanted them to learn much about computers, wouldn't we be smarter to give them a 'Nix like system?

[dalecosp]

Originally posted by LordShryku
Wine doesn't do games. At least, not the recent, graphic intensive games. Tis the only reason I still have a windows box at home. That, (is it the kids, or me??) and the fact that I've yet to convert my wife to FreeBSD ...

[Moonglobe]

dale, i'm still in high school, and our library runs NT 4. the computer labs are generally 2k pro, but there isnt a trace on linux on site at all.

[dalecosp]

Prior to 1995 or so, most schools in the Midwest (I think --- couldn't visit or work for them *all*) used quite a few Macs for "learning" and ran Intel/MS-DOS in the offices, when they used anything.

When John Q. Public (me included) discovered the Internet, Bill Gates made some of his billions from the addition of rooms full of Windows 95 or 98 boxes in schools. Yeah, maybe N.T. too, but the place I was in had Win 9x and Novell Netware on the server(s). And in thinking back on the people who were instructing, there were no geeks around there. Most of their backgrounds were in business, and the geeks worked for the companies that serviced their networks after hours. Open a telnet session or type "ping target" into a command shell and they'd freak out ... what are you doing? Stop that right now!

[Weedpacket]

Place I'm at right now has a bunch of Windows boxen for the staff; mostly XP now, but there are still quite a lot of Win98 and NT4 floating around (these latter are generally MS-minimal-spec machines and it shows), all using Novell for networking.

Which is just a little excessive, since 95% of their usage consists of a telnet connection to an AS400.....

[tekky]

At the risk of sounding really old....

I learned Comp Sci on Apple IIe's with applesoft basic!!!!!!!

(and no I'm not *that* old... :p)

[Merve]

We have a mix of macs and windows 98 at our school...no *nix. Glad to say that they teach PHP in some computer science courses though....

[Moonglobe]

well obviously, it's a canadian school. :p


actually my school doesnt but so what, you get my point

[dalecosp]

Originally posted by tekky
At the risk of sounding really old....

I learned Comp Sci on Apple IIe's with applesoft basic!!!!!!!

(and no I'm not *that* old... :p) I learned a bit on those, and then went out and selected a different career. I think it was because I was told "graphics will be the thing of the future," and graphics were freaking hard to do (well, time consuming, anyway; who has patience in 8th grade?) with BASIC and the Apple ][ ...

I did have lots of fun messing with the other kids' diskettes, though ...
10 OPEN FOOFILE
20 CLOSE FOOFILE
30 X=X+1
40 IF X<50 GOTO 10
50 PRINT "DISK FAILURE! PLEASE SEE YOUR INSTRUCTOR FOR A NEW ONE!!":D

[Moonglobe]

(kinda getting back on topic here) Dale, isn't it ironic that a FreeBSD user's site alert()s the user that 'This site is best viewed in IE 5+'? :rolleyes:

[dalecosp]

I've not changed that for so freakin' long...

And I'm out of the office this week, too.

At the time, we had previewed the site in Win32/Mozilla (or Opera?) and found it looking poor. And the same script operates on a couple of other sites that had similar issues, at least at the time (early '03, perhaps longer...)

It's going to take a lot of time to go back and make things compliant, all around. The last page I put up validates both XHTML 1.0 and CSS compliant, and the header and footer are good, but the scripts for the content I've not touched in a while.

Yeah, it bugs me too, but I've been too busy to fix it in the live version. The devel server has a new look and no JS warning ...

[Merve]

Hey, mozilla is the future! No more messing around with IE for me...wish everybody else would just hurry up and make the switch....

[dalecosp]

Originally posted by Merve
Hey, mozilla is the future! No more messing around with IE for me...wish everybody else would just hurry up and make the switch.... I can agree with that, although not everybody will, for one reason or another.

The AOL thing will be very good for Mozilla, no doubt.

Right now, there are a couple of issues I track on Bugzilla that affect me, causing Moz to crash and disappear or hang on top of X/Gnome/FreeBSD. I'm not sure if it's an aborted attempt to get the linuxflashwrapper working, then removing it (it was definitely an issue with flash and some adverts, many of which were here at one of my fave sites :( ) or something to do with X itself or FreeBSD, but it's a bit of a disappointment when it happens. I'm generally using Opera here at PHPBuilder lately because the issue has been cropping up again. Some ad must be in flash or something.

The good news is that unlike some other OS where the browser runs the operating system and a crash in one means the other dies too, my OS and X server/WM stay up and it's just a matter of restarting and reloading about a dozen tabs :(

I'll have time, maybe, someday, to go 99.95% standards compliant and all my sites. I'm still pretty "newb" with some of this, as people who know me well could attest. Just so much freakin' stuff to read and learn.

[Merve]

On the topic of browsers, has anyone heard of Crazybrowser? (http://www.crazybrowser.com/)

Is it any good?

[Weedpacket]

Originally posted by Merve
On the topic of browsers, has anyone heard of Crazybrowser? (http://www.crazybrowser.com/)

Is it any good? Um... it provides tabbed browsing: +
It uses the IE rendering engine: -

Why do I get the feeling the codebase is Firefox with the Gecko engine removed?

[laserlight]

If that were true, then CrazyBrowser would be guilty of copyright infringement.

[dalecosp]

Originally posted by laserlight
If that were true, then CrazyBrowser would be guilty of copyright infringement. Perhaps we will see if Sir Bill's arm can reach the outer regions of Shang Hai province, then? :eek:

[laserlight]

I was thinking more along the lines of Mozilla Firefox than on I.E., actually.

[Merve]

You guys don't give Bill Gates a break...he was knighted because of his charity work, not because of Microsoft; if anything that's what stopped him from being knighted earlier.

CrazyBrowser probably does suck...the only reason I'm asking is because it was listed as a browser alternative on microsuck.com

[dalecosp]

Originally posted by Merve
You guys don't give Bill Gates a break...he was knighted because of his charity work, not because of Microsoft; if anything that's what stopped him from being knighted earlier. Now, come on; Mr. Gates' charity work consists of donating large amounts of money and or hardware (and if it was hardware, can we guess the OS running on it?), and all this was possible because he worked hard selling lemonade as an eleven-year-old and invested wisely?

Besides, laserlight apparently wasn't talking about M$; I just assumed so...it seems, at least on the surface, that Microsoft would defend their IP rights more vehemently than an open-source project like Mozilla/Firefox...or am I wrong there too, and the Gecko Engine belongs to Netscrape?

[goldbug]

Originally posted by dalecosp
I just assumed so...it seems, at least on the surface, that Microsoft would defend their IP rights more vehemently than an open-source project like Mozilla/Firefox...

Surely they would, but in this case, the "browser" in question is most likely rendering its own chrome on top of the MSHTML renderer/COM interface, which last I checked, is perfectly acceptable with MS :)

[dalecosp]

Ah ... thanks :)

[Merve]

Originally posted by dalecosp
Now, come on; Mr. Gates' charity work consists of donating large amounts of money and or hardware (and if it was hardware, can we guess the OS running on it?), and all this was possible because he worked hard selling lemonade as an eleven-year-old and invested wisely?


I repeat my previous post.


I say that there's not really any point in fooling around with anything but Mozilla/Firefox/Camino...

[jwb666]

in terms of Linux, how come Red Hat is up there for voting but not SUSE? In my opinion SUSE is the best all-round home distr and it's enterprise/stand servers are the best there is. I woudn't say they could compete with Microsoft, but i think theyve got more of a chance than Red Hat ;)

[LordShryku]

Novell owns Suse.....

[Merve]

SuSE is the distro I'm installing on my computer this summer. I'd much rather use it than Red Hat.

[LordShryku]

I use Fedora. Suse's inane method of making you install via FTP and NFS just bugs me :p

[Moonglobe]

i'll be runnin gentoo in a coupla days... but slackware will always have a place in my drive.

[goldbug]

Originally posted by Moonglobe
i'll be runnin gentoo in a coupla days... but slackware will always have a place in my drive.

Woohoo! more gentoo users! :D
We're currently running gentoo on 4 machines in our house (100% of the linux installs), including my main workstation :)

After using gentoo for some time, I can't use any other distro... they just feel too dirty :D

[Merve]

Problem: Gentoo not for a regular home user like me...who has some computer knowledge.
Gentoo also not for Joe Cluelesses.

Pro: Gentoo for computer experts who have had experience with other Linux distros...one of the best distros!

Gentoo will never be on my machine...for that reason, but there will be Linux for sure; I'm fed up with Windows.