Most people buy a computer to do something, not to make a particular political or philosophical statement. Furthermore, technical proficiency doesn’t begin or end with a particular operating system: some of the most brilliant computer scientists use exactly the “wrong” OS, whatever that happens to be. VM, MVS, OpenVMS, Solaris…or even, heaven forfend, Windows.

But for some percentage of the computer using population, the choice itself is akin to a matter of religion. And the unbelievers are spat upon from on high by those who know the Truth.

Frankly, an OS is a tool, not a religious choice. Use what works, what solves the problem you want addressed, what reduces your stress level. In my opinion, people who fail to grasp that are the “dumb” ones, but like the choice of a particular OS, that’s mostly just an opinion.

One of the problems with PCs on the desktop is that the “requirements” most users have are often terribly vague. If someone plans on writing some documents, sending some emails, browsing the Internet…any OS will work fine, and Linux will make a fine choice. But if that person wants to walk into any store and buy any piece of hardware/software on the shelf, carry it home, and have it work most of the time…well, that’s so vague that the only answer would be to chose the most common/pervasive choice. For most folks, it’s easiest to choose the “default” choice, the one that has it’s own department at the computer store, the one that most folks know and understand.

Chris put things well: you know how to set things up in the OS flavour you are using, and it works well/reliably for you and your family. Selecting a different OS would not solve any particular problem you are currently facing, it wouldn’t prevent the death of any children/puppies/kittens, and it wouldn’t stave off global warming/economic collapse/the coming of the apocalypse.

I also am the family “tech support guy”, dealing with a lot of parents, aunts, uncles and older siblings, most of which predate television, much less computers, or whose only experience with a computer is what they are used to seeing at work. I guess this makes them “dumb” as well.

But, we ( I ) don’t adopt windows editions early. I leave the “bleeding edge” stuff to guys like Kelly with the time, money, and strange masochist tendencies It will probably be a couple of years before Vista becomes an issue in my life. By the time I adopt a version of windows, and my family follows suit, most of the obvious functional bugs are beaten into submission. For what we use it for, security issues are manageable, if not desirable.

Put simply, windows is stock. It is a standardized product that is familiar to everyone that is going to use it, it has a vast array of applications for it, and it does what we need it to do.

Does that makes us “dumb”? Perhaps. What it certainly does is make us “consumers”. Not tech guys, not programmers, not security analysts. When I buy a car, I buy as a driver, not as a mechanic, engineer or stunt driver. Operating systems are no different. Windows products may be the minivans ( or perhaps SUV’s ) of the operating system world, but last time I looked the roads were full of mini vans and SUV’s.

I use Linux on a dozen or more servers at home and work, primarily Red Hat, but a couple of Mandrake distros as well. It is ideally suited for a server environment and, given my druthers, I use it. It’s probably worth mentioning that I’ve been using, installing, supporting and writing code for various Unix derivatives for about the last 25 years, on everything from DEC Vax systems to custom built 68000 processor platforms, from IBM mainframes to pocket PCs.

On the desktop though…I’m partial to Windows. I could get into a long discussion as to why, but really it boils down to personal preferences. OS X is appealing as well, but at home I spend a chunk of time playing games, and Windows is preferable for that purpose. It is also undeniably the most commonly used desktop environment, which means I have a fairly good selection of applications and supported hardware to choose from. I like having those choices.

poor dumb western world consumers blindly lured into using crap software, the system has taken ur brains out … last viable MS system was server 2003 based solutions: future is Linux distros !

I have to admit to a certain amount of ignorance regarding video drivers for Linux. All the Linux boxen I’ve built are servers: if the video drivers can support KDE or Gnome, I’m happy. Other than game servers (E.G.: Unreal Tournament server), I’ve never tried to fire up a game on Linux.

I like ATI. Their video cards have given me a lot of happy times, and they are (or were) nominally a Canadian company. I sort of like the idea of supporting a home-grown technical product. But…I’m starting to feel a little less than completely happy with their recent drivers. Hopefully they’ll pull together a real winner of an OpenGL ICD and I’ll be happy again soon.

I am pretty confident that ATI will have the OpenGL ICD available at some point, but I’m very doubtful now that it will be available before the end of January. I suppose I could take this as a “positive” thing, and delay adoption of Vista on my machine until ATI has their driver- perhaps by the time they do, Vista Service Pack 1 will be released

I’m pretty sure that ATI will eventually release an OpenGL ICD, but it seems doubtful now that they’ll do so in time for the initial release of Vista (I.E.: by January).