Someone commented on why anyone who wanted to move to linux would wont to 
keep windows on the HDD, well there are many things Linux will not do, or 
do well enough or in a simple manor that would require going into windows 
on the odd occasion.
Specifically play many games.  The main reason I imagine most people on this list would still retain a Windows partition for.  Office runs well enough under Wine (particularly with Codeweavers CrossOver Office product).  In fact runing Windows apps under Wine gives me something that I can't get in Windows without lots of $$ or piracy.  That is PDF output from every app that prints.  Just by hanging |kprinter off the LPT definition in the wine config.  Much cheaper than buying Acrobat Distiller/PDF Printer Driver.

There are of course other apps that don't run well with Wine which could tie a user to their Windows desktop. 

Ironically Microsoft's dominance of the Desktop PC would has made it considerably easier for us to create compatibility layers and the like.  Imagine how much harder it would be to get people to migrate to Linux if there was a 50/50 split between Windows XP and OS/2 6 (or whatever version).  Or even if there were more office suites out there.  Like WordPerfect or Ami Pro or even Lotus Smart Suite.  Because these products have been so marginalised by Microsoft's Anti-Competitive behaviour in the desktop OS & application market we don't really have to care too much about providing a migration path to Linux for users of those products. :)

Of course the software industry (ha, what a misnomer) would be much more health if we did have those other alternatives still.

Regards 




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Oliver Jones » Director » oliver.jones@deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 

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