You have an odd definition of helpfull.

Windows 7 is going to suck. It's going to suck despite what the reviewers think, because they're still comparing it to Vista and Microsoft hasn't done its last-minute "whoops this new feature doesn't work right so we'll just yank it out" rounds yet. (Remember how all the amazing new features in Longhorn somehow disappeared in the last year before it was released?)

But even after those last-minute cuts, and even if Microsoft gives absolutely no direct support for its 3-app-maximum edition of Windows 7, it will still have an advantage over Linux in one area, which is that it will have the same driver and library support as the other editions of Windows 7. If I want random-piece-of-hardware X or random-program-Y to run with the "dust bowl edition", the drivers will be available because the hardware manufacturers will have written them to support the "land of milk and honey edition", and they'll work just fine without any extra effort on my part. And although I don't think I'll be willing to buy Windows 7 for that dubious advantage, if I were still doing tech support professionally, I'd be seriously tempted. My time does have value, even if I frivolously waste it on comments on webcomics.

Trying to install Linux is still embarrassingly hit-or-miss, and trying to troubleshoot Linux is still a nightmare. It's a less unpleasant nightmare than it was ten years ago, but it's still a nightmare. It's like dreaming you've fallen off a cliff, instead of dreaming that you've fallen off a cliff while naked in a public place after discovering you're still in high school and have to take a test to graduate and you're being chased by horrible monsters.

Every once in a while, the Ubuntu installers -- which are the ones I've used most frequently -- work as expected, and it's all very simple. In fact, on those occasions, the installers work as well as the Windows installers have worked in every single case I've encountered since about 1998. But at least as often -- and yes, I've been installing Linux a lot in the last six months, so this is recent experience -- things fail. And they fail in ways which a non-techie would be completely unable or unwilling to deal with. And the attitude of Linux users online -- even today -- is mainly a combination of "if you want to use a computer you should be willing to spend any number of hours tracking down solutions to obscure problems which have to be entered into a terminal without any tolerance for typos" and "you should be thankful for even an OS which doesn't work in order to get away from Microsoft". If I were running a business on PCs, I'd seriously consider sticking with Microsoft just to avoid having to deal with the crap that Linux users expect as a matter of course.

So, I guess what I'm saying is: Windows may suck, and cost way too much, but it still passes tests which the Linux community by and large seems not to realize exist. And there are situations in which yes, that's a selling point. So Alex's statement isn't anywhere near as ridiculous as it may seem on its face.

(And, quite frankly, I'm expecting to be flamed to within an inch of my life for even suggesting that Linux is less than perfect, and that there is someone out there who might actually prefer Windows. Like I said: the attitude of the Linux community as expressed online has not improved since the 1990s.)

I wasn't just knocking the Linux installers, I was knocking what has to be done to keep Linux running and up to date as well. That's really where the continuing attitude part comes in. (I don't think I've ever actually asked for help with the installers, certainly not recently.)

My view is very simple and it works for me:

"Apple is worth it."

Would Jobs get some points back if he actually showed up to cheer on Woz on DwtS?

I've got a couple of new boxes on order (I went with Lenovo). Once they're alive and well, and I've transferred the useful bits from my old boxes to them -- I think I'll resurrect my old eComStation licenses and load that on one old box, and try for something linux on the other.

Not exactly, but I would say that my experiences with Linux have led me to the conclusion that Linux is not noticeably better than Windows. I've had Linux lock up -- I don't know whether it was actually crashed completely, or merely unresponsive, but the difference is negligible. I've also had bugs in Linux which killed off my X11 session, which doesn't require a reboot but is identical to a crash in every practical respect.

Really, what the world needs is for the Haiku OS project to succeed: a free, open-source OS which starts off with a consistent and well-designed GUI instead of having to bolt one onto a command line, and which is really designed around threaded programs. I haven't played with Haiku, so I don't know if its underpinnings work like the BeOS did, but if Haiku manages resources as well as BeOS did, then Haiku will knock Linux out of the netbook market more or less completely by having dramatically better performance on the same hardware. (Of course, BeOS didn't have a significant permissions system or logins -- it was more like the old Mac OS -- so it wasn't really a workable server solution. But to drive a laptop, or a workstation that only one person uses? I'd convert every Linux box I control in an instant if there were a free BeOS equivalent being actively developed, with a modern web browser and a port of OpenOffice. Or even an up-to-date GoBe Productive.)

The Vicar, I find your experiences with Linux to be rather odd, as personally, I've installed Linux on many machines, and gotten friends to do so, without any significant problems. Usually without any problems at all, actually. I am kind of geeky, but I've not found much in modern distributions that I actually need to use my geekyness for... and I guess I am careful about making sure hardware I buy is compatible with Linux, rather than just going out and buying random computers and then hoping the hardware inside will work properly, so this may be the cause of my increased success relative to your experiences. The only time I've failed to install Linux was Slackware, which for some reason rebooted after installation straight into a kernel panic. I also, personally, find Windows quite a nightmare to maintain - worrying about all that anti-malware software, and the (to me) completely illogical layout of configuration options in the Control Panel just make it an OS I avoid as much as possible. I've also been using OS X machines a lot in the past year, and they seem to me to be very intuitive to use, although they have their flaws. However, it's very neat in a geeky way to have a real, genuine, certified "UNIX®" as my laptop (macbook)'s OS hehe... Ah, the potential for Jurassic Park parodies...