My new PC

[sdtPikachu]

Originally posted by Cyrax9
I didn't realize that any PC or Mac can run Linux

Hah! Almost any computer ever made can run Linux. Common distributions are available for INtel x86 architecture, Mac PPC, Alpha 1, Sun Sparc, ARM, Amiga... almost anything. Every Nokia phone runs an OS based on a cut down version of the Linux kernel. Besides it's freedom, one of the best things about Linux is it's scalability. True, it's often unsuited for very high end applications (there are exceptions... such as Google, which is a giant distributed Linux supercomputer) where things like SunOS cope better.

M$ spits out a new OS every yera, and theri ain't nothign specal about the "Changes" unless...

...you can't afford to upgrade your computer, and will soon be stuck with software that was made obsolete before its time.

if I could find a way to put the system together with Zero M$ hardware and only Linux Stuff

You mean M$ software, right? Simple - buy a naked box. OK, most places won't sell you a naked box (since MS has either bribed or threatened them not to) - did you know Dell did a roaring trade in Linux workstations until M$ told them that if they carried on they'd withdraw their Windows OEM license?
Just build a computer. Then you get a cheap PC to your exact spec and you don't have to fork out for Windows. BTW, been looking into DOS EMU and apparently it runs quite a few DOS apps better than DOS does...

Building a PC is more complicated, because Linux supports certain hardware, but not others.

...such as? Everything I've come across (apart from crappy winmodems and win-soundcards) will work on Linux... in fact, Linux got USB 2 support before Windows did. Linux supports more advanced hardware features than Windows does... exactly what hardware is it that doesn't work on Linux? When I was considering installing it, I gave all the hardware compatibility things a fairly hefty going over - if you've got a standard chip architecture, an nVidia video card and a Creative soundcard you're guaranteed a flawless install, and nVidia's openGL drivers are the best implementation on the planet (bitch to install though).

From my experiences, I can easily say it's not something most people would want to use daily.

2 weeks ago: 80% Windows, 20% Linux
1 week ago: botched install corrupted one single registry file, resulting in Windows refusing to boot. Reinstall neccesary. Learnt how to use the terminal properly.
Now: 90% Linux, 10% Windows (games).

True, if you're a total newbie (as opposed to a semi-newbie like me) then the learning curve can be steep. But now there's no way I could relinquish the control that Linux gives me over my computer. MacOS is just too opaque, and I hate that in an OS.

Sure, there's some things I miss about windows (mainly Eudora and NoteTab... well, actually that's all I miss) but even after I got Win2k to run more stable it's still not a patch on what Linux can do; namely almost everything that Windows can (i.e. it can't play most games).

And I don't see what's wrong with the Linux GUI's... I found GNOME easier to use than I found the one on the Mac... in fact, even when I activated GNOME's Mac GUI-emulating functions I still found GNOME easier to use than the Mac. KDE is even easier to use, but you get to do less cool things. True, it's a matter of preference but as a WinPC user I found it alot easier to switch to Linux GUI's than I did to the Mac's.

You're right though; at this stage Linux isn't for people who just want their OS to do everything for them. If you want to do something outside of the sphere of the GUI, chances are you're going to have to read some documentation... which I never fiund that scary to be honest. IME, the concepts behind *nix are a whole lot simpler than those behind windows, which makes the whole thing unneccesarily complicated and prone to horrible horrible disaster.

The PPC hardware rocks though. Instead of building my own PC I might try to make a Mac instead... but I don't think Apple like you to get hold of the parts without buying their OS first. Mind you, for sheer reliability few things beat the mighty Sparc.

Ah, decisions decisions...