Standing At The Crossroads
Why did I choose Linux? It's simple.
My net-rat (the cybernetic equivalent of a rusted-out 1995 Chevy with a bad muffler) is a 1Ghz PIII with 384 MB of RAM and interchangeable 80 gig hard drives (they're in those little plastic caddies), one carrying Windows 98SE, the other originally carrying Ubuntu (now carrying Debian).
I set up the removable hard drives because I told myself I was going to teach myself Linux. Well, for months I procrastinated, even through numerous WIN98SE malfunctions, most of which were annoying (a WIN98 session which doesn't require at least one restart is a rarity), three of which required a from-scratch reinstallation. After the fourth major malfunction, looking at the fourth reinstall in only 8 months, I weighed my options - 3 hours formatting my hard drive and reinstalling everything from scratch, or taking the Linux plunge? I shut down the machine, switched out the hard drives, and re-booted.
I can't say that I've never looked back, or that my Linux experience has been perfect (I've been through 3 distros so far). All of the distros I've tried have been "broken" in some way. There are bugs in them which manifest themselves in annoying sorts of ways. But despite all the complications, Linux still beats the chicken soup out of Windoze 98, or Windoze 2000 (which just barely ran on my machine). And it sure beats the hell out of spending hundreds of dollars for a new machine. Restarts are A LOT less frequent.
But what I like best about open-source software is the absence of the customer-is-the-enemy attitude which is so prevalent among commercial software companies, digital content providers (can you say "SONY rootkit"?) and quite frankly every other major corporation. I mean, why else would Microsoft let Windows Vista mung up non-copyrighted original content just so that RIAA and MPAA coke-heads could protect their $500.00 lunches?
(BTW, why are there banner ads for Microsoft all over this site?)