NO we don't. Heck my low powered Linux box can't even run emulators.

WRONG. One of the funniest comments I've heard from you yet. You can still get virus protection and Windows Updates using a pirated version of Windows.

you can't really make a valid point of any OS being bettter until its users don't rely on emulations of other companies OS'es. i bet you don't use that machine for much

mhhhmm. sure. enjoy the keylogging.

We DON'T rely on emulators. In fact none of the Linux flavors come with emulators. Those are an extra install. GNOME and KDE desktop envioments are NOT Windows emulators by the way.

Let's see - I use my Linux machine for just about everything my Windows machine can do. Internet, email, photo manipulation, watching DVDs, playing MP3s, burning DVDs and CDs, playing Windows games using WINE, calendar, Limewire and a few other tasks. And yes my internet access is wireless.

What do you mean keyloggers? Microsoft allows pirated copies to obtain updates. They even said so at one point.

Anyhow I'm done arguing with you. You really haven't a clue about Linux. Or MS updates. At least do me a favor and use Linux a bit and do some research.

http://www.winehq.org/about/

It's an emulator by any other name....

Kona...how's your foot going? Aren't the bullet holes a bit of a pain? ...

WINE may be a emulator but as I said it does not come standard with any flavor of Linux. And Linux users don't use it all the time. And Linux doesn't rely on WINE to run.

The foot is fine Jafo. I'm sure even you can see this guys flawed logic. Care to chime in about the MS updates?

(By the way I define a Windows emulator as something like VMware or Virtualbox. WINE runs in the background. It's more of a program than an emulator. In emulators you get a desktop enviroment. WINE does not have one. You don't even see it.)

@kona:

You can define a Windows emulator as something like VMware or Vbox if you really want, but you would be incorrect to do so.

Neither VMware nor Vbox are operating system emulators.  They're virtual machines.  You'd be better off defining them by what they do - emulate hardware.  They don't emulate Windows.  You can attempt to install Windows or, I suppose, most other operating systems that support x86 architecture.  Here's a nice table outlining this for VirtualBox:

A nice table outlining that

Next...Not sure why it's important that WINE not be installed by default.  Please let me know if there even exists the concept of standards or default in the Linux world (I'm only half-joking).  It sounds like a pendantic argument since you can install WINE through the package repos of any distro I can think of.  Right?

The only reason some flavor of Linux isn't my primary OS is because OpenSolaris is better in few ways, both technical and in a practical sense.  And the only reason I don't run OpenSolaris as my primary OS is because Vista is about one million times better in supporting the hardware set of my convertible tablet PC.  But the laptop isn't my primary computer either.  So why don't I run Vista, Mac OSX, some flavor of *nix or BSD or Solaris on my desktop?  Because they all suck for supporting games and pretty much anything that runs through the Microsoft APIs (e.g., DirectX).  Maybe one day it'll all come together.  But there is a reason you're in that 1% of all users that run Linux as a primary OS.

The good news is that if it weren't for WINE (or similar projects such as Qemu) - which for some reason I now feel the need to underscore the fact is not part of Linux - you probably wouldn't even have that 1% of the client PC market.  I suppose it is better represented on the server side, but then again that's almost a no-brainer when you consider server costs.  Hard to argue the benefits on the server side when you can put up a LAMP server for the cost of just the hardware.  Sounds like a deal to me.

Anyway, Linux is cool. It offers a lot for its price.  It's not magic sauce.  It needs a lot of work.  It is buggy.  It is not user-friendly.  It lacks direction and standardization.  It is usually improving.  Sometimes it is not improving.

It has a place in the client PC market.  Currently, a vanishingly small place.

When it can run my games better than my XP desktop, I will consider making it a permanent resident on one of my partitions.  At the moment, 3 of my 4 spindles are devoted to non-MS operating systems.  But aside from the XP partitions, none remain for very long as I'm constantly trying new operating systems on for size.

Funny thing is I don't use Linux as my main OS. I use Windows XP. I just have a lot of friends that use Linux and happen to learn what I know from them.

I was just trying to point out to the other poster that Linux guys don't spend all day on a Windows emulator nor use the command line much. Seems he thinks all Linux users do this but I can't change his mind.

As for your statement about Linux not being user friendly I disagree.

^

So many of them...all seem to fall by the wayside, though...

I got a buzz from the Demo of QNX ... that installed/ran from a floppy .... looked so much better than just about anything in its day....

I have BeOS 5 somewhere too ....it looked like the bees' knees too....

But...

Windows 7 came along and basically blew everything out of the water, no matter which way you want to lean....

Running it on/from a floppy won't happen, though...

Sorry I just had to do it  

Nice desktop you got there tazgecko. Oh yeah, google doesn't stand a chance against microsoft. They're just stealing some windows7 thunder

     All this nonsense is a trip...seriously. Know where I use google? At BK's machine. When I had mine it was all Fire Fox as a browser when I found out it beat the shit out of IE. Anyway....I'm partial to Windows because I like the OS. True it isn't the 'best' one out there but there really isn't a 'best' OS. Only ones that work better then others to one degree or another. I don't like Chrome...I think it's ugly as sin. I don't like Google for all those reasons stated. But then again yahoo does the same with their toolbar. Difference between them? Not too too much. Its a matter of personal preference. My two cents...I'll stay Googleless thank you.

     BTW...isn't it true that all of them...google, yahoo, MS, Mac, etc., etc., do the same thing. Collect info so that, in their minds, they can 'provide' competitive services and the real issue is how aggressive they are in using 'questionable' tactics? Just business as usual to them in another cutthroat market.

LOL at someone still trying to push Linux after all these years.

As if Linux isn't a viable OS these days Dog? It is.

The question shouldn't be "Is this or that OS better?" it should be "Is this OS the right one for me?"