I have a friend who tells me that Linux sucks for anyone who wants to use there computer for anything else but programming. I don't know how to argue back. He doesn't use *nix much.

not all linuxdistros are desktopfriendly but you can find enough friendly ones mandrake suse redhat etc

I use Linux for internet, e-mail, P2P, ripping and burning cd's, playing dvd's and cd's and even some gaming. I guess it depends what you consider desktop use to be. Linux also comes with development tools and server software. The only program not included that I had to download was the P2P program. Everything else came with my distro. I did update Xine (dvd player).

Since your friend doesn't use or perhaps doesn't know anything about Linux, that's why he says it sucks... I don't do a lot of program and I use Linux all the time. On my system, I have both Win2000 and RedHat Linux and guess what, Linux always gets boot up as a default OS. (I don't even remember the last time I logged into Win2000!!!) I listen to music (CD and mp3), search the web, type up documentations, do a little html, etc. Everything that I can do with Windows I can do in Linux except much faster. And my system is always on. Can't say that about Windows since if I leave it on for a week or so, it just freezes for no apparence reason! Lawrence

*lol* always remember: never argue with idiots; they pull you down to their level and then beat you with experience. i have wasted far too much time telling people stuff. if he says linux sux, tell him not to use it. its better for the linux community when the dumbasses stick with windoze :))

Well I use linux for work and I'm sat at my desk!

I used my wife as a test subject just after we were married. She's never really messed with computers too much, so she was not biased towards one OS or the other. Hell, she didn't even understand what an OS is. Anyway, I set up a user account for her in Linux (Redhat) and away she went; sending email, cruising the internet, typing letters to her sister, etc. Her questions to me were "I want to do this. Which application do I use?". I'd show her what to click on and that was it. One day I had booted into Windows 2000 and she came in to type up another letter. She quickly became disgusted because she couldn't figure it out. She told me "Whatever this is sucks, can I reboot into Linux?" The moral of this story is that neither Windows nor Linux is that difficult to use. The difficulty is relative to which one you've learned and are used to using. The desktop environments provided with the Linux distros are pretty great, and there's an application available for any task. Does it matter than one application is called MS Office and another is called Star Office? Or that one application is called Photoshop and another is called The GIMP? They all do the same thing well, so any arguments for or against any of them (from a user's perpective) are largely political. ....and your friend is just plain wrong.