A review of Linux (RedHat7.2) I would consider myself a casual user with no progamming skills. But I'm quite familiar with MacOS, Win3.1, DOS, Win9x, WinNT and Win2K. I know lots of the console commands and adminstration configuration of NT systems. When I installed RedHat Linux 7.2, I was rather disappointed with the OS's performance compared to my Win2K box. My AMD K6-2 system w/64MB ram runs Win2K and Office2K fine and OS response speed is good and my system hardly crashes. Under Linux, I had to dig through tons of websites just to get my CD-ROM drive to work. (if it wasn't for my experience with other OS, then I probably wouldn't be able to get very far with my Redhat distribution) Performance is an issue with the Linux OS compared to Windows2K, NT. A clean install of Redhat 7.2 on my system was easy thanks to Redhat's GUI installation. But system performance lagged severely behind Win2K. Apps, such as Office2K, IE6, Netscape Gecko 6 ran smoothly on my i586class machine w/64MB RAM with little disk swapping. But in Linux (redhat distribution), Gecko, Mozilla, StarOffice and OpenOffice take about 5-10 time as long to load. ABout 15sec for Gecko, about 23sec for OpenOffice and StarOffice. Also, Netscape 4.7, Gecko, Mozilla seem sluggish compared to it's Windows conterpart (IE and Gecko) - more disk swapping, longer loading time, less responsible. OpenOffice, an alternative to my Office2K (which ran smoothly on Win2K) was extremely sugglish in Linux. It takes hell long to load. About 25sec just to load OpenOffice in Linux, compared to about 4sec to load Office2K in WIn2K. OpenOffice, even after it was loaded ran sluggishly. Summary: The hype that Linux is faster and more stable than Win2K is just not true. On my K6-2 400 box w/64MB ram ran RedHat 7.2 sluggishly. In fact it's like trying to run NT4 on a Pentium66 w/32MB RAM (which I have tried to be very slow and sluggish). For programers and ITs, and Corporate environments, Linux is nice especially because it's open-source. (I obtained Linux Redhat, OpenOffice, StarOffice from free downloads) When you think about loading Win2K and Office2K on like 30 corporate systems, that would be very costly, whereas Linux and OpenOffice is completely free. However, for casual computer users who just need their computers for email, web, reports and term papers, and listening to music, Windows is WAY BETTER. It's faster and a lot easier to use. (even Win9x is better than Linux, because it's almost like Win2K, just a less stable but a lot easier to use and a lot faster than my sluggish Redhat 7.2)

First of all, if you want to use Linux for "home" I would suggest Mandrake 8.1 instead of Red Hat. There are more "user friendly" tools. Regarding the speed, I have just experienced exactly the opposite: moving a file in a LAN took 10 minutes using w2k and 25 sec using a ftp connection with a linux box!. Of course there could be tons of examples both for win and for linux. I recommend to use the proper os for the best practice (I regulary use W95, W98, W2k and linux), avoiding to use a Ferrari on the sand. By the way, how long do you wait before having your box up and running with Win and Linux?

my experience w/ speed on linux showed that it depends on the filesystem. the first time i installed linux (mandrake 7.1), i chose ext2 filesystem and it was comparable to windows. then i reinstalled it (pretty much just for the heck of it) but chose reiserfs (since it was a journaling fs), and it was MMAADD slow. like 4x slower. so perhaps it was the fs u chose. it could be a number of things which could probably be fixed. just thought id through in my 3 cents

The best versions of Linux for home are Suse 7.3 and Mandrake 8.1. Also, Yellow Dog for the Mac is kick ass and easy to install and run on a G4 (just make sure the video card is supported). Mac OS-X is a better alternative to Windoze,if the uer cannot understand Linux. Regards, Chad

Barry, Barry, I'm shure Bill adore you... I'll not be surprised to see your statue in the front of Microsoft's headquarter...

Actually, he's very much right. Using Linux and Windows (all flavors extensively) convinces me for and more everyday that Linux has years to go before it can be a desktop contender against Windows. I'm finding XP to be a great experience (while at the same time, fighting with Mandrake 8.1 to not lose my USB mouse/keyboard.) I really dig the customablity of Linux and I use it for developing C and Apache. Past that, there's nothing it can do that isn't easier and more stable on my WinXP machine. Macs? I recently benchmarked my 1 gig Athlon XP machine against a Duel 800 G4. I ran photoshop through the works and timed each segment. My athlon kicked the duel Mac's ass hands down. So much for the MHz myth... Of course, I'd love to get an apple cinema display and a nifty G4 case for my PC (when will apple learn that they are DESIGNERS!) The new iMac has enough stuff rolled into it to make a good deal... oh, except for that upgrading thing. The real questions are: what do you want to do? What will allow you to do that? And (this is really important) what will you want in 6 months after you know what you're doing?)