ok heres a good one. i use windows xp and i have installed mandrake linux with xp. i like mandrake alot but i still think windows is more powerful. i program in vb only so far but i soon would like to advance to c++. I feel linux is not as powerful and also i have had probs with many of my hardware components and usb mostly. the browsers in linux i feel are weak and buggy, the apps for windows are just better in my opinion. i was hoping for your opinions on which is better.

I do number theory work. MS cannot even get off the floor with all the extensive c and multiprecision libraries such as gmp that I use. I just sorted a 1E9 item file (30 gigs) In this area, linux is in the next star system, while MS is the earthworm still crawling on the ground. Sorry to be so blunt about it.

How is Linux not powerful? Is power in portablility, stability, security, or just how easy it is for you? Mozilla and Galeon in Linux are beautiful. Try using a theme other than "Netscape classic". Tabbed browsing, popup blocking, and security are killer features. The only major bugs are in other people's pages, when they're designed for IE only, rather than standard HTML, and even then, Mozilla almost always renders right. Some apps for Windows are better, I agree. One must consider, however, that the free alternatives are all most people need. For example, I use OpenOffice. It doesn't have quite as many features as MS Office, but I don't use those extra features (obsure features that I can't even think of now) anyway. I don't know why you're having USB trouble, but it works for me. If you want to program C++ in Windows, you'll have to get the >$400 Visual C++. I took a class with a few GUI assignments, and I'm warning you, the MFC is a programming nightmare. I don't see where the "power" is in MS Visual C++. The MFC was written, from what I understand, before ANSI C++ things like strings and the STL existed, both of which make C++ worth using rather than plain old C. The Microsft way is ugly, involving "cstring"s, for example, which are neither strings nor charachter arrays.

If you think MS is that "powerful," then stay with Windows and be prepared to shell out some cash for the OS!!! Nobody is forcing you to use Linux but I would take Linux any time over any version of Microsoft. Lawrence

Try Python. http://www.python.org/ It's free and available for both Windows and Linux. I use a USB camera and printer in Linux. What devices are you having trouble with?

I've just installed Coral Linux on my PC with Star Office and managed to set up what I needed-webbrowsing,ppp, and networking to my windows boxes. Oh and it includeds a lot of progremming stuff I won't even use. All on 600 megs of disk space. Try that with XP 1.2 gigs just for the functions I can do in Wfw 3.11 and 200megs of hdd.

Yes, but WFW is a 16-bit shell for DOS and DOS only requires 1.44 Megs for a complete install (gee, that's a floppy disk, isn't it?). When somebody tells me they have Quake III running (well) on half a dozen diskless 386 terminals hooked to a P4 multi-GHz server I'll be impressed. Until then, the Windows/Linux debate is moot. It comes down to a trade off between features and price. Windows wins on features. Linux wins on price. The rest is up to the sysadmins. BTW, any argument that uses "but I can't think of it now" is invalid.