I'm an old techie who cut his teeth on mainframes and mini-computer and was an early convert to the PC world. I find the Microsoft and Mac worlds way to rigid. Yep, I think Apple is even more rigid than the boys at Redmond. Apple suffers from the worst case of NIH [not invented here] since the early days of IBM. When are they going to admit to themselves and the world that their computer products are just Linux boxes that have to run on proprietary [read expensive] hardware.

I'll stick with my recently acquired System 76 running Ubuntu's 7.04 release. In case you haven't heard, Linux has matured and recent releases of Suse and Ubuntu are ready for the masses who want to enjoy the treasure trove of excellent open source software that is now available. Now if Dell wises up and supports it's Linux boxes as well as System 76 we may have a revolution on our hands.

George is right about lessons to be learned from Viet Nam. Problem is he didn't learn most of them.

He didn't learn that we have to be more careful about what situations we get involved with in the first place.

He didn't learn that wars cannot be successfully waged with a half hearted committment.

He didn't learn that sending good money after bad and live soldiers after dead ones is usually a bad idea.

And I guess not enough of us learned that he was incompetent by 2004.

I have been running a Linux desktop for nearly two years now, first Suse 10 and now Ubuntu 7.x. For those who have not been watching, Linux on the desktop is all grown up now and ready to take on almost any task with open source software that will be at least adequate for 90% of personal computer users.

Of course, I could say that Unix-Linux actually extends to the Mac since Apple no longer develops an OS, but simply puts it's GUI on top of BSD Unix. That is really not much different than what Novell [Suse] and Canonical [Ubuntu} are doing.

I also have to observe that most personal computer users do not replace their systems every 2-3 years. Two decades ago that was common and continues to be common for enthusiasts. For the more typical user, upgrades and replacements are postponed until they are absolutely necessary. Here, Linux and maybe the Mac have the advantage of a small and efficient OS kernel that does not require massive upgrades to run Vista or whatever succeeds it.

Just don't continue with the old MS vs. Mac paradigm. Linux has grown up and is here to stay.