Originally Posted by Katsunami
There are lots of reasons to NOT run Linux.
One of them is the fact that there are many programs for which there is no decent Linux alternative available. There is a lot of hardware that does not fully work under Linux.
Many people who think that Linux is the holy grail, go the wrong way about computing. They do this:
"I am going to run Linux."
"I want to do A, B and C, and X, Y and Z."
"What programs on Linux are available to do that?"
"What hardware do I need, that runs on Linux?"
"Hm... okay... so I need to use an open source driver that only supports SOME functions of my hardware... and I need to run a Windows program using WINE, which will cause a few functions not to work."
"No matter, I'm still running Linux, and that's the only thing that counts. I'll make do."
You should be doing this:
"I want to do A, B and C, and X, Y and Z."
"What hardware do I need?"
"What programs are the best ones?"
"Which operating system can run BOTH the hardware AND the programs, without having to *** around to get it to run?"
In my case, I'll give you an example.
"I want to play chess against my computer on a real board."
"I need a DGT USB chessboard."
"The best user interface is the one from Chessbase."
"The board is only officially supported on Windows."
"Chessbase is a Windows program."
Therefore, I will run Windows. Yes, there are workarounds to get the DGT board running on Linux or the Mac, and there are non-Chessbase chess products, but most of them are inconvenient, incomplete, or unsupported options.
A friend of mine is a guy who does a lot of stuff with media.
"I want to compose music and edit images."
"I need a Midi Keyboard."
"At work, we use Logic for music, and Photoshop for images, so I'll use them at home too."
"The MIDI-keyboard will run in Windows, Mac, and Linux."
"Photoshop will run on Windows and Mac."
"Logic runs only on the Mac."
Thus, he will use a Mac.
There can also be reasons to run Linux, such as wanting to mimic a hosting service's setup for local development of websites, or to write an open source program that will run primairily on Linux, with Windows and Mac being second choices. (One of those programs is The Gimp, or RAWTherapee, for example.)
Know what you want to do. Choose your hardware and software. THEN choose your operating system. Doing it the other way around causes you problems. If you need multiple operating systems to do your task, then you can use multiple computers, or virtual machines (if possible).
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