----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob" : There are other alternatives...... Red Hat, SuSE, and Mandrake to name : a few. MSis the big one because unsuspecting computer buyers get : trapped since Windblows is packaged with thier computers. Not vey long : ago Wal*Mart was selling computers with Lindows installed. Lindows was : a Linux like OS . MS took Lindows to court and LOST! But I don't know : if Lindows survuved the tactics of MS....... I believe they changed their name to Linspire. Nice concept too. - as Linux doesn't generally have installers the way windows does, users would have to integrate any new software themselves which took a degree of experience with the OS - Linspire got around this by having a 'live install' routine whereby the user connected to the web, payed a fee and the software was automatically integrated for them. Very friendly. Unfortunately it never took off as users didn't like this idea of paying even a token fee for small programs - Linspire seemed to realise this was a deterent to its popularity and I understand they eventually made the service largely free looking here: http://www.linspire.com/search_results.php?q=graphics I see this still seems to be the case. I tried Linspire once but again, there are too many windoze apps I rely on to contemplate a full change to any flavour of Linux k
