Windows or Linux?

[GHoSToKeR]

-Please only vote if you have used and can compare the two different Operating Systems.... If you haven't then go smoke a bowl-

Okay. so, which is it? Windows or Linux? Personally i've never used Linux, but I fucking despise Windows XP, which in my opinion, is the best of all Windows OSs. (Note: If you use XP alot, but are fed up with all the problems and mysterious crashes and shit, then download this (http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html) NOW!) I've thought about using Linux, but to be honest I can't be assed... even though I use my PC quite alot I don't do anything that you can't do on Windows. But I was wondering which is the best, and which is better for different applications and such? If anybody has any comments it would be cool.

I've already made the move from IE to Firefox, and from Windows Media Player to Winamp, but i'm not totally sure if I should stick with XP or not, so, enlighten me! :)

-GHoST-

[GHoSToKeR]

Bollox, I forgot to make it a fucking poll. Ah well, you get the point...

[hardon]

You can tweak Linux in basically any way you want (everything is user changeable pretty much). also linux never crashes, but i dont use it. i guess it depends on what you do?. i dont use xp either though, i think windows 2000 is more stable.

[OreO]

I hhave a question...whats so special about fire fox, ive heard a lot about it..

[GHoSToKeR]

Try it for a while and you'll see.. It's safer, easier, faster, more customisable, and basically kicks Internet Explorer ass.. I'm only just getting the hang of all this tabbed browsing shit, though.

[screwedcork]

i wouldn't say that linux *never* crashes. bad kernel modules will give me lockups occasionally. still a lot more stable than windows

[SomeGuy]

Linux can be alot better if you know some about programming basics. First of all, you would probaly want a Linux distro with a graphical interface like Gnome, so it would be more useful to you. Personally I would mainly want to use linux on an older computer as a firewall or server or for hacking maybe. Check out www.digg.com ..lots of interesting articles on different things, several being linux related, like a quiz that can help you choose the distro you want...Personally I think you might want to keep with XP though...its really not that bad and rarely crashes if you get service pack updates regularly and use something like Ad-aware daily...ohh yeah, and an anti-virus program is nice too.
Peace

[Omun]

*sidenote http://digg.com is a great site for tech news. Lots of stupid comments however.*
If you happen to have a spare hard drive sitting around you could do what I do and dual boot. That way when you start up you get the choice which operating system you would like to boot into. You can partition one hard drive and get the same effect as having a second harddrive but you risk the chance of messing up your xp install and I just haven't messed around with partitioning buying a second harddrive was easier :)

Do you have a cd burner? If you do you can test drive with a live linux cd such as Knoppix (http://knoppix.org/) or SLAX (http://slax.linux-live.org/). This way you can get a feel for the linux terminal and a GUI such as KDE. One of these cd's is a good thing to have laying around too I needed to use it just the other day to fix my windows install after I temporarily broke it. If you decide to go with linux in the long run your going to want a *real* distro (distrobution) I like Debian (http://debian.org) it is pretty easy and has great documentation. On this box however, I boot into a nice debian based distro called Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntulinux.org) (kbunutu to be exact).

Linux is great and I love the whole open source software scene, but sadly I think dual booting is still the best option for most people's needs. This is because not all hardware, or windows software is fully supported yet. This is changing with development of applications such as Wine and more people writing linux drivers. Try it out at least, you'll learn a ton if you stick with it!

[acidtrip]

Get hold of a Live CD, some distros have them avaliable, that way you can boot off the CD and try it out before you install anything. I'd recomend Ubuntu.