Free Linux and OpenOffice - even if your email address doesn't end in .edu - (was Re: OT: Microsoft crazy academic deal)

Quit trolling. 1. I responded to your original message about an educational version of various MSFT software with how one can get free CD's of Linux without any need of an educational discount. 2. You claimed various unrelated things, repeating how you work at a multi billion dollar company that has so many desktops and how it wouldn't work there - the topic was about educational discounts - had nothing to do with who you work for, their SOX needs, or how many systems they manage or how much support they require. Bringing up who you work for (or rather how much money flows through them), how many desktops they have, what their support or Sarbanes-Oxley needs has what to do with an educational discount that Microsoft puts out and a counter of Linux and Open Office are both cheaper and better? IMHO, it's condescending, as if to say "they pros won't use Linux" which is plainly false. I know for a fact that large financial companies who probably make far more multi-billions than yours do use Linux, and Solaris, and AIX and many other OS's. Arguing based on that line of thinking simply shows you're switching tactics, away from the core discussion because you realize you're wrong. 3. No one cares whether or not your kids or wife (or for that matter mine) will run Linux, or Windows other than you and them. The option is there, you just seem unwilling to support them, if they chose to go that route. As a data point, my 4 year old can use Linux - he's using an old 650Mhz Celeron running Edubuntu. Yes, I provide him with support and lots of games, all of which are free. That I'm able and willing to provide such support for my family members and you're not does not say anything about the complexity of Linux vs Windows, but rather than my willingness vs yours. I say this, since you've claimed that you've been using Linux and FreeBSD for ages now - which I'd call out as suspicious since, if you really had, you'd be able to provide such support. Perhaps your experience with these is limited to FreeBSD 2.x and Hylafax in 1997 - a lot of things have changed since then. Give current versions of Linux a try before bashing them and limiting your view to whatever the EEE PC happened to ship with. OTOH, I'm forced to use XP at work and it's a horrible dog. The very same hardware runs Linux much, much faster, and it's far better behaved, supports all the hardware on the same machine, is secure, and safe. Not to mention free, with lots of free updates, no activation, and comes with tons of other free software. 4. I did follow the discussion, but I wasn't going to let some free advertisement for Microsoft software slide without pointing out that there Linux can be had, not only for free as a download but also on CD. The timing of your original post and my "Hey, by the way, you can get Linux, it's good and it's free" is irrelevant to anything you've said. Messages on mailing lists do not have expiration dates - and on a mailing list that discusses 20 and 30 year old machines, it's laughable to think that 10 days somehow makes any difference. 5. The words "Put the Asus EEE PC with Linux next to version with XP / Vista, and there is NO comparison - it even LOOKS like a cartoony toy" do not make it sound like you're comparing Linux running on an Asus PC vs to XP running on an Asus PC. So you've had a typo there - that opened up the door to multiple interpretations. I think that perhaps now you've meant "next to (a) version (of the EEE PC) with XP / Vista" rather than what I misread as another machine. My apologies - it appeared to me that you were comparing the version of Linux that ships with the EEE PC with any version of XP/Vista on another machine, and somehow saying the EEE PC was a toy because it ran Linux, not comparing Linux and XP/Vista on the same machine. But it's still not a valid comparison. Most folks who run Linux are going to run one with either KDE or GNOME and they're not gonna have it setup to look like a toy. Perhaps the marketing folks of the EEE PC thought that it would attract teenagers or kids (which oddly does kinda tug back towards the educational market and away from "multi-billion dollar company" and support contracts.) Go install "Bob" on top of Windows and see how professional that looks. :-) Some poorly configured desktop manager you choose as a strawman shouldn't be the deciding factor as to what OS someone else should run. I could probably set up Bob to launch Word and laugh at it the same way, thus calling Windows a toy just the same - but would that mean very much? There are other distros with other UI's, some more professional looking than Vista. http://art.gnome.org/preview.php?image=screenshots/gnome218/DarkFire2.jpg http://art.gnome.org/preview.php?image=screenshots/gnome218/DarkFire.jpg http://art.gnome.org/preview.php?image=screenshots/gnome218/UbuntuCompizAWN… http://art.gnome.org/preview.php?image=screenshots/gnome218/CurretnSetup.jpg http://www.xfce.org/images/about/screenshots/4.4-1.png http://www.xfce.org/images/about/screenshots/4.4-2.png http://www.xfce.org/images/about/screenshots/4.4-6.png http://polishlinux.org/reviews/kde-4-1-rev-777000/a1405b89b3819b74546ddfa2f… http://polishlinux.org/reviews/kde-4-1-rev-777000/fd039fbc84988beba6c0ae228… http://liquidat.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/dolphin-selection.png http://liquidat.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/kde-pim-kde4.png http://liquidat.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/marble-mercator.png Go compare XP to Suse, Fedora, Ubuntu, or Debian instead. If you're the GUI candy kinda guy, configure those with KDE 4.1. If you've got some old poor PC that's sitting in a closet somewhere, maybe you can try Damn Small Linux or a distro with XFCE such as Xubuntu and see if you might put it to some good use instead of languishing away just because windows is too slow on it. Note that you can do the same for FreeBSD (or OpenSolaris, etc.). It's not just Linux that's a valid choice. And you know what, if this is the EEE PC version of Linux: http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20071204172028328/Asus-701-Internet.html it doesn't look any uglier (or toy like) than this: http://techrepublic.com.com/2347-10878_11-4395-4410.html?seq=15 Either that, or they try to change the subject from the topic of an educational discount (presumably for college kids) to all sorts of other things such as Office 2007 incompatibility with Open Office, or that how multi-billion dollar companies run their IT departments, or comparing OS's on "toy" computers? :-D Of course, you can always accuse me of this: http://xkcd.com/386/ :-)