Relative linking, run Bash shell/shell/C shell/Korn shell/z shell scripts, sloppy focus, multiple virtual workspaces, customisation of panels (similar to task bar), snapping of windows, highlight to copy then paste with middle click, plus other things I'm sure.

Do I want to play the latest 3d games? Not really, give me a copy of tetris or Sherlock and I'll happily play those (which Linux plays about as well as Windows nowadays), I like Flash games too. I do, however, want to be productive while working, and the things above help me be productive.

Windows probably can do them things with add-ons, but do these add-ons work as well? Linux can do many things that Windows can do through downloads and add-ons, but I'm not going to vouch how well they work...

Would you miss those things if you'd never had them before? Probably not. Much like people will happily spend a week doing something repetitive when they could spend a day researching how to automate the process, then do the whole thing in a matter of hours.

None of my machine have ground to a halt - in fact they haven't slowed down at all and I've never had any spyware or viruses on any of my machines.

I manage over 100 PCs at work, none of them have been rebuilt, and some have been in use for over 5 years! The AV software also doesn't report any instances of infected machines on the network at the moment...


You get Powershell and you can run bash etc. as well, as well as PowerShell, multiple desktops have been available as an add-on for Windows since 1988, snapping windows is also available (part of Vista and 7 to varying degrees, as an add-on for older versions). Highlight to copy/past with middle click? Don't see why you would want to, not something I ever experienced in Linux, but I had the middle button to act as button 3, which allowed me to open tabs, for example, in my web browser, like Windows and OS X...


Me either, I can't remember the last time I played a real computer game, must be at least 20 months. That is why it doesn't bother me whether I am sitting at a Windows, Linux or OS X machine. There isn't really any big difference between any of them at the end of the day, they do something slightly better than all the others, but none of them stands clearly above the others. I used Vista mainly for the last 6 months, the last month mainly OS X, with some Linux thrown in.


Well, Linux and UNIX can't do most of those things, without add-ons like Gnome or KDE and their plethora of bundled utilities!

As I said, the add-ons are probably there, how well do they work? I don't know. I, as an average Windows user, have never come across them, I didn't know about the PowerTool downloads until a year or so ago...



I know that technically Linux can't, but I think if you ask many people, they would include the GUI tools a part of Linux, like Explorer would be counted as part of Windows. Download Suse/Ubuntu/etc and you get everything I said pretty much out of the box, as far as I'm aware (and yes, I am comparing this to a 9 year old OS, though also the most used OS) Windows (XP) doesn't do any of the things I mentioned out of the box. GNOME/KDE adds a lot of the support, so OS X doesn't come with some of the stuff.



Middle click still acts as open/close new tab, but highlighting some text and middle clicking on another area is nice and easy to paste, nice when copy and pasting in the command line where control-c sends a kill signal.

PowerShell is part of Windows Server 2003, 2008, Windows Vista SP2 and 7 and an optional download (through Automatic Updates) for XP and earlier versions of Vista.

Do you really think that will convince someone who buys their stuff from PC World to move from Windows to Linux?

There's no commercial benefit to moving home users to Linux, so why should anyone bother trying?

If you know what Linux is, then chances are you know what the benefits are already. If you don't know, then stick with Windows.

I severely doubt that people stupid enough to buy computers from PC World know enough to get on happily with Linux anyway.

The simple matter is Linux doesn't need any home users - there's no money in it. And that works out better for the people who do, because the low market share means added security.

No, as I said you wouldn't want them unless you knew about them. Having used all of those features everyday for a year, then moving to a Windows system where I can't install extra software, I miss them.

The other fact is that if I go from one Linux system to another, they can all do this, I can go to a UNIX box and do it all, and can do some things on another Mac. They are all there, out of the box with little cutomisation. If I wanted to run bash scripts on Windows or the other things Dave said that I can, I'd need to re-download and install all these things everytime I at at a different computer...Thankfully Microsoft have seen some sense and added a more comprehensive shell into Vista and Windows 7, hopefully other things will follow.