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Where do you get your information from? Companies that produce Linux distributions hire qualified programmers just like M$. Its just that Linux programmers are more open to what the public wants then M$ programmers. You are thinking of most Linux applications, yes they are made by people who have a love for programming, even though they don't get a penny from it, but they are not worse than any other program. Lets look at K3B, CD and DVD rip/burning software for KDE, yes the head programmer started K3B because he wanted to learn QT along with other programming languages. Now several years later it is the default CD DVD burner in the KDE project with the same about of errors as programs for Windows has. This is also not to different from 3rd party programs for Windows, they are produced by people who just love programming and are not a professional, but people still use them anyways.

The whole point is to have the feeling of freedom, being able to take something that someone else made and make it fit your life and your needs. This is something that Windows nor M$ will never offer because that would violate everything "Close source" is. Maybe true freedom is not for everyone, but if it is good enough for countries like: Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and now China to give up their costly M$ for then maybe Linux is doing something right.

Lastly Windows being stable? I had more problems with windows crashing than I did with Linux. The day M$ can produce a stable OS is the day China becomes a democracy, North Korea gives up all its nukes, George Bush gets b***h slapped for being a ******** dumb a**, I get rich, Hell freezes over, and the world ends at the same time.

Yes I can say that it is bugy as every other OS that comes out. But user friendly hmm that is another thing.

Do you know anyone who havent seen windows and Linux havent use the PC if you did give him linux for 5 days and you will see he will be use to it as you are to windows. You know that you need to learn how to use OS. I know my mother was lost whan she started to use PC now she knows her way around she uses windows and some day I will try to put linux on her PC and I will see if she will be LOST or angry that the programs that use to be there arent. She only use Office and now that office is Open Office and she uses Firefox from the begining so I think that she can use linux as well as Windows. So user friendly biggrin . Nop windows arent more user friendly biggrin .

I had quite a long-winded post about everything here, but I took too long to reply, Gaia timed out, and it ate my post. *sigh*

I don't have the heart to spend another hour digging up all the reference links again, but here's the gist of it.

Linux is developed professionally by companies such as Red Hat, Novell, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Intel, AMD, and a ton of others.

Linux is also developed by amateur programmers around the world.

MS's hiring practices and interview processes are kept pretty secret. Not that I'm saying they do, but if they were to hire a "programmer" who had never used a computer, he/she would still be a "professional" but the code he/she would be writing would be on-par with that of a child's scribbling, and not nearly as good as an amateur programmer's who has a love of the language and was programming for 5+ years on misc community projects.

I wouldn't call Windows an "efficient" OS either - it runs poorly on older hardware, where as the most modern version of linux will outperform it. On modern hardware, well, I'm not digging up the link so here's some homework for you. Get a modern laptop. Format it, install windows, charge the battery fully, unplug the A/C adapter, and leave the laptop on. Time how long it takes the system to shut down. Then do the same thing again, only installing linux. Bet you linux will run longer than Vista.

As for an OS you can easily start up and run, I'll give you that windows is easy to start up and run, but so is linux these days. And, unlike windows, which after its installed you have a core OS and nothing to do on it, linux installs itself with a full suite of applications, everything from an office suite to a ton of games to video/audio codecs to financial planning applications to... and the list goes on...

An OS you can be happy with, well that's quite a matter of personal opinion. I'm not happy at all with windows because of it's interface that is lacking so many features I use regularly. I'm not happy at all with windows because of the DRM technology built into it that prohibits my legal use of media. I'm not happy at all with windows because Microsoft decided to backdoor the OS for the NSA (again, too lazy to dig up the links a second time). I'm not happy at all with windows because it costs more money and provides less satisfaction than many other OSes.

You mention that just because a programmer loves programming doesn't mean he is sufficient and able to make sufficient programs. Well the reverse is also true. Just because a programmer is paid to code doesn't mean that his quality or competency is better than somebody who isn't paid to code. See my above statements on MS's hiring practices.

On to MS's best interests in mind. BRB, need to get a shovel for the bullshit in this section. I didn't ask for DRM. Polls of consumers done through out the years also reveal that they hate it too. They're the users. MS didn't do them any great service by including it. MS didn't do them any great service by creating Paladium and the TCPA/TPM platform. MS didn't do anybody any great service by backdooring the OS for the NSA. Who asked for that? Certainly not the consumers. MS doesn't make most of its money from the consumers directly. It sells most copies of windows to OEM computer makers, who then charge the consumer for it. MS listens to Dell. MS listens to the Gov'ts of the world, who (combined) are the largest group of windows users in the world. MS doesn't give a rat's a** what the general population wants, even though they're the ones who have to use their s**t every day. The consumer's best interests in mind, hah. I'd trust a cougar to babysit more than I'd trust MS's best intentions for consumers.

And last but not least, when vista came out it was the LEAST stable of any NT-built version of windows prior. Does NT crash less than XP did? Yes, for now. But as the registry gets more and more complicated, it will get slower and slower, until eventually it'll need to be reinstalled. XP was the same way, when it came out it was touted as the most stable platform MS ever released, but after a year of usage, 2k boxes were beating it on average.

The top 10 list of internet application service hosts is published on Netcraft's website. #1 is using linux, as are a total of 4 of the top 10. MS has the #2 spot, and a total of 2 top 10 spots. FreeBSD and Solaris make up a few, etc.

The top 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world list is published at top500.org or so. Of those, there isn't 100% accurate data, but a very good "best guess" by the list maintainers state that 301 of them run linux, and only 1 runs windows. So much for stability arguments there.

My linux box doesn't reboot unless I do an upgrade to my kernel, or lose power. It has never locked up on me. I can't say the same of my windows box. So get your facts right before starting arguments like this. Since you don't even cite references, I consider your post nothing more than flamebait, but the reason I'm typing all this out is simply because you did at least reply to the thread defending your views.

Last but not least I apologize for the disorder and lack of structure to this post, as well as the lack of URLs - my nicely formatted one got eaten by Gaia's post system when it gave me that damn "Mode not supported" error.

Hehe, I don't post often, but when I do, it's because I have something important to say/contribute biggrin

Well honestly Linux it self is one of the most stable platforms based of Unix witch has been around for ages Linux unlike windows it is steping up all the time the one time i have had Linux crash was because i did something stupid (I tried using blender with a 4mb grafix card with no 3d support) for windowsxp recently I unplugged a device that i wasn't using and got a blue screen of death in your first post you said "For most people, this is enough to use something else. Windows. As least they have professional programmers, with an efficient OS you can just easily start up run, and be happy without ALWAYS having something to fix, or modify." if you don't mess with Linux 89% of the time it will work perfect with no changes

I would say its more of 93% of the times for Linux, in most cases that I know of Linux crashed (or died as most like to call it) because the user killed it doing something stupid that they knew they should not have done (A.K.A. user fault), Windows crashes when ever it wants to no matter if it user did something to cause it or not.

I intentionally didn't post this in the OS Debate Forum for a reason. I just wanted to state something I thought was true. I didn't want to debate in favor of an operating system in a guild about the other operating system full of people that knows their s**t, hating Windows. Didn't want to set myself up for a loss, so i didn't want the debate. I didn't put this topic here intentionally.