Ever since my university days I've been trying to get rid of Windows.
I hated it's flakyness, I hated bluescreens. But Linux 2.2 distributions weren't particularly useful, and hey they didn't play games, which came out mostly for Windows.
And although Linux desktops have been getting better over the last 7 years since I first tried out Gnome 0.2, Windows has been getting better at a fast enough rate that it's still "another 6 months" till I try again.
Of course, on the server it's a total non-issue, and I've been a happy and contented Debian Linux user for over 5 years now. And since I write Perl for server applications, it's all good there.
Of course, the odd way I have my life set up means while I write Perl all day, I don't actually have Perl installed on my development machine half the time. I just load and save straight onto a samba share on the debian server using an editor (Ultraedit) that knows how to work with Unix newlines transparently and how not to break them.
And it's save, refresh. And it all works. Or for non-web there's PuTTY, which is just about perfect.
In a (Perl) world where most of the elite run on FreeNIX or (lately) Mac OS X, my persistance in sticking with Windows means I get to be the focus of the odd jibe or two (mostly from Macites who've been drinking the koolaid a bit too much)
To which my continuing response is...
WORKSFORME
Windows (200o and XP) doesn't crash for me.
Once you turn the eye candy turned off, the GUI is fast as hell, crisp, clean, and without any distracting shiny coating like Mac has.
I use Firefox instead of IE, Thunderbird instead of Outlook, and OpenOffice instead of Office. The Microsoft applications suck way more than the main OS does.
Without those in use, it turns out I don't need virus scanners either. I haven't got a virus on my main 2000 desktop ever. I install a virus checker every 6 months or so to double check, but it's been a clean result every time (except for one scary instance that turned out to be Skype talking to some weird places).
So I stick to the status quo, and what WORKSFORME.
Except today, I finally got my first bluescreen on my Windows XP laptop. Kernel panic. Completely out of the blue. Ouch. Something in atapi.dll... hmm... oh dear.
Reboots ok, but just in case I'll just copy off those photos I pulled off the camera but won't be backed up for another 4 hours.
Waiting waiting... freeze. Loud hard-drive CLUNK noise. Crap.
And so ended the life of my laptop hard drive, holding three months of photos, 4 hours before the backup cycle.
So while I'm somewhat pissed that Windows doesn't use the SMART stuff in the BIOS properly yet (or so it would seem) at least I can continue to say....
Windows. WORKSFORME.
I only wish I could say the same about hardware :(
