Shaping your next desktop upgrade

What's the next desktop upgrade going to be? A hardware refresh? A new version of Microsoft Office? Windows 7? Or an upgrade to all three at once? Is this mega-grade-upgrade a triple threat to the mental health of your users, or a once-in-a-decade opportunity to sort out their desktops for the better? Andrew Buss of Freeform …

[Dave 124]

Windows is Dead

The best upgrade on can do is away from Microsoft products entirely and into the open office / Linux environment. For year we have paid a premium for Microsoft products only to require constant retraining, endure their lack of internal quality control and the almost deliberate back doors for virus writers that all Microsoft products seem to embrace. Have you ever noticed how all MS products run slower over time almost forcing the migration to a newer OS/Office... etc? So skip the white papers from some MS certified hack and investigate the stable, refined and mature world of computing that Red Hat and Unbuntu provide. You may also find that simply upgrading to an open source OS actually out performs the latest MS bloatware running on a machine with twice the horsepower - I tried it and it does!

[Anonymous Coward]

You ungrateful commies!

I really wish Microsoft would stop selling software to you european left-wing hobbyists, that would learn you!! Or not because you would probably continue STEALING it. Any mature professional understands the importance of standards. And Windows IS the STANDARD. Where would we be today if Microsoft hadn't given us the Word doc format standard? Or Visual Basic? I tell you where, we'd still be learning bloody C or ML or automata theory at the university!!1!

[Adam Williamson 1]

I know what mine is

a 120GB RevoDrive. yum.

[nematoad]

Yeah

Amen to that brother, though you might have mentioned more than Red Hat and Ubuntu. There are lots of distros to suit all levels of experience like PCLinuxOS or openSUSE, and because most are available at no cost you are able to try them until you find one that suits you. Who knows you might decide that Linux from Scratch or Arch is just what you need! Take a look at distrowatch.com to see what there is.

[sage]

Next upgrade?

I'm planning my next upgrade to Linux Mint 10 when it comes out. Don't need Vista 7, MS Office, or new hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux

I too remember that glorious moment when I first tried Linux. I popped a pristine Fedora live/install cd into my laptop and pushed the power button. The machine flared to life and shortly displayed a cute and friendly penguin. Below that were the iconic words, "Kernel Panic."

It was all downhill after that. BTW, the penguin in the icon seems to be missing his horns.