On the Microsoft vs. Linux note, I do have something to add to that.
I've installed CentOS (RHEL) on an old P3/500 MHz/256 Mb Ram system.
Ran faster than W2K did, but slower than WXP Pro. Now it houses Gentoo,
a 'rolled-my-own' kernel, and xfce4.

My 'big' computer is a P4/3 GHz/1.5 Gb Ram with WXP Pro on it - for now.
Would you believe Firefox runs faster on the P3/500 Gentoo than it
does on the P4/3GHz with WXP? It's still not an apples to apples
comparison, because I don't have all the software installed on the
Gentoo system that I need (scanning, printing, image/video editing).
But with the way Linux is built, additional software doesn't drag down
the machine performance the way how MS OS's do.

Gentoo is a pain even for someone with a little linux experience. But
it's totally worth the time and aggravation

Aragorn wrote:
> On Saturday 28 January 2006 20:24, BlackTopBum stood up and spoke the
> following words to the masses in /alt.os.linux.gentoo...:/
>
>> Xander said something like a ...
>>
>>> Awesome! /dev/input/mice worked.
>> Excellent ... ran into the same problem myself when they, the dev
>> guys, made the switch to mice from mouse.
>>
>>> I realize now how much I don't know about linux after installing
>>> gentoo. 5 years of hp-ux, with a few of years of redhat (with the
>>> nice gui installer) tacked on top of that, and I feel rather . . . .
>>> . humbled.
>> Guess it's been 5 or 6 years now for me since the escape from MS and
>> I'm *always* learning something new. That's part of why I enjoy Linux
>> so much. And, yes, keeps me humbled too. Some of these posters - e.g.
>> J.O Aho, Aragorn, Bit Twister to name a few - are phenomenal. 8p
>
> Thanks for the compliment! ;-)
>
> I don't consider myself as someone who escaped from Windows, because I
> was never really trapped by it. I've only used Windows 3.0 and 3.1 for
> a meager six months, and pending the public availability of OS/2 2.0,
> which was a genuine 32-bit operating system, and thus in my opinion a
> much better candidate for my i386 PC.
>
> After having used OS/2 for about five years, I needed a new computer,
> and as my friends were all on Windows 95 and there was no such thing as
> cable internet here back then, I had to find a way to create compatible
> documents and be able to open theirs. Yet, I also didn't want to go
> back to the stone ages and use Windows 95 - which was only a tighter
> integration between DOS and the Windows GUI - on a Pentium II.
>
> I was actually looking for a UNIX operating system, as I believed - and
> still believe - that this is the best possible system architecture.
> Yet, proprietary Unix was extremely expensive.
>
> I hadn't heard of FreeBSD yet, and I was under the impression that
> GNU/Linux was still very much beta stuff. And like I said, I didn't
> have an internet connection. So I made a compromise and did something
> that was quite rebellious in 1997: I purchased a copy of Windows NT
> 4.0.
>
> I've used NT for about two and a half years, and the last month of that,
> it was in dual-boot with a Linux Mandrake 6.0 PowerPack that I had read
> about and found in a software shop. I used GNU/Linux more than I did
> NT, but as I had paid for NT and for Office97, I still wanted to hold
> on to it.
>
> On January 1st 2000, NT refused to boot up and dumped a blue screen on
> my eyes, despite the Y2K updates and the Service Packs. GNU/Linux
> still worked fine, so I stuck with that.
>
> When I then again went to order a new machine - a Pentium III - I
> originally planned on installing it in dual-boot again, but with
> Windows 2000 this time, as I still had my Office97 and wanted to use
> that. I'm not much into "consume & dispose of", hence that original
> decision.
>
> On the other hand, I was ordering a serious machine, capable of 24/7
> uptime - it had 384 MB (Rambus) RDRAM and a U160 SCSI hard disk - and I
> was wondering what the Hell I would need two operating systems for.
>
> So after thinking about it for about a day max, I decided to drop the
> operating system that least appealed to me and stick with GNU/Linux.
> Technically, it was what I had always wanted - a UNIX system - and it
> brought me the acquaintance with the wonderful concepts of Free & Open
> Source Software.
>
> I have to date never regretted that choice for as little as a minute. I
> was already exclusively using GN/Linux when cable internet became
> available here in town, and I then joined the newsgroups - not to ask
> questions, but to share what I had learned about the system with those
> who were still new to it.
>
> Despite what many people believe, the typical Windows PC market is only
> a small figment of IT. Serious IT professionals have always stuck to
> UNIX systems, for all of the obvious reasons. And that is where I now
> feel I belong, eventhough I may by far not have the knowledge that
> everyone thinks I have.
>
> What I can say is that by using GNU/Linux, and by not being afraid of
> reading the /man/ pages and the /HowTos,/ I have come to learn a lot
> more about IT than I had learned in all the years before that.
>
> GNU/Linux literally has changed my life in many ways. I've gotten to
> know people I would otherwise never have met, I've gotten to learn more
> about networking and operating system technology, I've become a player
> in some areas where I would never have dreamed of going before - such
> as having my own domain and running an IRC network with a couple of
> buddies - and I've become a genuine GNU/Linux and FOSS advocate.
>
> I dislike Microsoft - I really do - and I dislike Windows as an excuse
> for an operating system. Both of those dislikes however did not
> originate from my experiences with either Windows NT or Microsoft, but
> from seeing them for what they really are, now that I know all that I
> know. ;-)
>
> Of course, I have also learned a great deal from simply reading the
> posts of others. In /alt.os.linux.mandrake,/ this used to be Peter T.
> Breuer - he doesn't subscribe to the group anymore because he doesn't
> quite have the patience to deal with newbies, but you can still read
> him on /comp.os.lnux.misc/ and a few other groups.
>
> Here in /alt.os.linux.gentoo,/ I find that J.O. Aho, Arthur Hagen, Ben
> Measures, Paul Bredbury, as well as yourself and a few others appear to
> be very helpful. ;-)
>
> I also see the phenomenon - and I see my own evolution in that - of
> people who are already more or less knowledgeable about GNU/Linux
> joining a newsgroup, answering loads of questions from others, learning
> more themselves, seeing those "others" grow more knowledgeable, and
> then those very smart people from the beginning are getting more and
> more replaced in the flurry of replies by those who have in the
> meantime learned so much more.
>
> And then the newbies they are replying to become more knowledgeable and
> start sticking around to help other newbies, while the /elders/ move on
> to more challenging groups, or just leave Usenet altogether. You get
> to miss the /elders,/ but it's nice to see how the community grows...
> ;-)
>