"Graphics professionals should probably stick with
Windows because they will notice the difference in performance. For
games, I would also stick with the dual boot for now. While some
titles are available for Linux, most still require Windows.
QuickTime using Win4Lin, while good enough for playback at low
resolution, is not going to cut it for 640x480.
The kernel release schedule is also something to key your eye
on. With Linux, it is very important to have a kernel that is
up-to-date, lest the script kiddies use your box for
denial-of-service attacks and other forms of badness. Since Win4Lin
is working at a very low level, you need to be using one of the
'enabled' kernels that can be downloaded from the web site.
NeTraverse has just released enabled kernels for Red Hat Linux 7.2,
so it looks like they lag behind the distributions by about two
weeks. However, their most recent patch for the source at
kernel.org is for the 2.4.9 Linux kernel, originally released on
August 16. They really could be doing a better job on their release
schedule for patches to the 'official' Linux kernel.
Finally, for those of you who have been waiting for office
applications to materialize before giving Linux a try, wait no
more: Win4Lin is just what you have been looking for. You really
can use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint inside Linux, and with a GHz+
machine, you should not really notice any performance problems for
these applications."
