“…Dell, the top retailer of PCs, announced recently that it
would begin selling units equipped with the operating system. The
deal helps Linux become a real contender for your desktop. Unless
you have a penchant for punishment, you don’t want to set up Linux
yourself, especially when you can install Microsoft Windows with
one click…”
“Even though Linux may never be a widely used desktop
alternative, I can see why it generates such excitement. On a
modestly powered 266MHz Pentium laptop with just 32MB of memory,
Linux was frisky, even when several applications were running
simultaneously. In several weeks of experimenting, I added and
removed software and applications; I tinkered with set-up scripts
and logons. I made plenty of mistakes, but no matter what I did,
Linux never crashed. That kind of reliability is a shocking
concept. Soon computer users might have the temerity to expect it.
Now, that should worry Microsoft”