Convince me

[plonq]

At risk of starting a flame war in my user comments I have shut off all screening.

In the past year or so I have had more than one person try and convince me that I would be better off running Linux as my primary operating system.

For the sake of argument, assume the following:

I am running a very stable Windows XP system which is completely current in all security patches and updates.  I am behind a hardware router/firewall, and am also running a current software firewall/anti-virus program.

I sometimes work from home and I need full compatibility with our MS Office suite (including complex spreadsheets and databases).  I also need full compatibility with our Exchange 2003 servers, and our other web-based applications.  My primary browser is Firefox (which I forgo in favour of IE when I need to access our Exchange servers because Firefox chokes on some of the features).

When I am not working, and not downloading porn stuff, I spend my time playing online games like Neverwinter Nights, and various Half-Life mods.

Your task - should you choose to accept it - is to convince me that I would be better off running Linux, or some variant thereof.  What would be my net benefit?

Assume that I am pragmatic enough that, if convinced that I would benefit from the switch, I would seriously consider doing so (maybe the latest SUSE) on my next hard drive upgrade -- which, given that I am running near capacity on my current one - should be comparatively soon.

Also note that "with a modest amount of work you can do everything you do now" is not a compelling argument because that's just change for the sake of change with no net benefit.

The floor is now yours.

Comments

[feren.livejournal.com]

Some people see the $110 USD cost to upgrade from one rev of Windows to another as reason enough to make the switch. I personally call that the cost of doing business, but I'm a freak like that, so if you can't stand the idea of shelling any money at all out to Microsoft then there's all the reason for running Linux/BeOS/FreeBSD/Solaris/whatever that you could ask for. Of course what a lot of people don't take into account is that the money that you save by not buying that new copy of Windows will be traded off in a fiscal or lost-time fashion with the hours of downtime and painstaking reconfiguration you have to spend on your PC when something goes awry under the *NX operating system, buying specific hardware that's supported by the Linux drivers, etc. It all comes out as a wash in the end, really, so I generally make the following assertion: As a desktop OS there is no compelling reason to run any flavor of UNIX on your PC unless you have a hard-and-fast requirement for an application that only runs under UNIX. Otherwise, no, there's nothing there.

Naturally people will say that I'm a Microsoft booster/Linux hater/heretic, but I say all of the above as a man who has numerous Sun certifications, has spent 6+ years working on UNIX systems for a living and continues to rely heavily on them at home and for his personal business. Each OS has its niche, the desktop/home niche is completely dominated by Microsoft -- and for now there's every reason for them to be doing so.