Article: Are You Ready for Linux 4903

You've undertaken a good cause - to spread the good news; however, here is my critique of your methods:

"...have been refining it." leave out the "high degree" for now. premature imposition of a conclusion by the author, prior to presenting the evidence.

How is the "shared core" factoid relevant to the persuasion to use linux?

I am among millions of happy and productive command-line users, who often accomplish things much faster with CLI than with GUI. Heck, there are thousands of effective things you can do with CLI that you simply CANNOT do in GUI. Introducing Linux to a newbie and imposing a GUI-bias upon him-her is simply not fair. (For all one knows, that newbie can be an undiscovered CLI ace!)

this is confusing; you label "steps" with letters of the alphabet, then later use the letter labels to refer to storage devices (floppy, harddrive, etc.).

Lest they accuse you of gender bias - group Jane with privates, for read and write access, and have Tom and Harry with read-only :-))

... with the files and processes

against instrusion and one's own missteps

the "not necessarily" adds vagueness and ambiguity here

... it will not jeopardize Tom and privates

...This inherent permissions scheme ensures that any damage made or incurred by a particular user is local to that user's environment...

This inhibits the spread

...pbuttword-protected...

(hyphenate adjectival noun-verb compounds)

a virus targetING Mandriva

(simplify syntax)

This is British grammar, right? (plural verb form with collective noun)

E.g., The team are here. The orchestra have arrived. Ubuntu have been kind enough...

Linux boot loaders, such as lilo and grub, are capable of overriding BIOS settings for hard drives.

All computers have sequences... in fact, everything digital involves sequences - that's just too sweeping a notion all by itself. You need to qualify it.

... Microsoft's OS's label data storage devices with letters of the alphabet (drive A:, drive C:, drive D:, etc.) Unfortunately, the letter buttigning scheme is often awkward and unaccommodating). Linux has an entirely different approach to device naming and labelling, one that avoids the pitfalls of the one used by MS...

you delve into so much technical detail without showing how these details fit into the broader context...

You start out with a description of Linux but here you seem to provide installation instructions ... but, ultimately, the article is neither.

did you mean "check out" ?

... be sure to check out a few excellent applications bundled with most of today's distributions ... applications like OpenOffice, which is as powerful and comprehensive as Microsoft Office ...

Not sure about the sequence above... Perhaps:

Chances are - once you've tried Linux, you'll want to keep it

Again, if your purpose is to persuade, say something like

.. a great many strides have been made to make Linux OS compatible with peripheral devices, such as printers, palm pilots, cameras, modems, etc. For compatibility information you may want to visit...

... and have the two systems coexist as boot alternatives ...

Make sure the hard drive

... How much space does one need? Well, that depends on ... normally....

(research around for some averages)

... take extra care when parbreastioning the drive; this is normally a risky procedure (regardless of what operating system you are using!) ...

Hmm... I buy brand new, latest and greatest hard drives and hardware forMYlinux systems - the best for the best!

good anecdotal information, characterizing the dynamics out there! But you need to fit your various pieces better.

you and your obsession with GUI (or, should i say, neglect of CLI)

most people can deal with the term "code"

rephrase: the latest wave of viruses, adware, spyware and trojan horses which hit Microsoft users over the past year and a half, has, for the most part, bypbutted linux systems.

Are you advocating a mixed (microsoft-linux) setup, then?

--- Your breastle entails such a bold buttertion and question... you should try to refer back to that overarching idea, as you present your various pieces.

my $.02

andrew