Why I left Linux for Windows. 2151

Indeed. I sympathise. Linux simply hasn't the huge installed base of application software available yet to compete on a level field on the desktop. AND I suspect that X windows is almost as bloaty as Windows..

will encourage ports to that platform at least..and commercial 'terminals' ...my bank certainly has such - as a way to limit the support necessary to the end users..I suspect these are preconfigured to boot up and only connect to the mainframe..all else is hidden or stripped out.

In my time installing and servicing computer systems, the cost of computer desktop in all - licenses and maintainance - rose from about £100 a year for a Syse 50 terminal backing into a Unix minicomuter, to over £3000 p.a. for a desktop PC backing into NT servers and running bloatware.

The cost benefit analysis of using Linux in organisations is established: If the software is custom written anyway - typically most users need to access a large database only, plus a little word processing, web browsing and email, and print therefrom - the advantages of a stable customizable platform in reliability outweigh the possible extra costs of setting it all up in the first place.

Its on the office desktop that Linux will make progress..even if its simply running as an X server-web browser-email client-print generator alone.

Then the commercial applications will follow. However the various flavours are an issue. What is needed is the equivalent of a standardised API so that code can run on any *86 implementation..and be readily ported between other architectires.. Unix was almost there with that..