I use Fedora as a matter of preference, but when circumstances force me to use Microsoft I do also have Windows XP.
I wish the world was open standard compatible so I didn’t have to use XP ever.
My PVR/DVD is Mythtv running on Fedora 1. My physical security system is Zoneminder on Fedora 3(Just cause I could). My firewall is IPCop, I think that is Debian based. My laptop runs Knoppix. I also have a win2000 box and a windows2003 server.
I tend to use linux for specific tasks, and windows for stuff where I can tolerate some downtime.
Stopped using Windows around 3 years ago, after dual-booting for a couple years.
Currently running RH9. When I have time, I’m gonna change over to Debian. Installing rpms is too much of a pain in the ass and dselect is awesome in comparison; I realize I should check out apt2rpm (or other package managers), but I think I like the overall Debian setup better than RedHat anyway. Also, RedHat’s network configuration programs have given me no end of problems. When I have even more time (snort), I want to install slack, gentoo, freebsd, and even attempt Linux from Scratch again (never finished it the first time around), just for the experience.
I gotta admit I’m very pleasantly surprised by the turnout of Linux dopers. Very cool.
I’m thinking about switching over to Linux completely on the laptop, I just need to finish getting wireless to work on it. I had it working and then it stopped. If I can get it tonight then I’ll probably format and reinstall tonight.
Gateway Solo 2100’s, three of 'em. 72 meg of RAM, 2 gig HD, built in/removable CD-ROM. No floppy drives, no USB ports. I’ve got a set of disks and an ethernet card for each of them. E-net card takes one PCMCIA slot, so, in theory, a USB card or some such could also be added.
Make an offer 
He did it! It works! Thank you so much! I left the post sitting on the screen so he’d see it when he came home and when I got up this morning, Linux was booted and the Scrollwheel works!! I’ll collect my hug from him later!
I’ve been working at Linux companies for about 4 years now. Just got back from three months at the SuSE offices in Nürnberg. I’m running SuSE 9.1 on my desktop, and for my job I need to be able to test on just about every RPM based distro there is.
Digital Stimulus, I work on a package manager for RPM based systems. It’s worth checking out.
That gives me warm fuzzies.
I use Linux for real work and most of my personal amusement, and I’ve reduced my total Windows ownership to one laptop that dual-boots Fedora Core 1 and Windows XP Home (which it came with). I spend 99.9% of my time in Linux, BTW: I’m keeping XP around solely for the off chance I’ll need to run a Windows program again, or need to run a website that genuinely needs MSIE and can’t be satisfied with a Firefox that lies in its user-agent field.
My desktop machine, creaky beast though it is, runs Slackware 10.0 exclusively. (It came with Windows ME, a craptastic desktop OS for a craptastic (Compaq) desktop machine. It was a happy day in my world when I purged that POS from my life, and my next task is replacing the hardware it rode in on.) I tried to dip my toes into OpenBSD on my desktop machine, but it just wasn’t interesting enough compared to the benefits of having a sane partition table wholly devoted to one OS.
If you’re a Linux geek and haven’t tried Slackware, give it a shot. You get a vanilla kernel, which means you can apply patches more easily and keep up with the OS development cycle. You don’t need to deal with RPMs or debs or any other opaque package type: A Slackware package is a gzipped tarball you can unpack into any convenient directory, and it won’t scream at you for not having every single one of the dependencies installed right then. And it’s a breeze to navigate the directory tree: Everything seems to be the first place I look, mostly under /usr. (Out of curiosity, can anyone enlighten me why Red Hat likes /usr/local/man and /usr/local/info? Nobody else seems to expect it, least of all the people who use autoconf to build Makefiles.)
Slackware is designed for the command-line user, the guy who uses his mousepad as a coaster for his coffee most of the time. 
Running Slack with the framebuffer, screen, and Emacs is fun and productive. It is an experience you simply cannot get in any commercial OS for commodity hardware.
Bah! I meant /usr/share/man and /usr/share/info.
I run dual-boot with Suse 9.1 and Windows XP. The only thing that has prevented me from going full Linux has been a couple of apps that I require for school and simply won’t run (even under WinE) on Linux…MathCAD and OrCAD.
I also have a laptop that doggedly refuses to run any flavor of Linux, even various Live CDs will lock it up tighter than an epoxied oyster, so it is still stuck with XP.
I’m in Linux class right now, does that count? grin
To the several that have mentioned it: you really should check out apt on RedHat. It’s the first thing I install on a new machine. Dramatically simplifies most installations. If you’re a GUI sort (I’m not), there’s a frontend called synaptics.
Maybe it’s just what you’re used to, but I find RedHat very easy to use. My only beef for Linux as a desktop is the lack of apps. There are some apps that I absolutely require that aren’t available on Linux. Someday…
I certainly agree with that. One glimmer of hope (something I saw raised on a specialist-software mailing list relevant to music notation stuff I do) was that having software companies having to provide Mac OS X versions is a good step on the way to Linux ports.
I dual-boot Mandrake 10.0 and XP. I was still at Linux newbie level (though had decided I loved it) when my XP crashed hard, and of course the reinstall decided it wouldn’t recognise my Linux drive. Eventually, I had more and more XP problems, and took my machine to a geeky friend to fix up. When he brought it back, he’d done all sorts of wonderful stuff to it including reviving my Linux.
The only problem was that during the time I was forced to use XP, I switched from dial-up (which I had connected to Mandrake in about two minutes) to broadband - which my Linux simply does not wish to know about. I’ve tried everything and just can’t set up broadband on Mandrake. As I use the machine primarily for online activities, I’m still stuck on XP.
I’ll need to get a grown-up to come and look at it. I miss my Linux.
Can you give me a name and/or download site? I’d certainly check it out (and give you feedback, if you want it).
Exactly what kind of broadband do you have? If you’re on cable, then it’s a simple matter of setting up your network card; which is usually on the motherboard on most newer computers. First, you’ll need to know exactly what kind of network card you have.
$ /sbin/lspci
will tell you everything about all of your PCI devices (of which your network card is one). Just look for “ethernet”; and write it down.
Now, you will need to recompile your kernel. I know it sounds dangerous and scary, but it’s really not all that hard.Here’s a pretty good guide to compiling a kernel. Just keep the guide handy (print it out, or save it to your Windows partition and open it in Linux). Also, your system will run a lot nicer with a kernel you build yourself. If you don’t feel right about doing it yourself, invite your geeky friend over.
DSL, I don’t know anything about. If it uses your ethernet port, then see the above instructions.
This is one misconception that causes a lot of anti-Linux angst. Outside of N America, broadband almost always means ADSL. And that in turn mostly means cheap USB modems. Which are unarguably a headache with Linux (to be fair, Mandrake 10 identified my Speedtouch crapware…and then told me what proprietry software to download get it to work. Anyone spot the problem?)
I have a dual boot Suse 9.1 and XP Pro at home. (I had the 64 bit version installed, which was blazingly fast, but I unfortunately have a RADEON, for which ATI does not supply a driver.) My and the SlowMinionsThinking? mostly boot into Windows for games and printing. (I don’t have the printer configured for anyone but me, apparantly.) I haven’t found something that really matches Quicken, either.
Those of you having problems should try LinuxQuestions.org. The users there are fantastic.
I’ve really tried to like desktop Linux (no arguments with it as a server OS), and have tried it out on several PCs… but Gnome and KDE are just so sluggish compared to Windows on the same PC, in my experience. Visible screen repainting, agonising waits for windows to appear, that kind of thing. Maybe because they run on top of X Windows? The inconsistent and sometimes amateurish look and feel of Linux applications is off-putting, too.