I would like to see some real world comparisons.  End-to-end comparisons 
of real tasks like operning spreadsheets, calculating data and 
spell-checking a 300 word letter.  The kinds of tasks a real person migh 
encounter in the course of a real day.  Oh, some timing on web surfing 
might be good too.  I know my free cell works better and faster on Linux 
than it does on my wife's indenitcal 'doze 98 machine, and I have far 
fewer lock-ups, but as far as surfing or anything else, it is too close 
to call.

One comparison I can see right off is the availablility of drivers for 
hardware.  EVERY time I buy some hardware without checking to see of it 
is compatible, I regret it.  Xerox seams to be the worst.  Customer 
service does not return Email or phone messages when you tel them you 
have linux.  I guess they only consider  'doze customers to be real 
customers. 

Anybody know if there are Linux drivers for the xerox m750 workcentre?  
I have looked and looked, but haven't found anything yet.  I would just 
write it off and buy another printer, but I can't afford it right now, 
and the old HP I had been using is shot.

Jonathan Hutchins wrote:

>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jeremy Fowler [mailto:jfowler@westrope.com]
> 
>> Well MaximumPC Magazine ...
> 
> 
> .... never saw a Microsoft product it didn't love.  
> 
> Performance?  Compared to what?  XP on 1+ GHz out-performs 95 on a P200,
> sure.  That's how MS has been selling it's "performance improvements" all
> along.  But there's just no way that much code bloat can run faster or
> better than NT4 or 95 on equivalent hardware.
> 
> If you need real, side-by-side performance tests, several have been
> published by "real" reviewers including Infoworld.  I've got 'em here
> somewhere, I'll post links.
> 
> Relevant to Linux, I don't know if I've seen any tests comparing XP to, say,
> Mandrake 8.1.  Perhaps we could come up with some relevant tests?  The only
> thing I can think of right off would be to compare Netscape on Mandrake to
> Netscape on 95 and on XP.  (Does 4.7 run on XP at all?)  What else could we
> compare?
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
At 20, I was liberal, because I had nothing to lose and so much to gain.
by 40, I was conservative, because I had so much to lose and so little to gain.
Isn't it amazing what 20 years of hard work and experience will do for ones' point of view?