Dear Tim, In response to your letter I would like to say that I run a few gentoo systems. I undetstand the importance of a good fire well land I make sure that my packages are up to date. But when you talk about having "poorly configured linux box" I am very curious as to would you would consider a very good configured box. Message: 6 From: "Keller, Tim" <Tim.Keller@stratus.com> To: "'wlug@mail.wlug.org'" <wlug@mail.wlug.org> Subject: RE: [Wlug] Fw: RE: show Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 09:36:10 -0400 charset="iso-8859-1" Reply-To: wlug@mail.wlug.org Well, I kind of took it on this tact. My wife really doesn't care about linux, nor windows. When she sits down in front of the computer, she just wants it to work as expected. Past that, she plays a few games, but mainly it revolves around surfing the web, reading email, etc. With that said, I think that the argument for linux has to be made on a couple fronts. Firstly, cost and freedom. Explain to people why linux is a better choice than the perceived "free" copy of windows that came with their computer. I think we should definitely explain the microsoft tax. Second, security. Make it a point of explaining that linux is impervious to the many worms and viruses that are running around the internet. Though we should also caution people that a poorly configured linux box is just as bad (if not worse) than an bare unpatched windows machine. Past that, we should talk to the availability of software for linux. Later, Tim. -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .