>> Having said that, from what I can tell, Linux is far more flexible, and
>> Windows has a far higher probability of actually working.
>
> That about sums it up for laptops with their extra buttons, hard-drive
> protection, thumb scanners, etc. Linux "just works" (maybe not 100% optimally,
> but you probably wouldn't notice) for a standard desktop.

This has not been my experience. I'm sure we could have a very long 
flamewar about this. (In fact, I can promise you that somebody, 
somewhere is having this exact discussion /right now/...)

In essence, my experience has been this:

* If the distro installs it by default, it'll probably work perfectly.

* If there is a package for your version of your distro, you can 
/probably/ install it. Often this works perfectly. And often this fails 
spectacularly, and it's impossible to figure out why.

* If there isn't a suitable package... you probably need to build the 
thing from source. If it's a simple item, this might work. If it has 
non-trivial external dependencies... forget it. You could waste several 
months of your life utterly failing to make it work. It isn't worth it.

For example, when you run VMware Workstation, you can install "VMware 
Tools" on the guest OS, which greatly improves integration with the host 
OS. At least, you can if the guest OS is Windows. If it's Linux, then 
this never, ever, under any circumstances, works. It's /supposed/ to 
work; they provide Linux-compatible packages. They just don't /work/.

I imagine the problem basically comes down to this: "Windows" is one OS. 
"Linux" is several hundred similar but incompatible OSes. You haven't 
got a snowball's chance in hell of writing an installer that works on 
all of them.

> But Linux has more going for it than "far more flexible". It won't be as
> compatible as Windows, but it will do what it does do (e.g., window managers)
> better[1]. Windows only wins with top-shelf software installed.

That's an interesting choice of example.

 From what I've seen, KDE is reasonable, and GNOME is reasonable. Every 
other window manager I've ever seen has been /horrifyingly awful/! I 
mean, they're literally /so bad/ that you wonder why the hell anybody 
even bothered to build the RPM for it. It looks so utterly hideous, and 
it's so difficult to use... WHY WOULD YOU BOTHER?

KDE or GNOME aren't too bad. I haven't really used KDE much recently, 
but I think I could probably live with GNOME as my actual desktop. (You 
mean, I mean, if I could actually get my software to run on Linux.) 
Either of these desktops usually has far more configuration options than 
Windows ever had. [Although I see that with GNOME 3 they've removed most 
if not all configuration options, for no defined reason...]

>>> That being said, the Win7 "Windows Explorer" is more confusing that any
>>> standard, modern Linux application I can think of.
>>
>> Really?
>
> Maybe I just don't have it configured correctly. Not in front of it atm, but
> iirc, the first screen doesn't show your file system as a connected network of
> folders. What you see is shortcuts to various folders in your file system. This
> is confusing if you want to go somewhere that doesn't have a shortcut. Two
> clicks to get to my home folder, and, in my case, my home folder is called
> "LENOVO_USER" in DOS and "Shay" in Windows Explorer. I found it frustrating at
> first.

Yeah, I'm not fond of that. Basically Microsoft is all like "why should 
you care where your file are, or what the filesystem structure looks 
like? Let me hide all that computery stuff away from your so you don't 
have to even /touch/ it. Let's just pretend that I'm in charge of your 
PC, not you..."

You can fight it, and work around it. But you can't turn it off, sadly...

> [1] This mirrors my limited experience with IDEs vs. text editors: the IDE can
> do a lot of things, but the text editor component is never as nice ime as a
> dedicated text editor.

IME, a good IDE has a text editor roughly comparable to a good 
standalone text editor. The difference is, I can press a button and 
compile my stuff, or whatever. And I've yet to see a standalone text 
editor which understands source code well enough to do really decent 
syntax highlighing, much less anything more sophisticated.

What I /will/ say is that most IDEs tend to be unreasonably slow...

> Similarly, Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, and
> Explorer shell aren't nearly as nice as their FOSS counterparts.

I don't like Internet Explorer at all. I use Firefox instead. (I tried 
Chrome, but didn't like it.)

However, I prefer Windows Explorer to any FOSS alternative I've seen. 
[Not that I've seen any that run on Windows in the first place.] It 
defaults to assuming you're a total moron who is too stupid to operate a 
computer. Once you turn all that crap off, it looks nicer and works with 
less fuss than anything else I've seen.

In Windows 7, the main user shell now basically looks like KDE or GNOME. 
I preferred the old one, but it's a mere personal preference rather than 
a strong opinion.

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