the reason that i am interested in linux is that i am sick of the half-assed coding, mundane, not so powerful windblows. yes it serves a purpose for some (and i certainly get a lot of stick from friends because of my penguinian persuasion), however, i find that many "tools of the trade" are already within linux/unix. i do not have to buy thirdparty stuff. many extra bits are freely d/l-able. (and when leading a "scouting mission" on a network, linux quite frankly kicks the pants off of any windblows box!) there are many many different flavours of linux to choose from too, which means in turn that maybe for a specific task, you could switch to a particular type/version that is better suited to the task in hand. blah blah...(list is near endless!) ____________________________________________________________ Get 25MB, POP3, Spam Filtering with LYCOS MAIL PLUS for $19.95/year. http://login.mail.lycos.com/brandPage.shtml?pageId=plus&ref=lmtplus