The Register to the rescue with a guide to picking a Linux distro:

One of the common complaints about Linux is that there are too many different editions (or “distributions”) to choose from, and only a hardcore nerd can tell them apart.... Well, it's true, but you can safely ignore 99 per cent of them. Welcome to The Register's guaranteed impartiality-free guide. Tomorrow, we'll tell you how to get them, burn them and set them up to dual-boot with Windows and on Wednesday there will be a guide to tweaking your new setup and getting it ready for use.

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My fav, of course:

though the Register trashes it.

Dan Gillmore says enough is enough and he's checking out of Steve Jobs' pleasure prison:

I realize that I won't persuade the many people who prefer to live in gated communities, believing they can leave any time they wish. But switching costs will only get higher over time for those who choose to live in the Apple ecosystem.



That leaves, for practical purposes, Linux, which is freely available and not controlled by any one company. Linux is anything but a walled garden. It's almost nothing but choice, with all the good and bad that comes with it. Linux comes in all kinds of flavors. Volunteers around the world, who value freedom of choice and the ability to modify what they use, have created an ecosystem of their own -- software based on the concept that you, not Steve Jobs or Steve Ballmer, should have control over what you own.

It's really the massive installed user base of MS Office. To a lesser extent, you might say Google Docs or Zoho, which some businesses are switching to the software for its lower costs and fewer administrative, deployment, and licensing hassles. Odd thing is, if Microsoft beefed up Office Live, it would be a boon for SOHO users.



That said, if you're an MS Office 2007 user, will you be upgrading to the 2010 (twenty-ten!) version? And if so, which features are compelling enough to do so?