> Imagine a world where all of the cool software was written on Windows, and the Linux folks had to be happy using Wine to run it at all. Is this a joke? It so

> Imagine a world where all of the cool software was written on Windows, and the Linux folks had to be happy using Wine to run it at all. Is this a joke? It sounds like it could be, but if it is, I can't tell. That was the world before ~2005. The use of Windows has always been predicated on the notion that for-pay software is the default, and that, as a business model it is desirable. Linux has always been the opposite. Thus, as Linux users, we get the attention of open source developers -- usually people who are developing things about which they are passionate. We also have to suffer through version <1.0 (often, <<1.0). The "cool" software, much of it, is still Windows only (or maybe Windows and Mac). The Gimp and Inkscape are pale imitations of Photoshop and Illustrator. Video editing that is as good as Premiere or Final Cut? Forget about it. And forget about modern gaming too. All of that has to be run with Wine, if it can be run at all. Driver support is minimal as well -- Nvidia only last week released a beta driver which begins to address bugs which arise in Gnome 3, while introducing new ones. Imagine if that were the case with Windows: your graphics driver did not operate properly with your desktop shell and you have to wait for a new driver. So be happy that you have Cygwin, which can almost perfectly implement a Linux environment. Wine only occasionally runs a program well enough to be usable.