In spite of all the huffing and puffing, there's still no match for that other OS and its legions of captive software makers and so-called educational institutions acting as unpaid promoters. The 0.05% of computers (or whatever the % is) with working Linux systems is divided amongst umpteen distros, most of which consist of a developer or two with an itch and an oversized ego, all of who spend most of their time rehashing the same software so that it will work on their OS. Don't kid yourselves.

There's hasn't been a new release of sodipodi since 2004 or so. Inkscape is a fork.

Linux is still about choice.
The problem is that stuff like GIMP are huge, and have a lot of developers.

But dont tremble... every application has a weakness.

Let me try to analyze Gimp. IMHO, these are the weaknesses:

- Not intuitive window management (I like adobe photoshop's way more,
just to clarify though, i have adapted to Gimp, and did about 30
tutorials. Its not really a big issue anymore, but I still prefer
the photoshop way)
- No ruby bindings! (hehe thats for me, but spoken more generally,
no command line interaction like imagemagick has)
For automation, I always prefer imagemagick/RMagick
- Script-Fu: Sorry, but I wont learn a (lisp(crap)syntax)
Yes, its not the only way ok, but it simply TURNS ME OFF


That being said, I find inkscape in many regards a lot better,
but unfortunately, it really lacks some features which I
like in Gimp.
And to also state it, GIMP is a decent software

Its just not THAT perfect, and there really is not so
much HIGH QUALITY choice available (but maybe that will
change one day, i dream of a component/modular system,
where we can use our own kinda gimp software/structure)

I really like Suse Enterprise but not enough to pay $50 a year. I switched Ubuntu and I am very happy with it. I tried about 10 different distributions before I settled on Ubuntu. I even took notes. Maybe I should post them for the next guy.

Open Office is great because of its compatibility with MS Office. I do prefer Opera to Firefox but that is just a personal choice.

Great poll!

Another thing is that people keep going on about choice in these forums. It is actually funny to see how things turn up. One day everybody against Microsoft and their products until a poll like this shows up. Then everybody starts turning into critics of open software they cheered on in the first place. Choice in Linux exist all the time. You choose the distro you want, you choose to run Linux instead of windows and heck if you complain so much about things turning out the way they do why not just switch off the pc, that way you don't have to look at all the more popular products. Reasons why these products are popular is due to a few reasons I think which is quite common. All distros want to be the leading distro. Some are sponsored like fedora, suse etc and others are not i.e. Debian. With all the new distros comming up all the time they are just becoming more alike. All distros automatically install most used programmes, like gimp, and most software in the pole on a typical installation. New users use it and become comfortable with it. As a matter in fact linux is picking up speed against windows which I like. But it is mostly because of these programmes. People used to windows turning on a linux machine and not finding their feet due to no "standard" program for comparison to a commonly windows app will say heck that's crap... what is all this linux hoo haa about? It is only natural that these programs have positions like they do. Remember most people use windows. Why? it's easy you click a button and everything works. Linux however in some cases is not just about pushing a button. A prog works on one pc not on the other. And let's not even get into compiling,

when I just started using linux I got so many errors and then to find all the requirements which are unavailable to get from the distro cd and then on top having to compile those. A new user from windows would think it's insane.
So there is your choice. You run those apps then start venturing out in free time see what else is interesting. I bet most people saying they use other lesser know programmes only use those cause they sit home all day and don't have anything better to do, but when the time comes to get something done NOW, they turn to those very apps they complain about winning poles. Besides lots of small apps come and go. It's just the way it is. Use linux install what you want & enjoy YOUR installation. That is all that matters. Who cares what programmes others use. What is good for one isn't always good for all. take the latest wars for example "wink wink"

dear friends I was ill for 1 year to continue 4 the intouch 2 be in with u

It would be nice to see SeaMonkey in there one day. You nearly always use a browser and a mail & newsgroup application at the same time anyway. Running one instance of the gecko rendering engine instead of two saves lots of memory. I also fine that SeaMonkey is much more customisable than FF/TB, but maybe I'm just used to it though. You know it makes sense! :-)

As a matter of fact, one could not compare Inkscape to Gimp. Inkscape is a vector graphics program similar to Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. Gimp, on the other hand, deals with bitmap images and can be compared to Adobe Photoshop or Corel Photopaint. As such, both should actually belong to different categories -- vector and bitmap graphics.

For more info on the distinction: http://www.prepressure.com/image/bitmapvector.htm

I like it,really!

I looked at the poll page....TALK ABOUT CHOICE! ...it's overwhelming for a newbee...

What would really be helpful is two or three categories of polls: one for the old pro's, maybe another for the less experienced, and what would be helpful for those like me (that maybe are not wanted here anyhow)one for those newbee, non-geeks that have actually entered the linux world. (I have not entered it yet and still am not sure about the choice...)

hmm..i wud have better luck next time...



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Electricity suppliers
Cheapest broadband

Vista came nowhere.

Next year can we have server distro of the year

Server Distro was in the poll... see results in this thread.

Cheers