NewsForge | Tired of supporting friends' computers? Migrate them to GNU/Linux: "A few months ago I moved from New York to Florida, leaving behind all of the friends and family that depended on me for computer support. At least once per month I used to get a phone call asking me to go to someone's house and reinstall Windows or fix some other software problem. Rarely was there an actual hardware problem -- usually all I had to do was back up some personal data and reinstall Windows. But it's impossible to do that remotely, and I had no desire to spend hours on the phone after I moved walking people through driver downloads and various other tasks related to setting up a Microsoft operating system. So, two weeks before I left, I moved several of my accidental 'clients' to GNU/Linux and helped them make the transition. The result, after six months, is an end to the annoying phone calls and a much easier time diagnosing hardware problems." Of course it could be that these people no longer considered him their friend. But then, who needs friends that insist on running Windows! I have only one sample point so far. I GAVE someone a computer with Linux pre-installed, updated, and configured with useful applications such as Open Office. They reformated the machine with Windows and gave the machine to someone else. Number of times they booted Linux just to see what it was like: 0 I'm debating whether to try this experiment again. But this is my basis for the "screw-em" attitude.