At the risk of going off-topic from the original thread ...
PC DOS was a no-brainer to install - basically a file copy. In fact, for most OSes before Windows that was the case.
Windows made things significantly more complicated, but it had too .. the range of support devices is mind boggling. Most people never have to worry about a Windows install because Microsoft very shrewdly did pre-install license agreements with just about every PC builder.
OS/2 and Linux for a while suffered from an installation procedures marred by bad device driver support. People doing peripherals were just not interested in niche markets. In the last five years the device driver situation in Linux improved dramatically. (Keeping a stable set of kernels helps too .. progress from 2.4 to 2.6 was slow, and 2.6 is going to be around for a long time.) OS/2 never recovered.
Obviously Linux is more complicated. But it's basically the Swiss Army knife .. on most Linux distributions you get the following:
- A true multi-user operating system. As in, multiple users on at the same time, not just taking turns.
- A real file system, and a choice of other real file systems. It's hard for a normal user to trash an install.
- A choice of GUI options, all of which can send windows to remote machines.
- A seriously good network support. At this point, I'd say the best network support of any OS out there.
- A development environment. Want to write apps in C, C++, Perl, assembler, Python, etc.? It's all there. (The Java support is weak, but can be fixed with some downloads.) Want to do OS kernel development? It's there too.
- A server environment: Apache, email, Samba, etc.
At home I run on an old Pentium 233, which until last year was my primary windows machines. It serves the following purposes:
- It's the server for a shared drive so that my Windows XP, Windows 2000, and 386-40 running DOS can all share files to the same fileshare.
- It runs telnet and FTP so that the Jr can download files over TCP/IP instead of just doing the floppy shuffle. (I haven't tried the MS LANMAN file requestor on a Jr .. it probably won't work.)
- It's my home firewall.
- I write code on it ...
- It can store and create diskette images very easily.
- In a pinch, I can run a server for the outside world to use. (I wrote a web application to do NCAA bracket picks this February and ran it on this server during March Madness .. 75 people hit it at various times during the course of the week.)
No home should be without one!