I have gotten flamed a few times for telling the Linux fanboys the hard truth.

If I have to hit Terminal even once with an average setup the OS is not ready for mainstream use. No exceptions. It has to work out of the box on the newest systems.

I use Linux the same way that you have: for a few applications that need a rock solid stable system. Once you get the damn thing setup, it truly is wonderful. Stable, reliable, easy to use. But getting there… Fuck that.

I think I had one clean distro install where everything worked. The PC was 7 years old when I installed it.

Mac did have a better OS than Win 95 -Win98 It was smoother and crashed less.

The difference was that Windows still ran DOS programs, 5.25" floppy disks etc… They made the decision to maintain backwards compatibility.

Mac decided to drop support regularly for what they considered “outdated software and technology.” For example: when USB drives came out they canceled support for 3.5" floppies in their OS. Machines that had a 3.5" drive installed could no longer use it. Put a floppy drive in and nothing happened.

Although Mac was a smoother more stable OS, windows had more functionality and greater compatability. Windows was a far superior product because of it. Even with the regular apearance of the blue screen of death.

Linux at the time also suffered from being a terminal based OS. Too much like DOS for way too long. I used it for specific tasks where it excelled at.

Never had good luck with anything netgear.

I have used Motorola’s and have never had one crap out on me. I just replaced my old 3.0 modem with the MB8611 and so far it is working flawlessly.