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Ofiice suite = OpenOffice.... or Abiword + Gnumeric + Scribus ...
Chat = GAIM
Creative Suite/Studio 8... dunno, never heard of it.
Office 2003 and Messenger Live thru Wine.... WHY ?
Nero can easily be replace by the vastly superior K3B

Ofiice suite = OpenOffice.... or Abiword + Gnumeric + Scribus => Bloated, unfinished, buggy and non-compatible with Microsoft Office.
Chat = GAIM => Missing audio/video, custom emoticons and incredibly buggy with constant dropping of conntection to MSN and AOL, sometimes failing to even log in on occasions.
Creative Suite/Studio 8... dunno, never heard of it. => What rock have you been hiding under - http://www.adobe.com
Nero can easily be replace by the vastly superior K3B => Buggy, bloated, and prone to cashing over stupid little things, a tonne of stuff still in a state of flux, any bugs reported are ignored by the maintainers.

Which is completely irrelevant; until the consumer can run the same applications they can on Windows, on Linux, Linux will always play second fiddle to Windows on the desktop.

You use it as an argument point and still fail to see that it is exactly this that could easily lead to the death of OS technology innovation. Wishing that there should be only one app [i.e. for a task] and only one os is just insane. Windows being present in such numbers doesn't mean it's 42 [i.e. the answer to everything...]. And, for that matter, I think just the opposite in the desktop subject: it's especially the home desktops where Linux also is an alternative, since home users need much less interoperability and can adapt and change more rapidly and easily than e.g. a large company which based its entire fortune on a Windows and MSOffice platform for thousands of computers and recruited Windows-only workers who know only one app suite.

And, if Linux remains the second, that's no big deal, we're happy to use our so-called second-class OS, since it fits our needs (and sometimes philosophy and view of the software arena) very well, and, in the end, this is the __only__ thing that matters.

It isn't MY responsibility to move to Linux then PLEAD to developers to port their applications to Linux

Why on earth would someone mentally sane want to move to a platform that doesn't have the application you seek ? It would be just stupid. Use the platform that can run that application, and only consider switching iff apps you need [note, I didn't write "the app you need", I wrote "apps you need"] to achieve your goals are available. But, it's also somewhat ignorant to not want to learn using other apps than the one you got used to.

Get a decent office suite, chat application, Creative Suite/Studio 8, Microsoft Office 2003 and Windows Live Messenger (under faultless wine operation), nero, and other stuff, all working on Linux, out of the box

What the friggin hell would we want that ??? Linux is not a damn Windows clone, for chirsts sake. If you want Windows, use Windows, why on earth do you raise demands for a totally different OS to fully support applications _not_ written for that OS ? Man, I gotta get a beer.

support for WMA out of the box as well

I just think your wish and love for closed source, closed formats, Windows applications and Windows itself is too strong for you to consider switching. It's no use to install a Linux distro for the sole purpose of complaining about it not being Windows.

Well, it's not, because it's Linux.

And, if Linux remains the second, that's no big deal, we're happy to use our so-called second-class OS, since it fits our needs (and sometimes philosophy and view of the software arena) very well, and, in the end, this is the __only__ thing that matters.

So how about you guys stop ramming your lifestyle down my my throat; I'm sick and tired that everytime I say, "I'm happy with Windows, and Linux would have to get [list of requests] for me to move", I'm apparently the one with the 'problem' and should change to suite your political leanings.

WMA can be made available for Linux, its just that distributors are cheapskates and are unwilling to licence the format off Microsoft, just as these same cheapskates would rather not pay royalties to fraunhofer so instead making mp3 support difficult for the end user.

So take your pick, you either are making a product for end users, which in that case you have to listen to end users, like myself, and what I want to see in the OS, OR you simply continue using Linux, and happy that those who want to use Linux, use it because of a choice they made, rather than it being evangelised at every moment.

Reminds me of the evangelicals, only 4% of hardcore evangelicals actually continue on later in life; it seems to be the case for Linux users, they get into the Linux buzz, and when they hit their 20s, they realise that the world doesn't revolve around computers, it revolves around solutions, and that half their life so far has been based around trying to get a damn thing working rather than simply admiting it wasn't up to the task.

I used FreeBSD for many years before moving back to Windows, and if Wine support was 100% feature complete, and all my applications worked out of the box, I"d be running it now - so if you want a conclusion, once Wine is up to scratch, I'll move, until then, Linux is completely unworkable for me.

"Get a decent office suite, chat application, Creative Suite/Studio 8, Microsoft Office 2003 and Windows Live Messenger (under faultless wine operation), nero, and other stuff, all working on Linux, out of the box, along with all my hardware - full acceleration out of the box for my graphics card, and support for WMA out of the box as well, then I might change."

* Decent office suite: OpenOffice 2.0.4
* Chat application: kopete (does all relevant protocols)
* Creative Suite: ???
* Windows Live Messenger: ? Why would you need that? See "chat application"
* Nero: K3b. And don't start with that it's not Nero. there were times where all people used EasyCD creator, and now people use Nero. Adapt! It's just a program.
* WMA: it's Windows! Media somthing. See where it says Windows? Stop using WMA if you plan to use Linux someday. There are MP3 and OGG. Better use OGG if you want to be free. It works on any platform.

Sure you only use one brand of clothes, and only like one brand of cars, and watch only Paramount movies, and... you see the point.

WMA can be supported out of the box; it is the fact that Linux distributors are a butch of cheapskates unwilling to fork over cash to Microsoft to pay for the format - TurboLinux does, too bad they make purchasing their operating system next to impossible.