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Originally Posted by cjmillsnun
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That's pretty much the reason why I got into using it (Slack for me too
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I'm just coming to the end of a Computer Science degree now, when I started I had win98 installed on my machine. One of the first things that we were taught was the use of Unix and a lot of software tools like make, perl, cvs etc that just aren't really used on windows machines. So that I could practice using those at home I installed a copy of Mandrake 8.1. Believe it or not, I actually bemoaned the lack of easy to use tools so I spent most of my time in windows.
Gradually though, as I learnt more I found that I just couldn't do a lot of the things I wanted in windows, so I searched around for a good distribution and eventually settled on Slackware which offered the best stability and compatibility with my hardware. I've now got a system that is perfectly customised to my needs with some powerful IDEs for Java and C++ programming, OpenOffice for writing up documents, Firefox for web browsing and so on. If I'd stuck with windows, I think my productivity would have dropped considerably. For instance, I'm now doing a piece of C++ coursework, that needs to compile with GCC. Using Linux, I have direct access to gcc so I know that it will compile whereas those who use windows at home for the coursework keep finding errors when they transfer it across to the schools unix machines.
Another great benefit is that I can ssh into the schools machines, and with X port forwarding on, I can use those machines as if I were sitting in the lab. Also, I have a user accont on my machine set up for my g/f. She can do everything she wants like browsing and sending e-mails, she's happy because her KDE system looks pretty and I don't have to worry about her overwriting the wrong files and killing the system.
I wouldn't try to sell Linux to your average Joe punter, but if people that I know are savvy enough to use it and are moaning about certain things in their windows systems, I will point them in the direction of Linux. As for why do people use things like VMware, well sometimes there's just no alternative, and really they are good things. By running both OS's simultaneously, you get maximum compatibility and the best of both worlds...who can argue against that?