Linux just works. And when it breaks I can fix it.

I just got a new Windows machine on Monday. It is already beginning to die the inevitable death of a thousand cuts.

I installed Fedora Core 6 on my Sony laptop two weeks ago. I've had two hiccups along the way, but they were both simple to fix, after a brief Google session.

1. The only thing that didn't work out of the box was the wireless. Googling on the error message immediately gave me simple instructions for fixing it. (I just had to install a driver package for my Intel chipset; no compiling necessary.)
2. This week I used GParted (the open-source equivalent to Partition Magic) to resize my partitions. In the process, I physically changed the location of the swap partition on the hard drive, which broke the hibernate feature (which uses the swap partition as its hibernate data area). Again, a few minutes Googling the hibernate feature's error message revealed what was broken and one command typed as root fixed it.

On the other hand, I bought a new HP desktop box with Windows XP preinstalled just 5 days ago. Windows already is starting to break.

• When I click Start»Shutdown and choose either “Turn off the computer” or “Restart”, Windows does nothing. It only works the second time I make the menu choice. This behavior is consistent. I've googled various combinations of “Windows won't shut down”, and can't find this exact problem anywhere to be able to fix it. In addition to the stock software, I've added Java, Eclipse, OpenOffice, Cygwin, and SQLYog. The only new device driver is the US Robotics driver for the USB wireless stick.

The score: Linux 2, Windows 0. Adjusting for amount of time owned: Linux 4, Windows 0.

My laptop's hardware is exceptionally well-supported under Linux. Laptops with other chipsets won't be this easy. In general, laptops built around Intel's integrated display and wireless chipsets seem to work with the least amount of hassle. However, my experience is that the general principle here still holds. Once you get Linux running, it stays running, usually without your even thinking about it. If you're running a more bleeding edge distribution like Fedora, you might occasionally have stuff to fix. But mostly it Just Works.

Windows invariably dies the death of a thousand cuts. No matter what you do.

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