Desktops

[Tiberius]

I know that, but it doesn't make what I said untrue.

Course not, but it does matter when people talk about Linux as an OS (referring to their distro) and you try and correct them on it. You've said before you have to be a "techie" (or some similar word) to use Linux, and I fully agree with you. The point is, the kind of people who use Linux are also the kind who know that the the "Linux" part is the kernel. If someone says "Linux FTW", you can make a good bet that they know the kernel is Linux, but that they are only using the Linux name to cover the whole set of distros based off it.

... it's the way you've behaved before, why on Earth would I expect you to do it any differently? You love Linux, at times you appear to breathe Linux ... like most Linux evangelists you want to promote your favourite OS (it's what you guys do).

Yes but the point (again) is that this time I casually made a mention of a Linux desktop feature (without mentioning Linux, I just thought it was relevant). Some other user came along and said "Linux FTW" in response to it. I don't see how anything I did then was somehow promoting my favourite OS. I didn't mention Linux Mint (my distro), I didn't mention Gnome (the desktop manager that lets me use multiple desktops), I just mentioned a feature, and it was the kind of mention you call "in passing". No details or whatever.

I still don't consider myself a Linux evangelist. I just spend years with Windows constantly crashing, the times it lost all my data and I was forced to reinstall, the constant viruses even though I had virus scanning software / spyware scanners. I got to university and someone gives me an Ubuntu Live CD, it felt better, it was faster, easier to use, etc. So I don't consider myself a Linux evangelist, I consider myself "in love" with Linux. When you are "in love" with somebody, you tell everyone, same thing applies. You might call that evangelism (or just darn scary probably), but using Linux over the past 2 years has got rid of so many problems for me whilst simultaneously opening up an entire new world to explore. So it's more of a love affair than anything

Maybe you did, I just read it as you thinking MS were going to rip of another Linux idea and maybe they will but let's be honest here ... Linux has had multiple desktops for at least a decade and MS have showen no signs of adopting it so maybe it's not even on their radar.

I don't give a damn if Microsoft steal ideas. Open Source software was created precisely to share these sorts of things around, so it would be hypocritical of me to think badly if MS decided suddenly to use ext4 as a filesystem, or grub as a bootloader. I would consider these things vast improvements. MS has dominated the market for decades, and the market has reacted by producing competition that have been rather successful of late (the Apple comeback being the biggest player). MS needs to evolve, and it is already in the process of doing this when it comes to software. Just look at the evolution of I.E. Tabbed browsing took a while, but not soon after Google released Chrome, I.E 8 devs said they would implement a "incognito" mode. Competition forces MS to react, and the biggest area they need to react is their OS. I'd love to see some kind of installer for Windows that matches the Linux package manager; it would make people's life so much easier, because software would be spyware/virus free, and only a click away.

We each have our interpretation of events Adrian ... maybe it did happen your way but I happen to be a cynic and I think I hit closer to the mark than you'd care to admit.

Ditto.