The Bad: Last night my laptop died. It bluescreened and wouldn't boot, even in safe mode. The ugly: I had to reinstall windows, which takes about 3 or 4 hours after installing Windows, removing the garbage, setting everything up the way I like, installing all my software, and all the multiple updates. The Good: While I was at it I figured I had nothing to lose so I installed Mint so now I can boot into either and I have the best of both worlds.

Glad to hear you got it working.

Win-win in my book, because anything that can get you away from the ugliness that is Windows, is a win on my scorecard.

My sentiments too except I have things I use every day that I paid for. The really annoying thing is that I've found alternatives in Linux that are free. I might see if I can run them in Wine, if I do I'll send Bill a dear John letter.

I got Photoshop 8 running in Linux. It does what I need it to, for Photoshop purposes. I can't say that for the latest CS versions. Other than a variety of stand-alone 8bf filters, etc, I don't miss much else. Including the stuff I paid for. I only have one paid program, Plaid Lite, that I can't get running in Wine. The developer even tried to help me resolve the Wine issues, to no avail. The other paid programs are either working in Wine or I have replaced them with Linux alternatives.

The downside is when the Windows users find the cool little programs and Wine can't handle them.