add one more point to it. status should not be associated with challenge of use as has been done by most m$ fans and unfortunately some arrogant gnu/linux users. when you say "I can use linux even though it is so hard to use and bla bla bla", you earn high status of being a computer expert. but gnu/linux looses in the end. we can also add the status reasoning to "royal way of working on linux" for windows you only have one desktop. and dos as a command line os is very poor. this is because when windows came as a gui extention to dos, it did not stay only that. while dos had very poor functionality of single user and single process os, it also never had networking built in. but windows not just became a gui to dos, but all the high end productivity functionality came tightly coupled with windows gui and never penitrated to core dos. as a result, a mith was born that "command line is a poor country and gui means power and ease ". but as gnu os comes from the unix background, gui just remains one way of doing the tasks. but even at the shell the tasks and the way to do them is equally easy and powerful. so this is another reason for linux being status symbole. and don't forget gnone, kde etc. (no flame wars plz). Krishnakant.