hi shiv, I will like to add some thing to what Dinesh shah said. what you say is 100% true and most of the time I am actually telling people to do the same thing and point out where your most popular m$ desktops lack and where linux is actualy a proper choice. ubuntu/ debian is the best case study for this. read the email posted on this thread by rony called "debian rocks". the point however which you seam to miss is that, people often ask me 2 very major questions. 1. "we agree now that microsoft is exploiting us and on the name of upgrate, give us some features which should have come some time back and also add more new buggs to the system. but what is the Guarantee that after gaining the place on the desktop, linux wont do the same thing? what is the proof of the fact that we will continue to get the same level of stability and virus free system that you people now provide? what if linux becomes closed if redhat or any one decides to do so?" 2. "how come some thing which is better than the so called best come to us for free. how can we be so sure that some thing which works so good and is a dreem come true for any common man be free? here it is very important to tell people what is free software and how the copyleft works and what is gpl. I was on a Seminar with Dinesh Shah and he set the seminar in a right tone by starting this issue first so that when people come to know about the huge advantages of gnu/linux, they will also be rest ashured that this will be so till the end or may even get better. regards. Krishnakant.