Ebbie, PCs are easy enough to fix and I think quite reliable. If you are talking the PC box itself and its interaction with software, the real problems come in when you do something simple like fit a new soundcard, find the system crashes or does something wierd, you find plug and play doesn't work and you spend hrs trying to sort out things like interrupt conflicts... I believe Macs fair rather better in this area...

Windows is Windows, and it can be infuritating. As far as I understand it, Windows has always been a poor attempt at immitating the features of the Mac OS but it is still quite possible to have a stable and relitavely trouble free set up and the system supports plenty of capable software.

For me now, I am sticking with the PC but trying to switch my attention from Windows to Linux. I think from a "user" veiw point, Linux is not "there" yet - I mean you need to know more about the system itself to get the most from it and at least the applications I have used are not as "pretty" as thier Windows equivilants but the "core" is pretty solid and some of the free software for Unix/Linux systems such as the Apache web server are free and first class...

It will be interesting to see how it goes. The version of Linux I have now attemps to recognise new hardware and configure it (by comparison, the 1st version I tried needed me to tell it in text things like monitor refresh rates to get graphics running) and generally speaking is easier for a "non tech" person to set up. Maybe in a couple more years it could be serious competition to MS in the home computer market...

Well I can dream.

Jon