As a second year IT student at a two year college, I get a lot of questions thrown at me. And since I'm actually GRADUATING at a school where graduation is, sadly, the exception rather than the rule (there are students who've been here over 5 years...as FULL TIME students...who still have not gotten a degree), my opinion among the IT students is given more weight than it should.

The most frequent question I am asked is about my opinion on Windows Vista. One of the students asked me what operating systems I have at home. I told him that I have one Windows 2000/XP dual boot and 3 Ubuntu boxes: one with 6.06, the other two with 7.10. I leave off the varying number of older computers I use to play with Windows 95/98, NT, and Novell. But my preference for Linux becomes apparent pretty quickly.

But when I purchase my new laptop, it will have Vista on it (actually, I'm getting an XP Pro build and will run Vista on a virtual machine). That leads to the inevitable question, "why?"

My answer is simple: Because in this field, it's not about what I want. It's about what the market wants. I could play with Linux all day long, but at the end of the day I'll find my employment options limited. In the end, I need to be competent with whatever operating system the end user has, or I'll quickly find myself unemployed and tinkering with my machines while living out of someone's basement. Don't believe me? Check the number of postings for someone competent in Novell. While they're there, they are filled as quickly as they post, because the market is extremely limited.

So I am, as the title states, a Linux fan in a Windows world. And why wouldn't I be? A mechanic who has a love for Chevy has to work on a lot of Fords. An appliance repairman who is partial to Maytags spends a lot of time on Kenmores. You do what the client demands.