Quite some time ago (about six months, I think), I set up one of those ultra-cheap Wal-Mart PCs up at my mom’s bookstore for the front counter. Being that Linux offered everything they needed, I figure why not? Well I just went over there today because I got a call that the PC was not working. Apparently the clerk was clicking the spreadsheet icon on the desktop and it was not doing anything.

Feeling rather surprised that it locked up, I headed down there to tackle this issue head on. On the way down, I figured that Open Office must have taken a nose dive and would just need me to issue a kill-command to fix the problem. Hysterically enough, the PC was in fact not frozen at all. Nope, someone had adjusted the monitor so that you could not see the launch button, etc. Yes, once it was fixed, everything was fine and the doc was already opened up like a zillion times already.

So what is so interesting about this? This machine has not been rebooted in six months! Yup, it acts as the print server and the main admin machine as well as for networking needs. While there is an XP Pro machine in the back, I have had fix that one a number of times (usually simple stuff) because something would crash, lock up, or whatever.

My advice is to look seriously at a Linux box where feasible from an application standpoint for your clients. While it may cut down on your income, it will certainly help you with a flood of generated referrals from happy customers!