[hsitz]

I've heard people say this about Windows but it certainly hasn't been my experience. Since 1999 I've had nine (I think) different Windows machines, eight laptops and one tablet. They're from varied manufacturers: Dell, Compaq, Lenovo, Acer, Asus. I still have all of them and they all still run. I've never had resume problems or crashing problems on any of them. (Well, maybe I did with my 1999 Dell running Win98, don't particularly remember, there. But since WinXP all has been good. I did just buy a used Thinkpad with a bad motherboard, though. It crashes, but it won't once I replace the motherboard.)

At least for the last 10 years or so my use has involved rarely turning them off or rebooting, just close the screen and re-open to get going again, often going for weeks or months at a time between reboots. When I do reboot it's usually because things seem slow or buggy because of some problem with the browser or with Flash.

I recently converted my 2008 vintage Thinkpad X200 to Linux. Linux Mint installed quickly and without incident and sleeps/recovers fine, just like my Windows machines. I didn't do anything other than bog standard install, no search for any specific drivers.

This is all just my personal anecdote to counter other people who claim to have had lots of problems on Windows machines. Hasn't been my experience at all.

I've liked Macbooks and Macbook Airs for quite a few years, ever since I deemed that Apple was charging reasonable prices (not sure exactly when I decided that). My next laptop may be one of the forthcoming Macbook Airs, or maybe the new 12" retina Macbook that's supposed to come out soon. I expect one of the first things I'll do is install Linux. I like the Macbook hardware; OS X not as much (although OS X is okay, too).

[72deluxe]

I've never ever ever had problems with Windows machines (admittedly ones that I built myself) in 15+ (?) years. The only problems I did have were: 1. Virus (Win95.CIH if I recall correctly) 2. Bad RAM 3. Hard disk died 4. Windows XP didn't recognise my SATA motherboard (no drivers) when I upgraded my machine and just took my old IDE disk and put that on it; my problem expecting it to know about SATA (when XP was released, it hadn't been invented yet). 5. nVidia drivers were duff / GPU was faulty

So none of those problems have been actual Windows problems.

Maybe I've been really fortunate but I don't remember having any problems or deaths of items. I have never had problems with the Macs I've had either, even the minis that I installed Linux on and used as tiny convenient Linux boxes back in the day when miniITX and Atom boards didn't cut it (and when PCs with the same power as the Mac Mini were significantly larger).

I have had to clean up virus-ridden machines from others though; if you fill your machine up with junk and aren't careful browsing the web things go wrong apparently.