I've used both in the past. If you just need basic documents and simple
spreadsheets they work very well. In a previous job I had 40-50 Linux data
entry kiosks on the production floors. They each has a Gnumeric spreadsheet
that had a number of common functions that the printing press operators
used. Before the Linux kiosks they were using Windows and Excel/Word with
software licenses of dubious origin. Linux replaced Windows and AbiWord and
Gnumeric replaced Word and Excel. Worked beautifully for at least 7 years.
Over time the Linux kiosks started getting replaced with Windows kiosks as
the hardware turnover solved the licensing issues for us. Office staff got
the new computers and their old computers got reconfigured for the data
entry/web app access kiosks. My job responsiblities had expanded
significantly over the 7 years since the implementation. Updating the
configuration to use a modern Linux distribution (mostly for hardware
support) was going to take too much of my time compared to pushing the task
off to the junior level Windows admins, who were also too swamped to learn
Linux. Side effects of running lean on your IT staff...little if any
training and development time.


-- 
Andrew S. Zbikowski | http://andy.zibnet.us
IT Outhouse Blog Thing | http://www.itouthouse.com
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