I've been asking 'why' a little recently

The 'why' is about why I'd like to build a Linux PC?

I already spend more than enough time on the PC at home. The aspect of having a box that's relatively impervious to viruses and M$ automatic update is nice, but does that justify it? Also Linux is hardly the ultra-stable OS that it used to be - do something wrong - BOOM!

Monkey curiosity?

Surfing without leaving (too many) traces?

I dunno. It's been a tennet of computing faith that one day I'd do it, yet here I am, more than 10 years down the road and still convinced Windows XP is actually THE best operating system for normal home use right now. Mac-users - you have the nicest hardware, even if it's too expensive and a bit slow. Sure I envy you for garageband, but I can get by with Audacity if I don't need to fiddle with your widgets.

So I'm still wondering about Linux.

The box upstairs for watching DVDs is multi-boot with XP, 98 (for games - great older games environment) and mandriva pro 2008. Mandriva will import windows documents and settings, but can't manage drivers for my wireless network dongle and the NDIS wrapper didn't wrap. Being chicken (and sensible) I'm not going to partition the drive on the downstairs PC (linux-created partitions don't always seem reversible either). Ben was going to provide an old 60-80Gb HDD, but it hasn't turned up.

So I sit on the fence.