It all depends on what you want. I believe that MS has finally stepped up to the plate and delivered two decent OS's. I use 2000 at work, it seems to be stable, but if a user needs to use programs like Terminal Server they have to be added to the local machine as a poweruser. I use 98SE at home, because I am a gamer. If you have an always on connection to the net, I would use 2000. This would be more difficult to hack for a beginner. If you search some of my other posts, you will find that I am messing with redhat 7 ATM too, and that looks like a real OS (I have used it before, jsut not with my GF2MX).