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WinXP than for Linux.  In particular, network card drivers.  Virtually all 
the desktops here require a network card driver to be installed before WinXP 
can see the net at all; makes it hard to download the drivers.

We only have one desktop box where I had to find a Linux driver online, and it 
was an old one.  All the other desktops, including the ones WinXP had no 
drivers for, were supported immediately by Linux.

Also, please take a moment and read an opinion piece I found this morning:
http://www.reallylinux.com/docs/windowsoem.shtml

This guy took 156 minutes to get the base Windows XP installed on a box, where 
the PCLinuxOS distribution was installed in 26 minutes.  In the PCLinuxOS 
case, that included a full Office suite, e-mail client, and everything needed 
to be productive.  In the WinXP case, it was just the base, without on Office 
suite.

A modern distribution, like Fedora Core 6 or 7, or Ubuntu 7.04, or OpenSuSE 
10.2, is going to go in very quickly and have everything you need to roll, in 
the majority of the cases.  

More info in other replies a little later.
-- 
Lamar Owen
Chief Information Officer
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC  28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu