I run Poser both in Windows (for the real big memory-crunching jobs), and in Linux (under Win4Lin emulation.)

Poser runs fairly well in Linux, but there are two caveats:

1. you have to get and use Win4Lin (available at www.netraverse.com for $99.00 ) - this will require that you have win98 or WinME to run within the shell as well.

2. while it runs great under Win4Lin emulation, it will only let you allocate 128MB of RAM to it, which means that for anything more complex than a single V3 character or two V1/V2 Vickies, things are gonna bog down a bit. It doesn't bother me too awful much because I can just create the single character, get it posed, then export it as an .obj file for Maya import (I have Maya 4.5 Academic for Linux, which costs only $450US)

I agree that it is silly to do an all-or-nothing approach, especially if you're not yet comfortable with how a UNIX-like filesystem runs things. However, you can have the safety and security of Linux, but still run Poser: Just set up a dual-boot system.

Stick in a second hard drive and put Linux on that. keep your current Windows partition, but remove the modem/network card/whatever so that it has no networking capabilities. That way, your computer is perfectly safe in Windows (no one gets in, no one gets out), and for mail/web/whatever, just choose the Linux OS when you boot, where the modem/NIC is active and you can surf in safety.

As for me, I finally managed to score a Macintosh w/ OSX, which I will park all my 3D/CG apps on, while my main desktop PC will go full-on Linux (Mandrake 9.1), with perhaps a tiny (say, 10GB) Win2k partition (with NO networking) to test some occasional C/C++ proggies and stuff with.

"The point is that with simple measures a Windows box can be safe."

As much as I hate to say it, no, that isn't quite the case. Those 'simple measures' require that you hit up Windows Update - a lot. It requires that you don't ever use Outlook Express for your mail (Mozilla works just fine, though...)

It also requires (if you want some privacy) to get and install Mailwasher or some other spam killer (OE will by default automatically respond to "urgent" spam mails, verifying the address handily), as well as AdAware to keep everyone and their dog from tracking your web usage. There is also the matter of getting and keeping current Norton AV, Sophos AV, or whatever AV software you desire.

To top it off, in Windows you may seriously want to consider shutting off the Messenger Service (to prevent the pop-up spams), NetBIOS/NetBEUI (to prevent someone from using NBT to pop your machine), and to purchase and configure a personal firewall (Linux needs one too, but has this already built-in and it self-configures while you install the OS.)

Compared to my *ix partition, and what friends who use Macs tell me, Windows is the most labor-intensive and the biggest PITA to get and keep secure... and it all goes for naught once the next buffer overflow in Windows itself is discovered.

Over the past 6 weeks for Windows 2000, you would have had to download 180+ MB of stuff from windowsupdate.com (including Service Pack 4) just to be protected from Blaster and etc... I'm not sure about XP, but I'm willing to wager that while it wasn't anywhere near as large, it was prolly in the double-digits.

If you're on a modem (and worse, in Europe or anywhere you're charged a tax on modem use), that's a pretty big expense in both time and money.

While Linux also has patches that come out (via RedHat's up2date utility), these patches are almost always smaller than most R'osity Gallery images, and even a cumulative patch over an entire year eats no more than 5-15MB, tops (and that's only if you want a new kernel while you're in there.)

I'm not preaching here, or arguing one OS against the other (Windows at this time is much, much easier to use for someone that is already used to it.) I'm just laying it all out in English.

/P

(As for bragging rights, my first e-mail addy was mill417avi@ttr.nellis.af.mil ...in 1990. :p )