My kid hates Linux too! (so what?)

My kid hates Linux too. He's 16, loves games, and finally stopped whining for a GameCube when he learned his Windows DVDs could also be played online.

Now you can't get him away from the thing.

If this were sending his grades down the PC would be gone. It's not.

But for a kid to say he "hates" Linux is simply mistaken, on the kid's part. If he uses Google, or thousands of other sites, he loves Linux.

What young Mr. Dawson hates is "desktop Linux" and he is right to do so. Most desktop Linux software is applications, serious stuff. Serious as homework.

Game makers have flocked to the Windows platform over the last few years, due to its ubiquity, and their patience has been rewarded.

Of course, being game makers they stress the system, trying to stuff a true game machine experience into a PC operating system. Typical Linux virtualizers won't run them. In my own son's case, we had to get him a 750 Gigabyte hard drive just to store his stuff.

Still, what Mr. Dawson is doing, as a high school computer administrator, makes perfect sense. The best way to make certain a school system can only do homework is by making sure that's all it can do.

Linux is good for that. Homework, that is. Do your homework. Is your homework done?

OK, now you can play.