Re: [LUG] buying a laptop, and some m$ talk

What I mean is, it's horribly unintuitive, but once
one has learnt it, it's a lot faster to do things with
it than with Lightwave or some such thing
(apparently.) Kind of like LaTeX and Openoffice.org:
one is higher-quality but nearly unusable, while the
other is very intuitive and is just as capable of
producing crap as M$ Word 97.

hi ben,
does anyone beside the blender team say this though?

Yes, plenty, including me (from what I've seen of it.) It's referred to as "a more streamlined workflow" if you want to Google.

Is open source apriori and neccaserily better than
proprietary solutions?

Not all of it, but Openoffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, Mozilla Calendar (incorporating Sunbird), Linux, GNU, Apache, qmail, GNOME, KDE, all the wierd little unusable window managers, Koha, Beagle, bash, Aisleriot, Dia, Planner, Festival, Bluefish and Nvu (to name just a few, harvested from my Applications menu) all surpass their proprietary equivalents. Inkscape, F-spot, Gaim, Glade, Rhythmbox (and co) and lots more are catching up at a tremendous pace. Some would say that Inkscape and Gaim are already better.

I tend to be skeptical of claims made by proprietary
software makers, why should i take blenders assertions
more seriously do you know?

Because Blender.org are not trying to get you to part with $180 for a single-user license. Maya are, however.

At least it will run on linux, my xp box is gasping
like an old geezer..

Every other worth-the-box-it-comes-in 3D app also runs on Linux, because Windows is inadequate for rendering farms etc etc..