my laptop, and both my desktops, run KDE. the underlying operating system is usually something like opensuse (a linux distro) or pcbsd or desktopbsd (which are freebsd distros). all i need from the OS is to support KDE well, patch itself from a vendor mothership often, do suspend/resume and wireless. the laptop hardware itself is thinkpad, to get a 3-button mouse, full sized keys, and relative indestructibility. desktops are homebrew intel core-2, with 15-year-old ibm high-clicky keyboards and 10-year old logitech mice. the servers are all freebsd, to get /usr/ports (and recently, to get ZFS.) server hardware tends to be supermicro. starting to abandon 3ware/areca RAID in favour of either JBOD or multiport SATA-II, with ZFS. -- Paul Vixie