the flash presentation at home page can be rather irritating, if i clicked on the indicated article at the right side, majority of users would definitely expect to be redirected to that article

the display on the left side that appears on the click event doesn't really offer anything substantial

I agree with sintaxerror (sic), that this is somewhat irritating. IMO, it's eye candy that

1. takes up unnecessary bandwidth
2. distracts the user
3. looks nice (have to say something positive)
4. serves no functional purpose.

So, my opinion is that while "pretty", it gets in the way of the user/viewer.

Also, having to click on the "I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage" on each comment posted is a pain in the u-no-where. Put it in the login area, if you need to have it at all. C it once, 4-get it 4-ever...

I like the flash functionality of the front page! It looks professional and slick as hell. It's just a matter of opinion , Clicking on the right to open the article would be an improvement but removing the "eye candy" all together would sacrifice the slick professional web 2.0 look of the front page , which you want to impress with , further down who cares , but a modern slick front page is a must for a professional grade wensite. In my opinion.

Anyway Cheers! And keep up the good work! the website is fantastic! Also woot! for a fantastic article.

Thanks to linux.com for an outstanding explanation, presented clearly and without bias or ranting.

I've been computing since 1985, with zero programming skills. I first choose CPM as my way of supporting the little guy over giant IBM and then little-guy Gates with the DOS, which proved to be a bad choice as CPM disappeared and DOS became god. DOS worked well for me, allowing me to use applications (Q&A, Lantastic, Quickbooks and 123 clones) which eventually ran my business efficiently.

Then Micro$oft felt the pinch from Apple and turned to Windoze, Computing life became pure hell; the good DOS applications dropped by the wayside. I cannot count the wasted hours and months. I suppose I should have switched to Mac, but I had lost so much time and money buying and discarding crappy Windoze apps, thus switching became impossible. So life became, not running the business, but instead installing, testing, deleting, reinstalling and rebooting and "upgrading" became the daily routine. This became the priority over getting real work done, my business closed and I came right to the edge of becoming a homeless person.

Enough was enough, and about 2001 I tried switching to Linux but couldn't make it work for me; that wasn't Linux' fault, it was my own ineptitude. But I kept trying new distros, which kept improving, and eventually found several which work even for dummies. The distros have become the windows-type graphical interface to Linux, insulating us from the command line, and today it is sweet as the finest chocolate! I've chosen Ubuntu, but there are many other distros which work well, are constantly upgraded and the future is bright. Some computer manufacturers are now offering boxes running Linux, and we can expect that market to explode.

The beauty for end-users is that it's all Free; just pay about $10 for a DVD containing virtually any (Free open-source) software one might need, e.g OpenOffice=MSoffice, Firefox is hands-down better than IE, need I go on? Upgrades are automatically downloaded and installed; additional specialized apps ditto with a couple of clicks; it's amazing indeed. Fortunately during this period broadband inet connections have become the norm and are highly recommended.

I have nothing to sell here, no grain of salt needed. Anyone with a halfway decent computer can try it without disturbing the present OS. Have a look!

Nice job being thorough without being overwhelming. This is the kind of writing we need more of.