I tried Windows and did not like it. It was so bad, I decided that I did not need digital music and stuck to older media.

It has taken me three years to get back what I had with Windoze. Music was one of the biggest trade offs for going free. As is typical, in some ways this was a great move, in others I'm still dragging.

Why didn't I just stick with Windows or purchase all my music on CDs? That's easy. Purchasing all of my music again would be stupid and cost prohibitive. I'd rather spend my money on music I don't already have and I still don't have enough hard drive space to fit all of my CDs uncompressed. Windows media stuff turned out to be difficult as well. Hardware and software did not always work as advertised and finally I got sick of reinstalling and "upgrading" windows when it died. I got out of Windows just before Digital Rights Management made things even worse. Stories from friends about, "product activation", pop up adverts and portable players that could be loaded though proprietary software that did not always work kept me in the world of tapes and CDs. The whole experience felt like one big rip-off.

Recent changes in free software have made digital music a winner again. There are easy to use CD burning programs, patent and royalty free compressed music formats and easy to use software that digitizes and manipulates audio. Without too much effort, I've got all of that working again. I don't have to worry about my files not "being supported" or not working anymore because they are free formats and there is no "Digital Rights Management" in the free software world. My music will play in the future. These changes complement free software's already overwhelming advantage in networking software. It's very easy to move music around with free software.

Next, Hardware Issues.