Was just conversing by email with a friend of mine in France. He's an expat sociology professor married to an employee of some arm of the French gov't, and she teaches part-time. She told him the other day that the school had switched to Mozilla as it's browser.

So he, in his characteristic way, is trying to find out what he can about Mozilla. Which is ALMOST beside the point. In responding to him, though, I got on my Linux kick again.

I have noticed that Mozilla is Linux-compatible. So is, I am sure, OpenOffice. And there has to be an email program out there which is, too.

Does anyone know how far along Linux has come in becoming nosepicker-friendly? A viable option for someone who just wants the basics in an easy-to-operate manner with some compatibility between common programs? Is there a media-player in Linux? How about the Java, Shockwave and Flash applets?

Anything anyone knows is more than I do, and if they'd care to share, I'd appreciate it. However, some of the information might find it's way to a guy in France.

Arf