While all the reasons for linux not 'feeling' as fast as windows booting are very valid and interesting for me, I am not going to explain all that to my girlfriend. She will just say OK and boot into windows if all that she wants to do is check her hotmail. And, yes, when she powers the machine off, she doesn't care how long it takes- shes not waiting for it. Why can't linux shift some of the things it does during boot to doing them during shutdown? This is another issue of techies wanting things to be 'good' and non-techies wanting things to be fun, or easy, or 'feel' fast. No non-technie is sitting there with a stopwatch. If linux will remain only in the hands of the techies, then there is no need for this discussion. Fact that it is being discussed that it must be addressed. And if we want our girlfriends to boot into linux, then we had better make it fun, easy, and feel fast. Dotan Cohen http://English-Lyrics.com http://Song-Lyriks.com