Hello there, after reading the announcements about Mac OS X "Lion" and Apples political decision, I've had enough. I'm a longtime Apple User since 1992, have always felt at home there, but am trying to switch to alternative Operating System since a year.

I've also been working with Unix machines since 2001, so I'm looking in one of the free Unices or a Linux. Since I last looked at the desktop in 2002 choke much has changed, it seems. So I'm lost once more in the war between desktop environments and software. To be honest: I don't care what it's name is, I want to get my job done. Here's what I set me as landmark for an operating system/software to be considered:

• Has to be atleast four years old
• Has to supply security updates for current release for atleast a year
• Production quality stability for the whole desktop environment (!)
• No f****g commercial stuff that tends to supply me with privacy invading App Store or Cloud space

So far I'm running a MacBook from 2007, 4 Gig memory, 250 Gig disk and I need:

• IMAPs for Mail since 1995
• Webbrowser sic
• Shell
• Keeping current with Updates/Upgrades with no more than 5 Minutes spent in entering commands (makes it hard for OpenBSD ;-) )

A desktop filemanger would be nice, but is a bonus.

What can you suggest as operating system? The one with the longest support cycles and best chance to survive the next 10 years will win a new user, even sending patches when needed :-)

Greets