Have you heard of porting? There is nothing in the.NET world that can't be solved by other (free) technologies (especially with the GPLing of Java). It's not about running stuff on Linux, it's about not being beholden to an oligarch. Porting would be making your.NET applications work properly under Mono. What you are suggesting is rewrite the application from scratch in another language and library (Java, C/C++; Swing, SWT, Qt, Gtk...). That is a much larger and more time consuming task.
I have an Inspiron 6400 (E1505) which I bought about 4 months ago. I run Ubuntu 7.04 on it almost exclusively. While the Intel graphics card isn't a state of the art powerhouse, it is hardly "2D only". In fact, I would strongly recommend anyone who wants a solid GNU/Linux system to consider the Intel cards, their drivers are free software, and included with the standard kernels and Xorg.
They are more than enough to run Beryl or Compiz and give reasonable performance on well written 3D applications. The lack of hardware T&L can make some stuff a bit slow, especially stenciled shadows, but in general the cards give good 2D performance and acceptable 3D.
Slashdot Mirror
I have an Inspiron 6400 (E1505) which I bought about 4 months ago. I run Ubuntu 7.04 on it almost exclusively. While the Intel graphics card isn't a state of the art powerhouse, it is hardly "2D only". In fact, I would strongly recommend anyone who wants a solid GNU/Linux system to consider the Intel cards, their drivers are free software, and included with the standard kernels and Xorg. They are more than enough to run Beryl or Compiz and give reasonable performance on well written 3D applications. The lack of hardware T&L can make some stuff a bit slow, especially stenciled shadows, but in general the cards give good 2D performance and acceptable 3D.