I don't see how that would have any effect other than to make the people who are "embarrassed" to be running Windows on a Linux forum quiet. Those people could just as easily turn the option off if they are likely to be visiting the forums from work or whatever their individual situation may be.

It does nothing for the only real argument I have ever seen against this feature, which is that it might lead people to think the OP is asking about a different distribution than they intended to. So if somebody was asking about an Ubuntu problem while posting from a Fedora machine, he might get suggestions which are of no use to him. But this is really a very minor complaint, and is no different than having a different distribution listed in your profile. Ideally the OP should be specifying his distribution for every question, or at the very least making sure it is in the appropriate distribution's sub-forum.

Wonderful Idea. It looks neat & nice.

I have no problems with it.

Like you said Jeremy, we can opt out of it. So I feel that any feature that can potentially aid us in any way is great to have. Most major builds already seem to be supported, but just a few tweaks and we're set!

Keep it up bro!

As a matter of fact, it just allowed me to accurately solve a new Linux users issue. They didn't state their distro in the post, but by looking at the icon I could clearly define where and how to fix the problem in only 3 clicks.

This definitely helps, especially for new users.

Depends if they use the distro with the problem to post :-)

I suppose you've got me there repo. Also depends on the issue, they may have to use a different system to post the question. Guess I just assumed, this time I was right... but I'm sure it'd catch up to me eventually.

Such as in myself, I'm currently posting here on two machines.. Red Hat and Fedora. Similar... but there are differences.

I believe that for the sake of credibility, that would be the best option, considering the fact that the one needing help can also see your *distro*.

Cheers

icons to indicate the problem related hardware or software would make a great addition to your system,maybe you could then use a filter to hunt more accurately for a post closest to a problem

Easy for thing to be a distraction. We run a bunch of distros here (either in experimental or production modes) and we also use Win PC's for general desktop goo--unless you can set it to be the distro you're actually asking the question about (and that's not always relevant), I'd much prefer this be an option so you don't confuse the issue with potentially distracting info.

John

JMCraig, as is mentioned you can completely disable the feature for your account in the MyLQ section.

--jeremy

I think it is kind of interesting to see what everyone is using and do not see it as an invasion of privacy.

Seems to me like this is a pretty trivial point, but I rather like it
I notice it does not accurately indicate that my browser is Seamonkey
Nor does it indicate that this operating system is windows XP Pro.

Like it but now I find the "is online/offline" tux confusing.

Well, I do like the idea of the icons. Users posting with their problem machines would be a bonus but less likely to happen since they usually use a diff machine to do it.
I'm glad you decided to allow the option to disable the icon feature for those who don't like the icon/info part of this.
For myself, I don't mind at all since I have a plethora of machines at my disposal which basically makes it anonymous in the first place, except for the admins with my multitude of i.p.'s.
I hope Jeremy has most of the icons and proper info for this to work correctly.
I use a lot of different distro's and 2 areas of operating systems, minus ppc/mac.

*So, the online tux has the question mark: to indicate you can ask this user a question... nice pun! Not confusing really.