You say when Linux is finally as easy as windows you will switch, but you just noted that you’ve been using windows since 3.1. My point is windows isn’t really easy either, but since everyone has grown up with it, they know the quirks and the hoops to jump through.

So yes, it will take a lot of time messing around with things until you’re used to a Linux system and it’s understandable if you’d rather use your time on a system you already know, but it’s not a matter of ease, rather one of familiarity.

I spend many hours on work and at home too, and I want have a comfortable system, but I want to be free within my OS, and I feel that there is less freedom for user in Vista and there will be far less in Windows 7.

Those money thoughts plays a significant role too.

So I, Windows power user, started to learn Ubuntu, and yes – it’s getting better with every release, so I think that I will eventually became happy and cheerful Linux user.

! Note that these are comercial apps (except Wine) but you can always find cracks for them or find them pre-cracked. :)

There’s also a Linux version of Steam – mostly for FPS games but they seem to add crappy stuff as well.

Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu (which in turn is based on Debian) and comes with Gnome. Works straight “out-of-the-box”, comes with NTFS drivers, video codecs, etc. It even has Compiz-Fusion installed (the Linux counterpart of Aero – found in Vista).

Um…no. Most new Windows converts do NOT prefer Gnome because it is totally different in appearance from Windows and it does not ‘feel’ comfortable for them.

KDE on the other hand, seems to hold their hand nicely and give them a warm and fuzzy feeling.

We did experiments on this in a suburban shopping mall. We setup Ubuntu on 3 computers and Mandriva on 3 computers. Guess which ones attracted the most attention from people who had never used Linux before? The Mandriva computers were never left alone. Ubuntu was left out in the cold. Now don’t get me wrong, Ubuntu may be the easiest distro to use for people who have used Linux before…but champion of the new Windows convert it is not.

I made the move to Ubuntu. And after some time my overall productivity has increased comparing to the productivity in Vista. But you are free to do what you want.

Oh I fear that day; Linux is NOT Windows, people, and if, after being accustomed to both, you still feel that Windows is ‘easy’ then just stick with it. Linux, once you know whats up, is pretty damned easy. It also happenes to be DIFFERENT; once you remove those differences you just have Windows, and I don’t want that. Thankfully, we do have distro options to keep us occupied when “WinUbuntu” decides to make another release to try outrunning their bug listings.

My girlfriend uses her PC mainly for surfing the net, chatting, some office stuff and once in a while to burn a CD/DVD or play a browser-game.
She got a new notebook last year with Vista and I am pretty sure that given about 1 or 2 hours to configure a linux with a windows xp look a change to one or the other would have been the same for her.

I like to use my PC a lot for games (esp. WoW^^) which would lead to a lot more time for configuration/maintenance. I’ve read quite a few articles about WoW (and other games) on linux but like Stefan and Woble pointed out there is always the driver issue and not all games being suitable to operate on linux.
Apart from that I do dislike using shell commands beingt content with my about 10 dos-commands that so far proved sufficient in my about 10 years of working with computers.
When it comes to software I am just basically a user and I don`t want to reprogramm half of my OS just to get things running ;)

There are a number of reasons why Linux doesn’t cut it for me yet.

Until very recently I still used a Dell CRT screen, even in the supposedly user friendly Ubuntu I found myself having to configure H/V rates manually, WHY? If something as widespread and simple to probe as a Dell monitor can’t be autoconfigured what hope is there?

The second issue I have is with sound drivers, not Linux fault I know but is a hugh obstacle nevertheless. My experience here is that you have to be very selective about which card/chip you use because many of the supposed working drivers are flaky at best.

My third issue is nobody’s fault but mine really but I put my fingers into a lot of pies and i’m frightened of missing out on something because it’s only available on windows.

I see no reason why Linux shouldn’t dominate the server world because their more dependant on OS core services than apps but the bar to gain an advantage on the desktop is now way to high for anyone to ever overcome I believe.

I Conclude by saying I would love to use an other OS simply because although I don’t have any real problems with Windows, after thirteen years(wow time flies!) of use it has become a bit of a bore.