My son and all his gamer buddies all switched to Macs when they left for college as they did not want to be using three different but similar programs to do things as is common on Windows. Linux is sort of that way as I have several types of the same program to accomplish some tasks.

But if you are not afraid go forth. Linux has everything you need. Open Office, Evolution, FireFox, RhythmBox (most excellent Itunes like software). I also run my thumbdrive with thunderbird using wine on linux. As I said before I am no command line king, but with the help on the net I do not have to be.

get a Mac… install VMware fusion then download Ubuntu. Play with Linux… then realize you’re already basically on a flavor of it without any of the headache. You coming from a CompSci background I would def. say Abandon Windows and come to the Darkside, just don’t turn into a fanboy. ;)

Linux is a viable source for personal computing, and one of my most powerful OS’s out there hands down. The problem with Linux as with all things, with great power comes great responsibility. Since you can literally do ANYTHING on a Linux box there is a hefty learning curve, once you round that curve it’s like having an epiphany. To discredit it as a valuable OS is ignorance. With the Ubuntu project you’re seeing someone take the bull by the horns and force organization down the throat of an Open Source project. This feels like the key missing force behind Linux that is very very needed.

Now the bottom line. I run a Mac, my Mom runs a Mac, my Dad runs a Mac, my Step Dad runs a Mac. I do NOT use Linux as my primary OS because of OS X. If not for OS X I would run a flavor of Linux (be it Redhat or Ubuntu) but since Macs take most of the good parts with 5% of the hassle it’s a wonderful match. I would NEVER put any of my family on a Linux machine, the headache of troubleshooting an x-config over the phone with someone who doesn’t understand VIM enough would make me hang myself… it would be… well down right terrifying. With that said you’d better thank your asses for the Open Source Movement and Linux because a lot of great software has come from it. Before I mentioned running a Mac has most of the good parts with 5% of the hassle, well the truth is with xCode and X11 installed it has all the good parts. I can run most any software via a Darwin port through X11 and such.

With that said… Long Live Tux!

Side note, all of our production and development servers at work are a flavor of Linux (SuSe, Redhat, Ubuntu, Gentoo) which is roughly 200 servers dealing out data to millions of users.

I tried using OS X for the first time a few months ago and did not like it one bit. particularly with Safari crashing after only 5 mins and upon reboot the system profiler crashed after only 20 seconds. This showed me a major design flaw in OS X itself. An application crash WILL crash the entire system and not just that application.

I love M$, always have brought out the most reliable designed OS and development environment for me. And now even after swithing to Vista (touched it for the first time 2 months ago) I’ve never seen an OS more smooth, stable and responsive in my life.

@Rico, I wouldn’t take that page too seriously, I just tried it and it suggested 5 distros for me, Mandriva,Kubuntu,OpenSUSE, Fedora or Debian. AKA the 5 core distros out there and each one is very different.

I run a modified Ubuntu. I love it.

I’ve been using Mac for a few years. I really got into it when the OSx86 scene came around, since then I have always had a spare hd with the latest version of OSX on it up and running. I find it really fun and interesting to get it working when it’s not supposed to.
However, the instability of that prevents me from using it as a true windows replacement. I have had many times when I accidentally broke my install and lost everything. (Learn to have multiple hds for your data).4 Why not buy a real mac then? I don’t have money for it, and windows does everything I need. Mac is just a hobby.

Linux is something I’ve been getting into more and more often, but for servers. I’ve been installing and running Debian on anything I can get my hands on for a few years now. Sure there are all sorts of fun interesting GUI stuff that Linux can do, but that’s all eyecandy to me. Linux is for servers. I have 2 Debian servers running constantly, one a web, and one a NAS. I’m working on a one as dhcp server, and another for a print server.
Linux lets you do all sorts of stuff much more easily (to a knowledgeable user) network wise.

I don’t really know if that answers your question, but that’s how I do things anyway; Windows for work, Mac for fun, Linux for backup

I find it a bit like a one night stand. It’s all new and exciting and (often) pretty. But in the end it’s too much hard work to enter into a long term relationship with it so you go back to what you know and love.

I don’t see things changing anytime soon. What it will need is good hardware support, fonts and MS office.

It’s supposed to tell you what Linux OS you should use. It told me that I should check out OpenSuSE…