How many of you use a operating sistem based on linux?

[DanBee]

what windows had was consistency in the UI which linux didnt... Now Windows and windows apps UI are a hotch potch that keeps changing.
Used both developed on both... When I finally give up on Windows XP it will probably be to Linux and Android.

Likewise. With the car-crash that was Vista coming through the beta and pre-release channels, I sidestepped onto Linux, having used it on and off since the late 1990's. I retained some XP / Server 2003, and trivially transitioned my virtualised NT4 and Win200 stuff. However with the ditching of Gnome 2.x and the rapidly escalating hardware requirements on any 'consumer' linux distro, I revisited the debate.

What I found was that Windows 7, after the eye-candy has been turned off, is so much better than Vista. The crucial factor these days is the 4GB RAM limit, or more specifically Win32's handling of the 4GB available. The 64 bit experience on Windows 7 is seamless. Yes, modern Windows software is memory hungry, but look what you get for £300 at PC World these days - and that includes the Windows and Office Home licenses. Anyone with school-age children will find that the Home & Student versions and licensing arrangements of Microsoft products are a trivial cost anyway.

And since people do just use applications, Windows is the comfortable platform and office, outlook, etc. the comfortable apps.

I'd love LibreOffice to be the one to recommend, but I can't. It's so very good, but misses where critical, and that makes it unreliable. Try editing a Powerpoint presentation alternately on Office & LibreOffice, and see what happens. Try legacy user-developed macro automation in Word and Excel documents on LibreOffice. And don't even think about switching if you need MS Publisher for a back-catalogue of documents, labels, etc.