I make Linux do what I want on a daily basis. Don't confuse Linux on the desktop with Linux on the server.
Jesse, of course, makes an excellent point.
I used Linux (mainly various Debian-based distros) as my primary desktop OS for several years starting some time in the late 1990's; and gradually started switching back to Windows starting when Win 2000 came out.
One of my favorite Linux distros was Corel Linux, which was so good that Microsoft put the kibosh on it by buying up a hunk of Corel. But just plain-vanilla Debian was and remains a rock-solid OS. Nowadays I use Windows as my primary desktop OS, and Linux (centOS) on my servers. I also use Linux locally for some backup servers, testing servers, and so forth. But I spend most of my time in Windows.
The reason is simple. When I started using Linux, Windows (at least in the DOS lineage) was an unstable, unusable horror show. All I wanted was to not have to reboot several times a day. So I installed a fresh Windows on one of my boxes, stripped it of everything I didn't need, loaded my then-Macromedia stuff onto it, and used it only for those programs. By installing only the minimum stuff I needed on Windows, I sometimes managed to get three or four days between blue screens or reboots. For everything else I used Linux.
I also built a custom, personal, bootable Linux on a USB stick when I was doing consulting and computer repair work. It gave me a file manager, various editing tools, network support, NTFS filesystem support, and the ability to run F-Prot. I used it to resurrect Windows machines that were so thoroughly hosed and/or virus-infected that they wouldn't even boot into Safe Mode.
I had various other rescue-type tools (ERD, Hirem's, BartPE, etc.), but my custom Linux stick gave me the ability to update and run the current F-Prot, and had its own writable drive space and swap partition, so the whole thing didn't have to be loaded into and run in a RAM drive. And because it was so small, it loaded much more quickly than a "stock" Live Linux.
So suffice it to say that I used Linux and liked Linux for quite a few years. And I still like Linux. The worst Linux I ever tried wasn't as horrible as, say, Windows 98. I didn't start using Linux because I was some sort of Left-wing Microsoft hater. I just wanted a machine that didn't crash all the time.
But then Windows got better. Win 2000 was stable and ran my then-Macromedia stuff reliably, along with other ordinary SDAs. XP added better multimedia support (at the expense of some stability, in my opinion, but not a whole lot). Win7 was outstanding, and Win8 is a masterpiece (once you get past the crappy Metro interface).
So little by little, rather than having to switch back and forth between Windows (for all the Adobe stuff I use I use every day) and Linux all the time, I found myself just started using Windows most of the time. I still use Linux for various sorts of servers, and I use it for P2P stuff (legal stuff, mind you, like downloading Linux distros). The stability and its relative resistance to viruses makes Linux my OS of choice for things like that.
I also still like to try the various Linux distros when I have time. I haven't come across one that I hated. I don't care much for the default Ubuntu interface, but that's easily remedied. There's Gnome, KDE, XFCE, LXCE, and others you can install if you like. My personal favorite Linux GUI is the Cinnamon desktop on Mint, and if I were building a Linux desktop box this afternoon, that's what I would load onto it. It's just clean, fast, and intuitive.
But let's face it: I spend 90 percent of my time in applications that run on Windows, and which I spent years trying to get to work reliably in Linux, with little success. I did get an old version of Dreamweaver to work on Debian... somewhat. I also got Fireworks to work on Debian... somewhat. That's as far as I got. If I could have billed for all the time I spent trying to make Windows programs run under WiNE, I'd be a wealthy man.
But it was worth trying back then, when Windows was an unusable pile of crap. Nowadays, Windows is good. Excellent, in fact. My Windows 8 laptop is still too new to have set any records, but my Windows 7 laptop has been running 24/7 for close to five years, with exactly one -- ONE -- unplanned reboot. The only times it has been rebooted have been for updates and such, or when I traveled with it. There's something to be said for that.
But on a public server, there's still nothing like Linux. I understand that recent releases of Windows Server are very good, but I doubt I'll be switching over from centOS any time soon.
-Rich
