Ubuntu life for me

[billT]

This is the main advantage of Linux. Performance comparisons < This argument.

As an example: I'm sure there are Windows based scientific libraries that outperform the linux based software (gcc+gnuplot+GNU octave) I'm using for my current physics work. However, when faced with a choice of free GNU software, or licence costs (for Windows based packages) in the range of $4000 upwards (not to mention per-workstation or per-computation node license costs), Linux wins hands down.

Of course, at home I'll still use Windows XP, since it's a more pleasant home use system (and the GUI/explorer just 'performs' better in response times etc.). Since the GNU system is 100% emulable on XP with Cygwin there is nothing to be lost by this either. I can program using Cygwin/GCC at home and then run the programs on Linux at work.

This is very dependent on a) what you're using and b) what else is running on your machine. For example, my parents' adware filled WinXP machine is terrible to work with because of how unresponsive it is. On the other hand, my old XP machine was great - though no better than how I have Ubuntu configured now. Ubuntu is somewhat slow as it is, but when coupled with nautilus (GNOME's default file manager) it can be unbearable. Try opening a directory containing 1000+ images with nautilus. It won't crash your system, but it'll take a few minutes before anything appears in the file manager window.

On the other hand, a different file manager (thunar for example) will open and display that directory nearly instantly. Of course, I understand that there are a lot of people who don't want to take the steps to install and configure a separate file manager.