Let me first say that I want to be a linux convert, but I probably won't be anytime soon.

Like alot of the folks who've already posted, I've worked with DOS/Windows since the early 80's and have become completely disgusted with Windoze XP. I recently had to do a "clean install" of XP because it had become so buggy, and even after that guess what XP did not 5 minutes later? Yup, you guessed it, it crashed.

So no, I'm no fan of XP. But after 2 months playing with Linux, I've got to come clean and tell you that it isn't exactly OS nirvana either. In my opinion the problems with Linux are:

1. Crappy hardware support. Just check the forums, they are plagued by thousands of hardware problems. I've got a built in HSF WinModem, Epson Stylus printer, and external USB/Firewire hard drive. Not one of the dozen or so Linux distros I tried installed any of these peripherals. And these aren't exactly "one of a kind" hardware, they're about the most common peripherals out there. In order to get them to work usually requires compiling your own drivers or at the very least manually installing dozens of files, which leads me to Linux's next big weakness...

2. Software installation sucks. Yeah, there's Klik, Synaptic, apt-get, and others, but that requires a modem connection through Linux. What if what you're trying to do is install software without a Linux modem connection? I just recently installed "Audacity" on my Ubuntu installation. Over 20 separate "dependencies" had to be individually found, downloaded, transferred, "dpkg" and installed. Jeez... the Windoze version is a -single- archive, why can't Linux be as simple? Half the time, there isn't a binary for whatever distro you're using, so you have to compile your own... just the word "compile" is enough to scare away 99% of the computer users out there...

3. Horrible documentation. For the vast majority of the distros out there, finding out how to install something means Google the web for a past forum thread and hopefully someone else has run into the same problem. But why don't more distros have -complete- and -thorough- FAQ's and HOW TO's that include all the major things that newbies ask? There is also a definite shortage of good books on Linux. I just borrowed 4 books from the library (their entire Linux collection) and 3 of the 4 were basically installation guides, and incomplete ones at that.

What bothers me most is that this needn't be the case. I think collectively, all the Linux distros prove this, but individually they all fall short. Where one is better in one area, it lacks in an other.

I think Steve Jobs' OS X is a real contender because of this. Take the stability and security of Unix / Linux and add rock solit hardware support, great documentation and idiot proof software installs. With all the human effort and brainpower behind Linux, there isn't any reason why Linux can't be as good or even better.

Beleive me, I really want to be a Linux convert. But Linux just seems like a never ending beta test and at some point I have to stop playing with the OS and actually do something productive...