MadMonkey: I've been working with Unix on and off for almost 30 years professionally. I had first installed a pure Debian at home in the early 2000, but became a bit dissatisfied with the slow update of the versions. Ubuntu updates the whole lot of its distribution twice a year, and so far I've been very satisfied with it.

As a pro, I like the fact that when there is something that doesn't work as I like, I can relatively easily do something about it. With windows, forget it. just reboot, reinstall, curse...

For a simple user, The linux distributions in general have now become very easy to install and use. There are now free alternatives to most of what Microsoft has to offer, which in general work better than the originals.

There are downsides, of course. Many software makers produce only for windows, so if you need a particular software, you may need windows after all. I personally don't, the few things that I use work fine with the windows emulator inside linux.