How much time do you spend keeping up with anti-virus, anti-malware, registry cleaners, defragging, and all the other things that soak up your time if you're going to run windows successfully?
I'll admit, I tinker more than is necessary, but then I also live right on the bleeding edge with Fedora builds. For my work desktop though, where it's important to have it fully functional and working for me rather than the other way around, I spend a heck of a lot less time than I'm sure the vast majority of folks do on windows. Additionally, it truely works for me. I keep more stuff open all the time than most people can probably deal with, yet everything has its place. With 8 desktops, my browsers are always in the same place so I can get my work done quickly. My 80+ terminal windows can be opened with a single command, and I always know where my dev, test, and production boxes are. It is remarkably stable, and goes months without a reboot or even an X restart. I also have vmware sessions for testing particular environments safely and efficiently.
I could easily do the same thing at home, and in some ways I do. If I decide to upgrade my box, I can simply back up my /home partition and when I restore it, everything about my desktop is exactly the way it was before I did anything to it right down to my background and the way my file manager displays and deals with my viewing preferences for different directories. The last time I had to rebuild someone's windows box it was a nightmare getting things even close to the way they preferred it.
My time is valuable, so I prefer to spend it where I want to, rather than where Redmond dictates.
Actually windows is not much of a challenge for me. Anti-virus installed and running automatically. Disk imaging running automatically making incremental back ups daily. Disk defrag running automatically once a month. Everything is on autopilot. I have no Windows worries. If my hard drive goes out I will take me 18 min to re-image a new 300 gig to the exact way I left it or to an earlier place in time all the way back it a fresh install.
As far as Linux machine is concerned in a workplace, it ALL depends on what you need the machines for and what type of software that is needed to be run on them. If you can get around using professional software, well God Bless, but in my line of work the Linux software availability is virtually non existent.
I have time to tinker because my windows machines need no attention whatsoever. I wanted to see for myself why some people were plugging Linux. For the most part I’m giving it an honest chance. So far I’ve concluded that’s it’s great to play with at home, but has not a chance of ever getting anywhere soon in a professional atmosphere. If all one needs is a browsing machine or something to run simple software repeatedly, Linux is well suited. If one needs a variety of softwares that in an ever changing environment need updating... well there is really no alternative to being on the windows train. Linux is far from entering the big league any time soon.