So you set the password policy far beyond that which is used by almost all organizations, something rarely found in practice, to get something that Rainbow Crack can't crack. Sorry, I'm not interested in something that unrealistic.
but your linux hash table has to have passwords that conform to the same standard (which includes the salt).
Again unrealistic. An organization sets password policy across the board. We go on what the users type in. The toughest I've ever had to use was 12 characters, no dictionary, at least two numbers and at least two special characters (!@#$%^&*()-_+=~`[]{}|\:;"'<>,.?/). Sorry, you can't crack that in modern *NIX, but you can in Windows.
You tried to backdoor your bet, but you got caught.
Let's just follow one of the biggest users of Microsoft technology. I'll pick a branch of the Military and use their standard. That would be realistic, right?
Also if you want realistic scenarios only, I guess this bet is off because it assumes that Linux is being used as a desktop throughout the enterprise..an even more unrealistic possibility.