Have you noticed anything about Vista and Linux drivers? I may be crazy but something seems very similar to me.
Our two internet machines are both SUSE 10.2 Linux boxes and work fine. The major 'shortcoming' of Linux is a lack of manufacturer support for software and peripherals and even there, open source alternatives are pretty good.
I still use W2K on my image processing computer in order to support Photoshop, but late versions of GIMP aren't at all bad; I suspect if I didn't come all over lazy at the thought, I'd shift over to using it and go off MS completely.
In other markets, like backend servers, database servers etc. Linux is gaining ground. On the desktop there is still the feeling that Linux is not quite there yet, though some have switched and done well.