I went cold-turkey for Linux just this past week.
I travel on business and wanted something I could run securely on my business laptop, which for corporate reasons must be a Windows machine. (My top recommendation for new purchases is a Mac, and we have several in the family. They’re trouble-free, well-priced and lovely. But they wouldn’t be an option for me due to company standards.)
So I set up KUbuntu Linux in a VMware virtual machine. Super slick! I can carry it with me on my thumb drive and use it when desired. This approach does require that the free VMWare Player be installed on the machine, but that’s a couple minutes’ work.
The software that is available (free) for Linux is almost stunningly good today. I played with Linux seven years ago and at the time it was terminally geeky to use. No more! It’s pretty close to Windows in ease of use and administration. And rock-solid stable, and more secure than Windows will ever be.
Recommended!
You really should take a look at PCLinuxOS 2007. Very slick interface, and a little more tweakable for the enthusiast, and just as easy to use for the beginner over any of the Ubuntu distros. I have pretty much abandoned my two previous favorite distros, which was Knoppix and Sabayon for the perfect blend of ease of installation/maintenance and tweakability that I have found PCLOS to be.
As for the various DRM schemes floating around, Linux works pretty well for circumventing the maddening realization that you just paid for a song, and are now locked out of using it on all but just a few of your devices.
And in the realm of DRM, those that hate MS (and others)for their ridiculously overbearing schemes, should really, really hate the crew from Cupertino. iTunes is downright draconian in its DRM “solutions”.
Yes Tux has made great strides in the past seven years, and with some corporate players, like IBM, Novell and others , it will only get better.
Now if you're feeling really bold, you could partition your HD and dual boot. :-)
Glad to see that you decided to look for yourself instead of believing the nay sayers.