Good on ya ;^)
Started messing with Red Hat back around 2000... Thought it was too much trouble, at the time.. retried around 2005, and haven’t turned back :)
I called it the Wife Test. It was a simple test really, designed at the typical home user who my wife (soon to be EX WIFE, thank God!) represented.
The test simply stated involved handing her a CD/DVD to see if she could insert the CD, boot the computer and install the OS without any intervention from me.
Linux hit that mark right about the 2004-2006 timeframe if I remember correctly. The very first time she was able to completely install the OS without asking me a single question or looking confused, I knew Linux as an OS was ready.
Other software such as MS Office compatible suites lagged a bit behind installation wise, but that got easier as different distributions (Ubuntu, Mint to name a few) bundled that with the OS and streamlined that part as well.
While I've predominantly made my living off of Microsoft related software development, Java and worked up the the management food chain into Data Center and Global Enterprise DevOps I've kept my hands in the Linux world, including most of the distributions these days.
I'm one of those people who's somewhat surprised that Linux hasn't taken more of the home market, specifically in the BYOPC landscape. Here Microsoft has always had an advantage of strong arming PC makers into including their OS with their hardware. Marketing can be a real bitch sometimes and no one markets as good as Microsoft does. Their revenues prove that.
What I learned yesterday however shocked me: Microsoft PENALIZES hardware makers and Enterprise Customers (such as the global bank I work for) for NOT using products in the Microsoft catalog. That penalty is reflected in the Enterprise Agreement between Microsoft and the business/organization in very specific language.
I'll give you an example: If you're a Microsoft Enterprise customer and have licenses for the Microsoft Office suite, you're paying for Skype. If you don't USE Skype and use another chat client (such as Cisco Jabber) Microsoft makes you pay a "license fee" for Cisco Jabber. That license fee is forced upon the Enterprise Customer during an annual software audit which Microsoft performs and looks to see which LICENSED products an organization is using. If those LICENSED PRODUCTS included in the Enterprise Agreement aren't in use, Microsoft assumes another product is being used and charges a "license fee" or "seat license" for using that product along with the Microsoft OS.
The example I'm making above is happening in the bank I work for right now. I work very closely with our Technology Procurement folks, I heard this exact complaint yesterday during a day long I.T. Strategy meeting that I called and ran. This news wasn't just a surprise to me, it was a surprise to my CTO.
So when I say I'm kicking Microsoft out of my house I have quite a few reasons and examples of exactly why I'm doing it. I refuse to feed that beast anymore.
While I may struggle to get some of my amateur radio software to run in an emulator on Linux, I'll get it there. It'll be "fun" for me to have that challenge for awhile. The satisfaction of knowing why I'm doing it is enough.