[jack_napier]

Give me Linux and I will get my work down in a LOT less time with a lot less effort.

Or, much greater time and effort, but it'll be a lot more satisfying to you because then at least you'll be functioning under the belief that every quirk or shortcoming is some logical result of your own configuration choices. :)

I'm sorry, this is wrong...first off, distros like Ubuntu are incredibly simple to install. For most people doing web browsing, emailing, document writing; this is enough. For those of us doing certain other things, once you have acquired that 'domain' knowledge (AKA, investing in learning it), the speed at which you can do things goes up. Say that there's a log file where we need to find application errors. It's large; perhaps 70MB. What do Windows users do? Open the file and then hit Ctrl-F to search it. What does a Linux user do? Grep. One is much faster than the other.

Simple fact of the matter is this: Go learn HCI and they will tell you every time that command languages are the most powerful interfaces, but the learning curve is often too steep.
Just to top it off, the statement if I can't get Windows to do something, it's because Windows can't do it, is patently false. There are many things which Windows can do that are obscure. If this were not true, then it would not be so easy to hide malware information in the "Registry"! There are a plethora of sites dedicated to hacks of the Registry, the vast majority of which are certainly non-obvious.

[Omedalus]

Just to top it off, the statement "if I can't get Windows to do something, it's because Windows can't do it", is patently false. There are many things which Windows can do that are obscure.

You're technically correct, but I was discussing this in the context of cost-benefit analysis. Yes, you can be "tricky" with Windows, but it's hard, so usually it's strongly preferable to simply move on to another task or find a different way to solve your problem. It's a lot easier to think of clever, subtle manipulations for Linux systems than it is for Windows. Therefore, Linux strongly encourages you to waste your time trying to think of such tricks and then show off how clever you are to all your Usenet friends.

Say that there's a log file where we need to find application errors. It's large; perhaps 70MB. What do Windows users do? Open the file and then hit Ctrl-F to search it. What does a Linux user do? Grep. One is much faster than the other.

You've never used Windows PowerShell, have you?

Besides, if you really want, you can always install Cygwin or some other POSIX shell on your Windows box. I've got it on mine. I occasionally use it for ipconfig stuff, but only because I work for a company that makes packet-routing software and therefore sometimes have to make my network stack do some somewhat unusual things.

Go learn HCI and they will tell you every time that command languages are the most powerful interfaces, but the learning curve is often too steep.

Which HCI book are you talking about, exactly? I happen to do some HCI work professionally, and I can't think of the last time I or anybody else in the industry actually advocated a command-line interface for any product design - even hotkeys are regarded as a sort of obnoxious legacy.

The problems with command-line interfaces go far beyond a simple learning curve. On a fundamental level, the very idea of a command-line interface is an attempt to offload all responsibility away from the system designer and onto the user. Giving a user a command-line interface to your product is little better than giving them the schematics of their CPU and telling them, "Here, with these you'll be able to figure out how to use this machine. Don't come crying to us for help because everything you need is in there. It's not our fault if you're not smart enough to understand it." It's an insult to the user on a very basic level. I don't know what you're reading that makes you believe that HCI professionals consider command-line interfaces "powerful", but if "power" is measured in reducing the amount of thought and effort that the intended user has to exert in order to accomplish a task, command-line interfaces have no credibility.