You came to the Linux table expecting to be wowed and impressed and were not. Not a problem to me, but think of the situation a bit.

Linux has been mostly unassisted by PC hardware makers (with very notable exceptions!), and therefore development effort expended by Linux coders has been a long hard struggle, made by many volunteers and some corporate devotees to Linux. The development efforts expended to guess how to engineer device operation has been extensive, and that effort did not contribute to adding the glitz you hoped for. Compare that situation to Microsofts situation, if you please. One should be impressed with the Linux development efforts!

Also, might you consider that the patch and repatched operating system that you presently use has always had one ulterior motive behind it - to further Microsofts income? Every Windows development has a dominant characteristic of not wanting to enable user goals if the users goals were outside of Microsofts goals (notice the priority). Internet Explorer (formerly known as Mosaic) has been so deeply embedded into Windows that extraction of IE by a lay user is not possible. You, on the other hand, have talents far above the average of all the Windows users that I have encountered in my career. You may feel that disabling IE makes little sense, but would you disagree that IE has become the #1 security hole in Windows? In that light, should that hole riddled software remian installed simply for the benefit of the operating system? Microsoft has certainly been less than helpful in aiding users that wish to close those holes. In Linux, I can uninstall EVERYTHING, if I so desire.

As a former Windows user, one that could just barely edit his registry to a very minor level, I felt that I was not being given a product that dealt with my Windows issues. I feel that Linux development communities are much more approachable and much more open about implementing a secure computing environment, compared to Microsofts flagship. When I was given opportunity to give Microsoft feedback about a knowledgebase article, Microsoft limited my feedback to 300 characters..... I can email kernel developers if I felt the need to do so.

Further, consider this additional economic detail: If you can find Windows 95 sold by a Microsoft Authorized reseller, it still costs over $70 (USD), because Microsoft demands that all resellers maintain price equity. Yet back in 2000, I calculated (roughly) that over 50% of the purchase price of all retail Windows versions (from 3.1 to 98SE) are monies that are ported directly into one Microsoft employees income. Nothing like that can ever occur in Linux, because the source code is freely available. The majority of the cost of Windows was clearly income for the chief corporate members, nothing more. In that light, I'm not sure why Microsoft feels that users in China deserve a price reduction when users in the US still steal because the price is too high, but they all can take a copy of any distribution of Linux, at no direct cost.