I merely wanted to correct the URL for the link for Ubuntu. It should be either http://www.ubuntulinux.org/ or http://www.ubuntu.com/, rather than http://ubuntu.org.

-A very happy Ubuntu user

I've found SUSE (suse.com) to be excellent both for beginners and for myself as a power user. Installed it for my son in no time; smooth install, everything worked out of the box, and as a Linux n00b he appreciated the auto-mount of his NTFS and FAT32 partitions as /windows/C and /windows/D. Not to start a distro flaming war or anything, just a personal testimony someone might find helpful. :)

I agree Dave with your assessment of PC vendors; would even adventure to see a mutiny brewing. They are making accomodating noises but are seething today with fury!

You add:

"We just need a good office suite and then it's time to start shorting Microsoft stock."

I would say this particular issue is addressed by the OpenDocument adoption Tsunami that will gain momentum across state governments of the world once Massachusetts puts the accessibility questions to rest and declares its ODF policy a success.

I would add that, whatever your reserevations, OpenOffice / StarOffice is good enough now and Writely is too. What you have in the market is the long lag of customers behaving like sheep.

It's a social phenomenon.

Office revenues will begin eroding in earnest when Google's desktop fleshes out more.

My perfect storm scenario is that users Just Say No this time to Vista because it's commically in the wrong direction in terms of use of resources (while a 5 year wait for an OS X imitation reveals the innovative bankruptcy at Microsoft -- they're really losing it) and Ubuntu or Linspire or NSLD10 work great on the 3-year-old PC. Personally, I prefer Mac, anyway.

This though is wishful thinking...as consumers & enterprises simply don't see how this slippage reveals what an unappealing player Microsoft are.