i also agree with SodaMoca5. the best discription of *nix i've ever heard was in a text book i had once that said

"Unix...was designed by programmers, for programmers, to use in an environment in which the users are relatively sophisticated and enganted in (often quite complex) software development projects."

*nix have their place with people who need mroe control over their machine then the average user and are able to handle it's installation and configuration quirks. no one uses it b/c it looks pretty.

thats the biggest issue i have with the way linux distros are headed these days. reviewers are more concered with how easy the installer is or how nice kde looks...i can't remember the last time i read a review of mandrake or redhat that even mentioned an editor or compiler. i don't think that ease of use justifies watering down a perfectly good os. but if you don't care about any of that, why the hell would you bother spending a week tweeking a linux box when windows sets up in no time. i guess the moral of the story is to use the best tool for the job.