Here's a fairly in-depth, reasonable comparison between Windows Vista and Ubuntu Linux, if you're into that sort of thing. For me, Linux will only become a viable option when fixing something doesn't require dropping to the command line and when one can reasonably expect that all hardware components in a given machine will be supported.

So far, in my experimentation with Ubuntu 7.04, that's not yet the case. In fact, it's pretty far from it. Granted, I have some uncommon components in my Toshiba M400, the only machine I've yet tried with Ubuntu. However, I'm not talking about relative exotica like the digitizer, but rather relatively mundane things like dual-monitor support. And, don't get me started with wireless networking, where everything I could find about how to fix my issues with connecting to two different WAPs involved typing obscure commands at a command prompt.

Could I make Ubuntu work? Sure I could, if I wanted to spend the time learning those sorts of intricasies. And that's the point: I don't.