STL - If you are still watching this thread
It seems that my original question has returned more than I had bargained for and I don't think I'm any further ahead. Perhaps my question should have read "Can I hope to install Linux straight out of the box and have an OS that works as well and as easily as MS?" From what I read I think not.
As you have seen - it isn't really a question about the technical merits of Linux vs Microsoft, or even licencing issues. IT all comes down to your attitude of what you are prepared to count as "straight out of the box", or in my trems "How much I'm prepared to tweak it".
If I can draw an analogy here, I work away from home so often travel out on a Sunday evening and pick up a hire car at the airport. I have used a range of hire cars, but the key for me is being able to take the keys to the Hertz lot, get in the car and after adjusting the seat & mirror, drive it away. By and large that applied to most cars. However one that sticks in my mind is the Fiat Stilo which has a small number of annoyances and forced me to sit in the lot reading the owner manual before I could work out how to switch the lights on & drive away. (By the way - the Grande Punto I had the following week was back to sit in & drive off - much, much better car by miles)
The fact is the Stilo was an OK car, and for me it was slightly annoying having to RTFM to be able to drive away at 1am in the morning. Had that have been my wife for example, then it would have been a more serious matter.
The same applies to Linux v WinXP. WinXp works far more often out of the box, and I would say that Ubuntu 6 comes closest to the same install experience (sorry MTK - openSuse is like the Stilo - good product, just too much RTFM). It's just how do you feel about having to work on it to make it work before you can do work.