On my own site, with about 1.6 million unique visitors per year, Linux was reported as the OS of exactly 0.9% of visitors in 2010
Let's face it, billgatesisgod.com or howdoifixmybluescreen.net could skew the results a bit
Several years ago, I was asked whether we should switch our desktop environment of about 15,000 machines to Linux. Although I was in favour, my advice was that it would be courageous - in simpler terms, lunacy (or should that be linuxy?)
In an infrastructure role, our Windows machines represent a significant overhead in terms of manpower. The Unix crew know more about the MS side of things than they'll let on, but they won't cooperate out of pride and petulance (a good title for a novel), and playfully point out the deficiencies in Uncle Bill's OS - the MS machines have more patches than a Scotsman's condom. I get to manage both tribes. That sucks like a failed actress on crack in a bus station.
When Mrs SO bought her latest laptop, it came with Windows 7. She expected me to wave the Fedora wand it at, as I've done in the past - but as this was not just a hand-me-down from me, as it's been in the past, I insisted that she keep it in its original state.
Dumb.
The afternoon Mrs SO was leaving for a four-week trip, she called me, quite distraught. Her profile was buggered, and she couldn't get in. There is a registry key you can unbugger to repair this, but you need safe mode or the admin uid to do it. This wasn't really feasible over the telephone from the office.
At work, I can afford a team of thirty people to run around picking up the dog's eggs that MS OSes produce. I can sustain the mandatory weekly reboot of our MS desktops, because I am being paid for it. No such luxury at home, and that's why I am in high demand amongst my friends because 'SO works with computers'.
I put MS OSes on desktops at work in the same category as minorities recruitment and H&S. A pile of crap, but a sandwich with some sh!t in it has more nutrition than without. Adopting Linux on corporate desktops is dropping the soap in the shower, because with Windows you just blame Bill. With Linux, it's you who'll be Mr Sh!tty Operating System.
SO