Well, I might as well kick off this debate. It's not exactly a new one, but I like to think it is a changing one.
I've used Windows since Windows 3.1, and have used pretty much every version up to Windows 7 at some point since then. It was never that I had any particular love of Windows, it was always just the default choice.
Years ago I had an old machine running FreeBSD, and then in about 2004 I moved to Linux more seriously. Since then, I've tried a whole host of different Linux flavours - Mandrake/Mandriva, Fedora Core, Debian and Ubuntu being the most notable. I've also used some of the mini-distributions such as Knoppix and Puppy Linux in emergencies!
Then last year, a project came along for which I needed a Mac. Although I have used Macs several times before, I have never owned one. I had always resisted buying a Mac, arguing that it was purely a fashion thing, and that they were overpriced - not to mention the horrible one-buttoned mouse I had used in the past! But despite this, I had no option, so I gave in and bought myself a 22" iMac - deliberately not top of the range, as I wasn't planning to use it any more than I had to.
How things have changed since then!
A year on, and I'm writing this on that very same iMac. A month or so after buying my iMac, I bought myself an iPhone - I tried the top-end Blackberry as a comparison, but found the iPhone far more intuitive. The desktop PC I had running Windows Vista is now sitting under my desk running Ubuntu. Admittedly I do have Vista installed through Bootcamp on the Mac, but that's for compatibility as I have a few programs that don't work on a Mac, yet I don't want to replace.
Which is best?
Simple answer: it depends.
And really, it does! There are a whole host of reasons why you might prefer one more than the others, and therein lies the reason I have one of each.
Some pieces of software simply don't run on a Mac, and yet I still need them - websites need testing in IE on Windows, there are more PC computer games, some other software is still Windows-only, and so on. Any of those reasons explain why someone may still need a Windows box, even if they already own a Mac.
So who should get a Mac? Anyone. I genuinely was shocked by how quickly I started to feel more productive on a Mac. There are still some things I'm not convinced about, but they are minor inconveniences. I would recommend a Mac to anyone, as even for a complete computer novice, they are so intuitive. And if you're used to Firefox, Thunderbird, and even Microsoft Office, you'll have no problems converting.
What about Linux then? Well, for me, that's an easy one. Linux is the perfect platform for developing on. Even for fairly trivial web programming, it's still miles better than anything else, even the Mac. Personally, I use Eclipse PDT for developing in the majority of the time, but the command line tools are invaluable. And yes, I know most of these are available or can be ported to the Mac or even Windows, but it's still not as good in my opinion.
Which Linux flavour?
I guess this one really will open a can of worms, but I'm going there anyway!
I don't claim to be a Linux expert, although I do use it on a daily basis, and am therefore fairly familiar with it. But I have used several different Linux flavours, and on several different platforms. My favourite, at present, is Ubuntu. My reasoning is fairly simple - the interface is clear and uncluttered, it comes with sensible software pre-installed, and has relatively good hardware support. In addition, there is a good user community to help out if you do run into problems.
If you're thinking of giving Linux a try, I'd recommend Ubuntu. If nothing else, it has a Live CD so you can just burn it onto a CD, reboot and give it a go. It doesn't touch your hard drive at all (unless you tell it to), so when you're finished, you can just remove the CD and reboot. Simples!
I'm not entirely sure what the point of this blog post was - does there need to be one? But maybe it might help someone else out if they find themselves wondering whether to stick with Windows or not.