In May 2003 I decided to take a breath and dive into Linux. Thanks to friends, rather than learning with Mandrake that has tons of GUI, I started learning with a HD-install of a live-CD distribution, Knoppix, then installed the real Debian once I mastered the basics. I switched to Ubuntu Hoary a month before Debian Sarge was officially finally out. Then I had to change my desktop computer and told me I didn't have hours to spend with hardware installation. And Ubuntu users community is so friendly...
If I had to tell why I would use Windows only on a computer that I won't own...
Linux gives an incredible peace of mind, compared to Windows where you have to get an anti-virus software and always ask yourself security-related questions
It's easier to find suitable (free) software. With Windows it's too easy to feel lazy and use illegal wide-distributed software instead of spend time to choose the right free thing
I always know what runs on my machine
If I don't understand or know, it's easy to get information and learn new concepts. Moreover, it's often a lot of fun
A nasty bug will throw an evening away but at least I will get more skills
A system freeze that will only let rebooting the machine via the "reset" button is generally caused by a hardware problem (I had a half-dead processor once, what a hell it was) or a really bad or experimental kernel. Under Windows, it can be anything, especially software. I had a bad freeze the other day using Eclipse Java IDE...
