saltyric,
I hear you! It took me a while to find alternative applications (Open Office, Dia, gnuCash, Eclipse, etc). I still have a W2K box to run one app.--- for which there is an open source alternative, but the file formats are not compatible.
striperman36,
300 VMs. Nice. I am glad they are mostly Linux.
piemma,
I had Vista "basic" or "home edition". It corrupted itself after a Windows update. I have been running Windows since 3.1 and I never had something this bad happen. Go figure. I have used Linux on and off since the original Red Linux 6.2. So, switching over was fairly painless. Stop the IE8 pain! Install Firefox.

.
JohnR,
Well said! I consider myself lucky because Linux and open source has all the right tools for me.

. I do not own a Mac, but I will be using one soon for a project I am on--- looking forward to it actually.
I am glad to learn that there are other Linux users here. Thank you for your posts. Much appreciated.
Tight lines (and bytes).