What is an OS for ?

Answer: It lets your software applications talk to your hardware devices and.......that's it, pretty much. Since the early-to-mid naughties, the three main home computer strands (Windows, OSX and *nix) have all performed that duty in a pretty decent manner. Has there really been any great step forward since those days that we can't live without ?

Sure, Windows is improving security, KDE makes for some great eye-candy, Linux is supporting more hardware by the day, and OSX continues to be the heart of the Apple 'It Just Works' computer-as-appliance philosophy. But really, when it comes to having a platform for getting a computer to 'do stuff', all the major OSs have been fine and stable for years.

And that's the reason all of my friends, family or colleagues aren't even slightly interested in Windows 7 - it won't let them do anything that they can't do just now, and there's even the chance (based on past evidence) that upgrading might STOP them from doing something they are perfectly able to do just now. It's also the reason why none are really interested in switching from Windows to Linux, and who can blame them, given some of our experiences of switching, even as tech-savvy geeks ?