So, I've given up trying to run Windows at home, life is too short to deal with all the problems. OS X works rather well, but is eye-wateringly expensive overall, and doesn't have all the applications I would like. And it's not perfect, by any measure.

I thought I'd try Linux. A few weekends ago I loaded a leading distribution onto a laptop I have knocking about, to see if it works. It actually looks quite nice. An hour to set up, and about 19 hours to prove to my own satisfaction that it wasn't going to connect wirelessly to my home network. Apparently that sort of 'advanced functionality' is still in the future. If I had got it working, my impression was that there isn't much software, but lack of internet connectivity is a show stopper so not worth checking. I should have been suspicious reading all the forums where the linux fanboys bleat that linux is "99% working". Like that isn't "100% broken"...

Conclusion: grit teeth, keep sending Apple sackloads of money.