the "free" bit doesn't totally mean free its for freedom, i.e. the freedom to midify it to suit ones needs, the trouble is as said before people are either afraid to try new things because of the spoonfed approach of microsoft i.e. buy a pc with windows pre-installed then you get media player an msn thown in your face but some people may want to use vlc or digsby.
i have never had a bug or prob runnin something my base system runs at about 10% of my ram where as win7s base system needs 1gb of ram no base system should use that much it's stupid, like runnin a car constantly at 8000rpm (its revving it's tits off before you start vid conversions etc)
my system is set up to be attractive and full of funky lil effects thanks to compiz etc, i shall post a screencast on youtube after work of my system with its video wallpaper, true rgb transparency an similar things. it takes me a full half hour to get every app, game, codecs and the set up the funkiness then i take a copy with remastersys to save me starting all over again,
photoshop and microsoft office work quite well on linux all you have to do is add wine and the font packages, there are loads of easy to follow howto's on sites like ubuntu-geek and the linux forms are very helpful
one question i do have s why is it that you buy a linux mag to read new scripts an c++ stuff or new features that are comin out or that are out now, then buy any windows mag to read how to fix things, microsoft boast about their new features which have been used by us for over 6 years like snapping windows (compiz), same with internet explorers 8second ads firefox did that stuff when it was on version 2 or something.
an saying that someone couldn't get on with firefox is a bit silly (not bein offensive) as they are practically the same just that some of the items in the menu are in a slightly different place.