With regard to this thread I posted a while back, I have aquired a tape drive and am ready to prepare the backups. I am currently reading O'Reilly's guide to Unix Backup and Recovery but I am afraid ...

Linux is a powerful and fully customizable operating system with an endless number of distributions that differ significantly from one another, offering complete personalization for all applications.

If you prefer your desktop operating system to be prettier than the average bear, then Linux is where it's at.