no Linux distribution is ready for mass market use. I've tried Ubuntu, PcLinixOS (windows-like but unstable), and fedora. Yes you CAN get them to use your video card properly but its a hassle. I never got sound to work. ubuntu would connect to the net but no internet app would see the connection. PClinuxOs corrupted one of my login files and after 2 weeks someone in the forums helped me work it out so i could boot it up again. 2 weeks later it wouldn't boot again and I'm on the verge of re-installing. And if u wanna tinker, the system uses cryptic directory and file names which bear no relation to what they do. eg Linux has an "etc" directory which holds important graphics driver files- how would a user know this? IMHO the problem with Linux is there are way too many distributions, so that the limited resources mean that they all end up half-baked.
Reminds of the Amiga when everyone was trying to make a buck by bringing out there own hardware and OS solution and in the end none of them made anything.
as far as Macs go they become obsolete even quicker than PC's: Apple kills support for older units in the OS after 3-4 years so that you can't even get a printer to work with older units, whereas most PC hardware until this year or so comes with at least Win98se drivers. I remember getting Encyclopeadia Brittanica to run on a P2 200 with Win98Se, the Mac version needed MacOSX. Why? windows is safe for a while yet
