I must comment on this one.
I put five checks on the poll: Linux, Mac, Win98 SE, Win95, and WinXP (that list is in no particular order).
I'm surprised how many people here think WinXP is the best. Maybe out of Windows, but it has it's problems. I agree with (whoever said this, I'm not going to bother finding quotes now, I'm feeling to lazy) the fact that MS shouldn't have bothered to make things like networking "easier". They just end up making it less capable and essentially worse. I do like XP and think that MS has put things on it they should have done ages ago, such as CD burning, actual private documents (and a proper multiuser system where you need a password to get in), something to unzip compressed folders, as well as the strength not to crash the computer when one program has a problem, and other things. However, some things are complete annoyances, such as all the wizards. Ok. They do have their uses, but do we really need them to unzip a folder, burn a CD, or setup a network? Besides, unlike Mac and Linux, not crashing when one program crashes is not entirely fool proof. That being said, I do like XP as an OS though. Believe it or not, I have managed to bring up the blue screen of death in WinXP. It is changed though, and no longer says fatal error or makes pathetic attempts to get back into Explorer. It basically says that there has been a major error and the computer will need to be restarted (press any key to do so). When you restart, once you're back in the desktop it asks if you would like to send an error report to MS (you know, like when any program must be forced to crash). Then again, considering the things I put my computer through, I wouldn't expect your average Windows user to get to this situation. (In Win98 I saw the bluescreen virtually everyday.)
Linux is great, and right now I'm planning on downloading ISOs for RH 9 (I had SuSE but didn't like it as much as Red Hat).
Mac OS X Jaguar is excellent, and I'd really like to own a Mac, but unfortunetly I do not. I use Macs out of home, and I'm planning to own one within future years (I'm too happy with my fairly new Inspiron 8200, which I got an amazing deal on through inside sources
, and I would have actually gotten a Mac if I hadn't payed so little for my Dell.)