my wife ( a stout windows absorbed user) insist that migration to linux is a waste of time because there are no porgrams written for linux. her job (USAF) uses mostly M$ and has some propritary programs that require M$. As we are both biased against each other who can settle the argument of who uses better operating system? she would like to know specifics, pros and cons.

lol, obviously you both do - Windoze is better for her - Linux is better for you. :-) I would never dream of starting that argument with my wife - or most company users that I do work for - they're big boys and girls and can make up their own minds about what OS they use on their workstations. I'm a firm believer in the P part of PC.

I would argue that Linux is better than M$ for servers

Show her this :

http://www.debian.org/News/1997/shuttle1

cheers

Never try to teach a pig to sing--it wastes you time and annoys the pig......

(please don't take the analogy too seriously... ) The point is that you can't win this one---especially when one is in a work environment.

Linux or Windows are not "better"--they are different.

I made the big leap about six months ago and installed Linux at the office and at home. (Windows on a laptop at work, and dual-boot at home)

The home machine is multi-user and my wife does EVERYTHING in Linux. I jump into Windows 5% of the time--usually for a photo app that Linux lacks. At work, the laptop might come out 1-3 times a week.
In my work environment, there are precious few things that **require** Windows, but they are there.

YMMV

What OS you use is primarily a question of what applications you need to run.
If there is an application that needs either OS, the best choice is to use this particular OS. Computing is a tool to get tasks accomplished.

In a more general sense, if the task you are trying to do is not bound to a very specific software, a free OS like Linux or some BSD is a better choice, even for state-of-the-art games, as they are now normally launched with a Mac OS and a Linux version (Quake4, Doom3, cold war...).

Your wife is wrong stating that 'there is no software', as this was true in 1992-93, but there are very few things for which you won't be able to find a Free version: From office suits to web browsers, email programs and silly online Tamagotchis, compilers or computer algebra systems. (Tell your wife, that Linux is the OS of choice for the Sony's PS3). There is just about anything.

The main difference for a normal user is This:

If you suddenly notice that you need a program and you are using a free OS, you will be able to search the application database and retrieve it w/o further questions. There is a high percent chance, that you won't need to google for the application as it will surely be in your distro's repositories. But even if you have to download and install it yourself, there will normally be no strings attached.

To do the same from a Windows platform you will have no choice as to google for it or go to pages like tucows.com. Installation is normally easy (as it is in Linux too), but you can find that the application is limited in time or functionality...Or do what many people do: Use the P2P networks and install an ilegal copy of the software, which isn't a good choice from both the security and the ethical point of view.

OK, this is not always the case, because there is something better as Linux or Windows: It's Free Software!

So, Why bothering about which OS is best? Why not trying Free Software on the Windows platform? Tell your wife to try Firefox, OOo, or the fabulous 7zip (The first FOSS killer-app born for the Win32 platform).

In my particular case, my wife asked me to setup for her a computer to do basic stuff as email, web-browsing and reading/writing documents. My choice for a total computer illiterate was Gentoo with KDE 3.4.1, Firefox and OOo... I relayed on KDE's remote desktop connection, so that every time i need to show her something, I can simply take control of her mouse form my desktop and show her step by step and click by click what to do.

This means two things: The first is that I choose Linux and KDE for practical reasons. I am a Linux geek, plus I have a Linux network and it's easier for me to care about one single distro or two as to care about 2 different operating systems (I don't have dual boot in any box).
The second meaning is that Linux desktops are easy even for the absolute beginner, it depends more on what desktop one gets used to as on an intrinsic userfriendlyness of either desktop or OS. I have noticed that users are strongly biased by the desktop they use first.