The problem with XP? Well, that's easy! It runs all of your programs, has drivers for all of your peripherals and it never crashes.
Oh wait, those aren't problems...
Linux is indispensable for server operating systems - it, or some other flavor of *nix runs most of them. But I think you have to be a masochist or a geek or a masochistic geek to run it on your home computer.
I'm certainly not a geek, nor masochistic (well) but surely was one of the average not giving-a-fuck about anything XP-users around. It was enough for me because I didn't even know there were alternatives. I knew there was Mac, but didn't care. Linux I'd heard of, but even the word sounded complicated.
By accident I saw some Linux-mag at the newsstand and picked it up. It had an Ubuntu-Live-CD with it. I took it home, read it, didn't understand much and tossed it aside. After some months in a moment of boredom I remembered the CD and that they said, you could try out Ubuntu with it without harming your Windows or anything. Preparing to kill my PC forever I booted. Nothing happened. It was strange, because not at all like XP, but ok. When I had time I toyed around with it, but nothing serious.
When 8.10 came out I downloaded the 700mb, burned them, read about
Wubi and installed it, preparing again to kill my PC forever with it. Nothing happened. But this time was much better. Everything went out-of-the-box: my printer, my WLAN-connection, my mp3-player, my whatever. It was even easier than XP. Besides, thrice as fast, no virus (don't know about the keylogger), no firewall, no fragmentation etc., and it's free.
Since then I use it via dualboot with Windows, but very seldom need Windows now. That being said I only need my os for internet, office and stuff, nothing serious. It's also true that you sometimes have to mess around with it. 8.10 sometimes froze my keyboard, when the desktop-effects were activated. 9.04 was the best (for me) yet, there were no problems at all and with 9.10 somtimes the suspend-to-RAM won't work at first, so I have to try it twice. But these things are all minor to me.