Once upon a time, I purchased a network card to connect my computer to my kids computer so we could share a single (dial-up) internet connection.
This particular NIC came with a CD containing some version of Turbolinux. I had never heard of Linux before, so I did a bit of AltaVistaing (I had never heard of Google before, at that time, either... I'm not sure if Google even existed then) and became intrigued at the possibilities.
An operating system that doesn't crash three times daily and doesn't cost anything??? Rediculous!
So I filed the CD away with the rest of my useless stuff.
Some time later, a hardware upgrade became more or less necessary for various reasons which are not relevant, but DID leave me with a functional PC that I had no use for... So why not? I installed TurboLinux on it and played around with it a bit.
OK... It did stuff, it was amazingly stable, it came with an awesome selection of software, but it was not at all what I was used to so I pretty much shelved it.
Some time later, I saw a boxed set of Mandrake 7.2 at an office supply store, and thought, maybe a commercially packaged Linux system would have more bells and whistles. Maybe it would be easier to get used to.
So I bought it, installed it on my old PC and tinkered some more.
Not bad! I started using it more often.
Then I discovered that Linux can set up a hard disc so that it can dual boot Windows and Linux on the same machine. Meanwhile, Mandrake 8.0 was released, so I bought that, and in a moment of (for me) incredible bravado, I repartitioned the hard disc on my newer machine and set up a dual boot system.
I started using Linux more often and kept upgrading as newer versions were released. I found that Linux kept getting more and more polished, while Windows just developed more annoyances.
Eventually I downloaded a copy of SuSe 9.0... Just to try different distributions... I was in love!
It took some time to adapt. Linux does not work the same way as Windows. It's not harder, but it IS different and one must unlearn many things while learning many other things.
I'm now running SuSe 10.0 and no longer have Windows on my PC at all.
My son also got disgusted with Windows quirks and had me remove it and install Linux on his PC... He and his wife both love it and when they recently purchased a new PC, step #1 was reformat to remove Windows, and install Linux.
My wife and my daughter still run Windows XP, but are slowly realizing what a nuisance it is trying to keep malware out.
I'm working on them.