I work in education for IT stuff, so I have access to all the various versions of Windows, including the -N european versions that don't have the Movies, Music, etc. installed.
Mac isn't much better with their walled garden philosophy, and they are intentionally disabling features in the new OS X when run on x86 hardware and not the new Mx chips, even though the x86 hardware can do the task w/o issue.
I still only run Linux on my personal stuff, and have since 1999. Up until 3 years ago, I was Linux only at work as well, and am about to move back to Linux only again.
For those wanting to try Linux on the desktop/laptop, I would recommend downloading Mint (
www.linuxmint.com), I like the MATE desktop version. Mint is basically Ubuntu with slightly different default install options and a much nicer default desktop set up ( the GUI isn't part of the OS in Linux - it is just another application....). You can run it entirely from a DVD so boot to it and make sure your hardware all works (some wireless cards can be problematic still), and if you choose to install it if it detects Windows on your computer it will offer to set up a dual boot system automatically for you.