Sorry to disapoint Jon, but I was talking about all versions of windows, since the original point that brought it up was the changing of technologies,
I was only pointing out that there have been two core technologies developed by microsoft,
which is the same as Mac, (with the exception that they didn't develop their newest one, they just realised their own one was crappy and bought a unix core...
so far as taking a day to install Linux, it really does depend on your harware, and how much of it you're actually installing...
assuming that there are drivers for your hardware then you should be all set, but what if you're using bleeding edge, (or bleeding old), and can't find a driver to work with the kernel?
Also I think that there are perhaps too many installation options with linux, if you fully check out everything that can be installed from the start media then you have quite a package, office apps, drawing apps, multiple browsers etc...
but none of those are really linux...
so yes, it can take a whole day to install Linux, you don't have to be an idiot...
in fact the last time I installed Linux it took me five days (evenings) to get the system working exactly as I wanted it, with all the correct browsers, correct media players, all associations made correctly, all the drivers installed and all the software that I wanted...
even then there were some of my necessary apps missing that I felt I just couldn't live without.
and I also found that there were various problems with Firefox and certain sites, (such as Yahoo mail).
All in all, like I said earlier, I'm happy with XP, I realise it's not perfect, but nothing else is either...