Corrections.
Linux is as usful as a computer full of cow Manure.
You sure put the "I am a twat" hat on with that statement.
And of course, Windows which comes with boatloads of holes, needs further money spending on it to offset the appalling security model it uses and has a shit web browser, a shit email client and notepad is SO superior to an OS which needs no money spending on it to make it safe, comes with several safe browsers, several good email clients, a serious office suite and the option of a further 10-20,000 applications.
Might as well disconnect from the internet then as Linux runs a fair proportion of that too.
Xandros and Linspire are awful distros. A hopeless attempt to make Linux into something like Windows - somewhat like taking a Rolls Royce and painting it up to look like a milk float. And they're going the way they deserve as a consequence.
Ubuntu is OK, doing well, spreading the word.
You want an out of the box good experience you could do worse than to try one of the Mandriva 2008 Live disks. Comes with most of what you need and installs in about 10 minutes.
As to the desktop thing - Gnome is over simplified and annoying (though very graceful and beautiful) and KDE is more or less instantly intuitive but overly cluttered in places.
And both require a brain.
The software on Linux is crap - you really are ladling it out today huh?
And firefox - an open source project that started out in Linux? Apache? MySQL?
I'll grant you that a lot of Open Source applications seem to have fallen out of the ugly tree and hit most of the branches on the way down. Huge buttons, acres of white space, etc.
On the other hand, take Evolution (the email client) - has a far far better interface than Outlook. Take Konqueror - far superior to Windows Explorer.
Try taking a Win XP disk and installing your computer with it - you're not allowed to use driver cd's or 3rd party software installs - how functional would your pc be?
Now do the same with a single Linux disk. You'd find 99.9% of drivers were present and you'd have enough software to get going without further installs.
I know we like to be funny on the Reg comments, but there's funny and there's ignorant. Do try to learn the difference.