snichols This is more of a Linux versus Windows comparison. I've worked mostly in Windows for about 10 years. Before that I used MSDOS in the late 80s and early 90s. I've been using Linux for one year and thought I share some differences I noticed between the two OS's. Anyone else feel free to contribute.
GUI. In Windows, the GUI is integral to the operating system. In Linux, the GUI is simply a program running in Linux and can be killed and restarted if necessary. I have noticed that the Linux does seem to lockup more then Windows, but this may be my configuration. The good thing though is you won't have to reboot, simply restart X windows.
Application Settings In Windows, application settings are stored in the registry. The settings are not clear text and require special tools to edit such as regedit and regedit32. In Linux, application settings are stored in files that start with a dot or dot files in the users home directory. The dot files are clear text and can be edited without special tools.
Command Line In Windows, not using the command line isn't necessary. In Linux, a good understanding of the command line (bash) is necessary. The command line includes many tools that do all sorts of things that most programmers will really like.
Programming In Windows, programming requires knowledge of APIs like DDE, COM, etc. In Linux, most programming is done by writing command line apps that pipe their outputs to other command line apps. Piping sounds technical, but its actually a much easier concept to grasp and much easier to program then DDE or COM.
Summary Linux is a good development environment for a programmer, because just about anything can be automated via a script. Windows seems more geared to a casual user that would rather browse to where they need to go. I mention DDE and COM as what most Windows programs use, but I heard .NET is using SOAP which probably as hard or harder then those to grasp.