In the area of window managers Linux users are completely and totally spoiled rotten. We constantly debate the merits of one desktop environment/window manager over another. We argue over what programs are better than others, what versions of those programs we like over another and getting in world class pissing contests all the while crying about what we wish they would do better or differently. I wish Windows users had this problem, but they don't. Why? Because they have no choice.

I know that there are other window managers for Windows but they are little more than themes compared to what we have. We Linux users have thousands of versions of Linux that you can run on multiple types of hardware with dozens of different desktop environments on top of them, or none at all if your really cool. All of them customizable to the hilt and we're still not happy. It seems like we are the spoiled child in the 31 Flavors who can't find anything they like while poor Windows users have no idea that 'ice cream' comes in anything other than vanilla, and a sad vanilla at that.

We have gotten fat on the bounty of choices and drunk with the power of functionality they provide us. Go use a generic NT, 2000 or XP setup for a week and then try and tell me that KDE, GNOME, Xfce, Enlightenment etc. are really that much better or worse than each other. Because compared to the Microsoft window manager in any version of Windows, any Linux window manager blows it away. Many authors, Bruce Byfield stands out in my mind, have told and re-told their issues with, loves and hates of competing desktop environments to the point of ad nauseam.

Give me a desktop environment I do not like on top of a Linux version I cannot stand and it will still be a thousand times better than any Windows machine you could put in front of me.