I stopped using Windows at home in 2004. I've been using Linux since 1999 but by 2004 there's nothing Linux can't do except play some games and do the etax return but just run these under Wine or as a VM.
My home machines are routers, media servers, database servers etc. I can be out and about, realise there's a movie on telly tonight that I'd like to see. Connect to it via my mobile and download the programme in HD to my storage device. Total cost of the 'Tivo' like device? $70 for the tv card and that's all!
Linux is free Tivo is $700.
I can't understand why anyone would pay money for an operating system especially an inferior one and then pay money for extra software when It's all available for free.
It's not a difficult OS to learn, download an easy distro like Ubuntu and when you are stuck there is a huge online community and mountains of information at your fingertips to help you.