hero, we are talking about desktop ... if you need rtos you will definetely not go m$ ... 80% of WiFi AP's run linux, 80% of routers, 70% of satellite receivers, 80% of media players.. there is 75% chance (99% if you are member of this forum) that you have at least one device running linux in your house.. but for desktop .. filter design tools from AD, all the sim utilities (ISIS, EWB, NI ..) ... all the dev tools ... now, some of it work under wine but if 80% of your applications are working under wine - what is the point of linux desktop when you have native windoze solution for those 20% you have natively on linux ?!
that is the whole point ... I use linux as 90% of my apps run nativly on linux and I cannot use them on windoze .. but when electronics is in question ... you oscilloscope talk with windoze - not linux
, you fancy desktop multimeter that you paid 2000$ for talk with windoze .. your data acquisition module talk with, you got it - windoze ... you wife got you the fancy logic analyser and - damn .. it can only talk to windoze - I do not like windoze, I use linux where I can, but for electronics ... geda, pcb designer, AWV, gnu-cap, ng-spice, piklab, pikdev, eagle .. it is just not enough