Do you realize how ridiculous this argument is? Package management is laughably bad on Windows (not as bad as Mac OS X, but still at least a decade behind yum or apt-get on Linux). It's perhaps my least favorite thing about managing Windows systems, in fact, and the thing I hold up as an example of what's horribly wrong with Windows.

I've built and maintained a Python distribution for Windows (Python Enthought Edition, which is used pretty widely in scientific computing environments) that had to work alongside other versions, and I also maintained a Linux version for RHEL/CentOS/Fedora. I would choose a Linux deployment every time. Not because I didn't know how to make it work on Windows; I did, and it did work quite well. But, because of how awful the whole process was.

There isn't even a standard mechanism for third party package updates on a Windows system. How stupid is that? Everybody has to roll their own updater if they want to provide automatic updates on Windows. It's like living in the stone age. Might as well hand out floppy disks.

To be honest, when installing on Linux is hard, to me it feels worthwhile -- I'm gaining experience and knowledge.

And in contrast, the slightest annoyance on Windows confirms my worst feelings about Windows, and I give up quickly in disguest. For whatever (illusory) reason, Linux comes across as logical and an interesting puzzle that is worth the time invested, whereas Windows comes across as arbitrary and makes me feel like I've wasted my time.

Yes, it's a double standard but what can I say. At least with Linux, you can drill down as far as you want (and with Windows, I feel that I can't but it's partially a case of "Why should I bother, I can't see the source.")