So my answer is the same as it was 15 years ago when the neighbor asked me what to get his kid – get whatever his kids friends get. Understand, I've been anti-MS since 1981, trying to give it a chance every five years or so and being sorely disappointed. But like democracy, it's the worst thing ever built in the history of the world, except for everything else. I'm a unix bigot, but for general use? No.

So now there are budget problems, and the Aspergers guy who maintained the ancient Apple network part-time got laid off, and due to the vagaries of school funding it's cheaper to get a bunch of Windows boxes.

The middle school requires use of some middling online whiteboard stuff, and the kids have to have thumb drives. My guy cracked up when I showed him how to insert images into some discussions, and people thought he was some kinda genius. They're middle schoolers, so you can guess what some kids do to get around the silly nannyware, and where they go. The principal seems too enamored of the technology, but at least he understands it is just a tool. He was entertained when I sent him a link to screwups with autodialing technology and such.

Some rich person gave my boy a Toshiba laptop, with problems. Turned out to be people don't know how to yank power cords out. So he's familiar with XP from several sources, but really, why should he have any interest in operating systems when he's building robots and running math programs? The computer should just work. He wasn't too happy when the wife's 'puter started screwing up and he couldn't print a powerpoint presentation that was due – my printer died a while ago (so only used for sending faxes over phone line), I have half-a-dozen other printers in various stages of decay, so the only one working with proper drivers and everything was a W95 box with an old Pixma and no working USB (which would be the 7- year-olds game machine, except when he plays online), so I told him to transfer it to a floppy and sneakernet it… “what's a floppy?”

Apple's stuff is flashy, but I've yet to be convinced it's the best for sharing and communicating.

As Rich mentions, O/S preference is a personal choice; most of us have seen and heard the debates, which can border on religious-type frenzy. As I've said before, I love having choice; so, regardless of the host O/S you choose for your kids, it's a good thing you can easily run a VM to expose them to other O/S.

I am not sure a SUV and Vista is bad choice for your kids… well, maybe you are too much of a Linux advocate

Kids like games. I meant not THE game you chose for them, but the SAME game as your neighbours are playing… Kids also like cars, and when you go skiing with your family, it is best to have something larger than a Smart.

My kids ? They use Vista Premium at home, and I drive a 1.8l Sharan

My wife and our eldest went on a couple of free Apple Workshops on GarageBand and iMovie in Manchester, and they really enjoyed it. My sister and my wife's aunt have Mac, so we were brave and bought one last week. The kids really love it, especially Photo Booth! The kids don't seem to care which OS they're using, or at the moment, aren't probably even aware of what an OS is. Sure, they can see a difference between the PC and the Mac, buy at the moment, I suppose they're too young to notice. My wife thinks the Mac applications are well crafted and intuitive to use, which is why she was so keen on them. She home-educates our kids, and thinks there will be a lot of benefit in the kids being able to use the Mac applications.

From an experience point of view, I suppose it's nice for the kids to have experience of PCs and Macs (we'll keep the PC as well)…

The primary reason for using Windows at home is its compatibility with most items that we will encounter in our home environment. While I personally would prefer to do without Windows' hassles, that desire isn't going to help my child complete assignments at school, or my wife or I to do some of the things that we need to do. (It should be noted that I, unlike some of the people who read this blog, am not experienced in hosting Windows on another OS platform.)

At the time I switched from Mac to Windows, Linux was not as pervasive as it is today. However, even if it were, I don't think that would have changed my decision at the time. Should I buy a computer with a non-Microsoft OS for home use in the future, it will probably be a “for Dad only” type of thing.

Perhaps there are families with different needs and fathers with different abilities, but my generic recommendation would be to get a Windows box so that your child won't have to jump through hoops to communicate with others.