I would say For desktopsWindows XP for normal userFedora core 2 for smart usersOn Server sideFreeBSD and OpenBSD are preffred ones otherwise RHEL AS is also good.
"Why to pay for crap, when you get better things for Free" Windows xp has been in for long time like win 98. MS is trying to change the OS usage in upcoming future thus revamping the OS for pay for services rather than pay for software. And this upturn will fill in $$$ to MS and will cut out pockets of users.
i was googling arround for some good free web host and found a list of them, landed on this site and found that it has a good community setup and not to say that is just needs 10 posts to start up with so got into it. Hoping to get hosting pretty soon.