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I run vista on my laptop, XP on 2 desktops here and linux on 2 servers.

Each OS has its own little useful niche but certainly no overall best.

Vista i find needs lots of ram - 2Gb or so. Give it that it runs very nicely and it does have some nice improvements over XP. You can customise it a lot too. It runs badly on systems with 1gb or less of RAM.

XP just "works", have had it for years, it hasnt needed a reinstall for years and typically the desktop is on 24/7 so maybe rebooted once or twice a year with powercuts.

However due to the demands of these OSs they're not great for server based tasks as too much wasted overhead providing a desktop.

Linux is great for the server due to the ease of control remotely via SSH, the open source stuff and fact its very handy on low spec hardware. However linux is a complete arse trying to use it as a desktop. Simple 2 minute tasks can take hours if it doesnt go correctly. Even package managers such as apt,slap,emerge etc do not always get things working well. It lags a long way behind windows in this stake. Also documentation is sometimes patchy, sometimes already assumes you know what you're doing before starting and a lot of the support community can be anal.
Its certainly too geeky,confusing and at times frustrating to replace the average consumers home desktop any time soon - MS have nothing to worry about there.

The only system i'd never touch with a bargepole is a mac. I've pulled hair out, become frustrated by limitations (artificially imposed more often than not as they stole/based it on a decent OS then added in pointless artefacts). It also offers far less in the terms of useful software and really can see no advantage over linux. To me a mac is just a very overpriced very of linux with a snazzy GUI and some anti-competitive features.