Wot he sed ^^^^^^

Menuet? (Or Kolibri) - that was fun. A whole operating system on a floppy. Probably not very practical now.

A lot of people are trapped with Windows or IOS. My brother, for instance, is what I believe is called a "power user" with MS Office. He uses it a lot at work, especially the word processor and spreadsheet parts. LibreOffice isn't 100% compatible, so he's stuck with MS.

Other than that - "What can Linux do as well as Windows?" In my own experience - it does everything I need noticeably better than Windows. But I've so far managed to avoid the dreaded "vendor lock-in."

I've heaps of old 32-bit netbooks and things, and haven't the heart to chuck them. Fortunately, there are still distros available (and supported) that work on low powered 32-bit machines.

People keep buying Eee PCs and Acer Aspire One ZG5s on eBay. At least there is still secure, current software available that will keep these machines going a little longer. Realistically, RAM needs to be boosted to at least 1GB if a modern browser is to be used successfully - possible on most of these little gadgets, although not always (Eee PC 2G, anyone?), and not always easily (ZG5).

As for more powerful computers - as camcoll pointed out, most distros these days are 64-bit - driver support is pretty good on old and new machines, too. In fairness - From Windows 7 onwards, Microsoft is probably just as good, driver-wise.

Apologies to PBR for the thread drift - but I think these discussions remain useful and valid.