I use a Mac as my main computer, but keep a PC just for games. I would love to use Linux on it and not have to pay for Windows. Is there another category of software that is as exclusive to windows as games? I can get everything else I need via web apps or OSX.

There are a lot of windows-only apps in the business world.

There are also a lot of apple-only apps in the business world.

And how many business apps are being built for windows right now, compared to the number that are being built of iOS and osX right now?

I guess that the latter has much more activity...

I think the latter has a lot more visibility, at least.

I'm sure there are a lot of custom and legacy business apps out there tied to windows. But thinking of broad categories of business software (Office/productivity, browser, IDE, graphics editing, accounting, contact management), there are lots of alternatives that will run on a non-Windows PC. But looking at games as a category, you don't have comparable options on Mac or Linux.

I can second this. While support for games is improving on nix, it's still a huge turn off to have to switch OSs when you want to load up whatever you're playing. So it's still nix at work, Windows at home for me.

A decent window manager.

dunno what you are talking about... xmonad is great. :P

CS majors make up a rather small percentage of all PC users. What is your point exactly?

I think the point is even stronger because they are CS majors. These are people who develop software, and use their computer for many more purposes than the average user. If gaming is the only barrier for a CS major, then what's stopping the average user from switching to Linux?

I'd also like to to add to your point that power users are generally early adopters and set the stage for change.

The more of a switch to Linux for power users, the more we see applications developed for Linux, and the more we see a need for regular users to switch to a Linux platform.