stickyhead > 'i have thought about linux as an option but i have heard some good reports like you could leave you pc on for months with out having to restart, but i have also heard that there is alot of pissing about with the linux OS as well - and i don't have much time to mess about with the OS i just wanna get on and do some animating, is all mucking around( if any) worth it?'

How difficult installing and using Linux depends on which distribution (Red Hat, Ubuntu, ect) and what edition (home, enterprise, ect) it is. I've heard that Ubuntu is really easy to use and is not too different to Windows or OSX.