I know from personal experience that Linux is quite popular as a workstation operating system with physicists and mathematicians. One research group at my local university has Scientific Linux (a Red Hat based distribution maintained jointly by CERN and FermiLab) installed on most of its PC's (guess what's going to be processing the LHC's readout data by the way). Most of the "public" PC's in the Science faculty have Ubuntu installed (some dual boot with Windows XP, though you still usually see Linux running on them), and I've seen one or two Fedora boxes lying around. Most of the physicists who's offices I've wandered into were either running Linux or Mac OS X.All servers (meaning -> everything that is online),supercomputers and hackers use Linux
Well yes and no. Linux is what it is. "Yes" in the sense that some Linux distros are aimed at the "average deskop user" and at attracting current Windows users. But not everyone is an "average desktop user", so "no" because Linux is available as a free Unix-like operating system to those who want one (see the above comment for an example I happen to be familiar with). Unix is a family of operating systems with a history dating back to the late 1960's, and in this regard Linux is an alternative to Solaris and other modern commercial Unices. Windows isn't Unix-like, so they're not competing in this area.Linux is supposed to be an ALTERNATIVE to Windows
If you've really had trouble getting your monitor working then you've been unusually unlucky. In Linux the usual hardware compatibility issues are with modems, wireless, webcams, and anything that needs complicated proprietary drivers. Problems using standard devices like mice, keyboards, and monitors are unusual.So if geeks want to spend countless hours trying to make Ubuntu work with an average monitor
At the end of the day you're free (or paying) to use whatever operating system you want. If you keep having trouble with Ubuntu you might like to consider experimenting with another distro - but consider your motivations for this. Linux is a different operating system than Windows with its own philosophy and way of doing things, and this will remain true no matter how much projects like Ubuntu try to dress it up to be Windows-user friendly. There's a project to create a free Windows clone out there. Ubuntu and Linux aren't it. The fact that Linux is "free" and sports "no DRM" aren't the primary advantages for everyone.
Well I wrote my extended essay (which included some Java coding) and various other essays and lab reports under Red Hat 9 throughout my final year of highschool five years ago. It worked for me...Red Hat was actually released back in 1994 so that is a shame not to be able to make a working distro...