So am I! Windows, OSX, Linux, I'm not happy with any of them. I'm going to go through each Operating System and list some of my gripes and those aspects of each which I think should be incorporated together in a single stellar OS.

OSX

Has limited application support and a messed up windowing system, but great overall system integration. Everything is simple (double-edged sword) and the whole OS is very uniform. I like the uniformity of simplicity, but not the lack of configurability.

Linux

Also has a limited application library (yes, the repositories are full of thousands of programs, but I'm concerned with the ones that work the best). Linux also suffers from limited driver support (though Ubuntu was very compatible with my system, didn't have much fiddling to do after an install). Though with that said, my audio driver in Jaunty was quirky. I had about 10% of the volume control between 90-100 percent max where sound would go from mute to tolerable. Also, why isn't there integrated MP3 support out-of-the-box for Rhythmbox (or some comparison program). Linux Mint did this fine, but it seemed harder to install non-repository applications in Mint. Linux is nice for the most part, but if you run into a problem you end up spending hours on web forums sifting through dead-end posts from people with the same issues you're having. Too much of a headache. Not to mention the lack of a tolerable MS Office alternative. AbiWord, OpenOffice Writer, Google Docs, Zoho, none of them meet up to the MS Office standard. For a student this is vitally important.

Windows

What a love/hate relationship we have. XP, Vista, or 7? All have something to contribute, but lack a fully satisfying experience. Vista's networking is terrible, Windows 7 RC for me locks up when I even go near the start button, and XP is old. Each of these Windows versions freeze while doing normal computing, for up to several seconds at a time. I can't have it. So much time is lost waiting for Windows. Great application support! If you need an app to do something there's most likely a great free program for Windows that will do it for you. Best gaming experience with impressive DirectX innovations and graphics card support (though ATI still doesn't have a driver for 7 for my card). Great overall driver support too. But why so huge? A decent XP footprint after install before other programs was about 1GB. Why should an OS need 6GB, or even Windows 7's 8GB (and this isn't even considering the whole WSXS debate), before taking into consideration hiberfil and pagefile.sys (add another few GBs). Ideally I would like to see an OS exceed no greater than a 1GB footprint after initial install.

Maybe I'm getting my hopes up but I can't wait for Google Chrome OS. Even if it can't serve as a better Linux alternative, it still offers hope for a more enjoyable experience than all of these failures. If you want to read about the differences (performance, gaming, etc.) between Windows XP, Vista, and 7, take a look at Techradar's Windows deathmatch: Windows 7 vs Vista vs XP

**Update**

After installing some of the more recent updates from MS and allowing time for my Windows 7 box to index my files and cache thumbnails for a whole bunch of icons, things are moving much more swiftly. Haven't had any slowness hiccups. It even installed my printer driver automatically. Awesome! Furthermore, my system drive was taking up about 16GB total with all of my necessary/basic applications installed. After turning off System Restore, clearing the latest shadow copies, and temp files, and excluding Hiberfil and Pagefile, my WIN7 system took about 9GB of space, still hefty, but I prefer speed to footprint, and Windows 7 delivers.