So far, at home, I have only seen these two platforms on different machines.

The Windows 7 machine is indeed crisp, clean, and seems to have resolved many of the Vista and XP issues we are all so well aware.

The Ubuntu machine is also crisp, clean, and seems much more akin to the former Mint (as in more desktop user focused) than previous Ubuntu offerings.  In fact, if I see green instead of tan and brown, I would swear I'm looking at a Mint revision, not a mainstream Ubuntu offering. 

Out of the box, feel to hype, Windows 7 is an as promised leap from XP (yeah, Iknow that's not easy) to W7.  Faster, cleaner, and in everything I have seen so far, better.

Ubuntu, off the iso, is a bit of, OK huge, disappoimtment in the fabled "faster booting time".  For the install I did, the Ubuntu 9.10 distro crawls in in about 1.5 minutes.  Lazily so, since this same laptop used to load up 32 bit Ubuntu 9.04 in about 45 seconds.  I know it's now 64 bit, but is it really that much slower on startup than it's 32 bit cousin?

Really, from a Linux fan, I really wished the U crew had hyped ease of use, web friendly, easier driver setups, Openoffice 3...  over the faster boot time.  There's a lot of good,  alot of new, and now, it feels like it will be overlooked.

As far as it is worth, both OS's are top notch.  If I didn't know one from the other, and didn't know what they cost, and you told me all about them on "The Price is Right", I would get the price tag applied to the wrong OS.  Personally, U9.10 offers more flexability, more user friendly, and more security than W7, so I prefer to stay with the Linux crowd.  I wonder, though, will W7 keep up the speed or slow down, just like it's preedecesors?

All in all, maybe that's what comes from tons of reviews, and folks looking before they start their advertising spending, but the W7 hype better matches the U9.10 hype.  Delivery versus promise.  We (as in the Linux Ubuntu related world) may have slipped up a bit on this one.

Still, 9.10 is a heck of a leap from 9.04, and my hats off to the development teams.  They rocked U9.10 as much in 6 months since the last release, as W7 did in these 6 years release.