Linux is far less complicated OS to begin with being based on the old UNIX platform. The one advantage and what keeps it going is being an open source OS seeing revisions with each newer release to allow for more things. That includes to some extent the cross platform support.
As far as a good system you have to figure even with running Linux newer distros will tend to be larger in size and having a somewhat updated system will certainly every 3-5yrs at the longest. The drawback seen with AMD however is still the lack of not too many models reaching the 3ghz mark quite yet.
Once past the post tests here Vista actually loads to the desktop faster then XP with just about nothing installed but the basics on the older version. That's with a 3.013ghz dual core and 2gb of memory installed.