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Well - I'll try this again. X just crashed on me so I lost what I had typed before. Maybe I'll get through it this time.

and especially if you compare Windows XP to Gentoo Linux that you say you use...

Lay off the X-Files man. There's no conspiracy here. If I were going to lie about what distro I used, I wouldn't have said Gentoo, I would have said Linux From Scratch.

But speed? Could you provide some real benchmarks that show that Linux is much slower than Windows as a desktop OS?

Well - could you provide some real benchmarks that show that Linux is much faster than Windows as a desktop OS? I don't need benchmarks to show me that X is painfully slow to use. It's blatantly obvious. I should mention though that I have 2 LCD screens running in Xinerama mode. One of the Linux aplogists that I talked to a while back told me that dual-head is a real problem in Linux and that that was the reason for my sluggishness.

My experience, on my PC (no Gentoo..;-) is that there's not so much difference, and if there is, Linux tends to be a bit faster (e.g. it boots faster).

Eh ... if you say so. I've yet to see a Linux distro boot faster than Windows. Gentoo takes at least 3 or 4 times longer to boot. Though I really don't care about that. It could take 10 minutes to boot if the UI was as snappy as Windows is once it was booted.

As to highend 3D gaming, of course MS Windows wins Linux or any Unix hands down. One reason is Direct X. But personally I would rather have a bit slower gaming experience on Linux than use anything as unsecure as Direct X on it...

I use to think that way. But lately I've come to realize that the number one problem with security exists between the keyboard and the chair. If you are completely incompetent, maybe Linux would be a better choice for you from a security stand point.