Microsoft Windows Vista (formerly "Longhorn")

i am switching from windows to mac, this microsoft thingy don tire me.

I wish i had known about this forum a lot earlier, it would have saved me a lot of heartache.  I've been a windows freak for a long time, but i'm beginning to have a lot of problems, espeially with the beta release of Vista.  All of a sudden, my system is a lot slower and i don't get the responses i'm used to.  I do a lot of presentations for people using powerpoint and enhancements  with serious magic.  Vista just doesn't cut it.  I'm about to start experimenting with linux and i would like to hear from u gurus how it is and if i should expect a better performance compared to windows XP/Vista