Linux has already been the main OS here at the computer sciences for some time. The computer pool was just switched to Ubuntu, after having been on SuSE and OpenSuSE for the last 6 years or more. With the latest hardware upgrades, our computer lab is nicer than ever: dual-core AMD64 systems with 2.6 GHz, a couple of them with two LCD screens connected (which is great for developing, having the editor on one screen and documentation on the other). I wonder if the machines spend more than 1% of their time at full CPU speed - I havn't seen any running at more than the minimum 1 GHz.

But one thing I've noticed, which has changed: even those people I can see in the lab having their own laptop with them have Linux running.

A few years ago, most people bringing their laptops were doing so to have Windows around. Now with the nice dual-screen setups here, bringing along a laptop to have Linux is less attractive than ever. Still more people bringing their laptops run Linux anyway.

I figure this means that they've noticed that the DEs a Linux system offers is very useful (granted, and more to what they have at the university when they don't have their laptop around. However the main part - Java and Eclipse - actually wouldn't differ). They still dual-boot (I overheard something about 'on Windows, this and that and foo) - and even accept the effort of dual-booting to get the Linux benefits.

In a few years, will there still be Windows developers you can hire, when everybody studying computer science is being taught Linux? (Granted, not all universities have made the full switch to Linux for their computer sciences)

P.S. I'm not involved with the computer admin group; for detailed inquiries you should talk to them directly. Especially for e.g. software distribution questions and such. Oh, and I heard that the servers were running Debian for some time already, while the clients were OpenSuSE. So maybe they still are Debian.