I can't resist jumping in on this. I have used Quickbooks Pro for
several years for personal use and over 5 years in business. It is an
extensive database. Granted, the 2008 version suffers from bloat just
like most proprietary software these days.

For my personal use I buy blank check stock and print my own checks,
saving some money that way. I use QB to spit out reports for the
church at the monthly business meeting. I can also send those reports
to Excel and change the format or make small corrections very easily.
I looked at Gnucash and tried it for a while but finally decided I
just wasn't ready to try and learn to do everything with it that I am
already doing with QB and Excel.

For business I print checks from pre-printed purchased stock. I do
payroll and have kept up with inventory. I do the tax obligations with
QB as well as year end W-2s and 1099s.

Don't know if GnuCash will mesh with Open Office Calc or not. At the
present time I am comfortable with QB and Excel. I know how to do what
I want to do without trying to learn two new software programs plus
trying to output my reports from GnuCash & OO Calc.

I am still working with and learning Linux and the programs that are
with the distros that I have found that work for me. At present I
don't have GnuCash installed. You either keep up with your finances in
one financial program or another. No use doing it twice.

That is about my two cents on being tied to Windows. I am working
toward being independent of Windows but it will be a while longer.