This isn't because of malice on the part of people like Sunflower Productions. Rather, it is a simple case of them being too small to support more than 1 platform. They have maybe two programmers tops and a dozen employees total, and simply can't afford to hire more programmers. Let's face it, there are very few people on this planet who really need computerized access to USGS maps. Similarly, for my other use of Windows, music software, there's only a few thousand people on this planet who have any need for digital recording and editing software, so those companies are similarly small outfits. They just can't afford to hire more programmers to support more platforms.

Given that Windows is not going away soon, here's a few things to help the Linux fan survive Windows:

1. JS Pager: This provides a Screen Pager sort of like the one in AfterStep so that you can have multiple screens in Windows, just like in Linux. You can also use the right mouse button in the pager to move windows between screens, again, just like Linux. Of course, Linux (and Unix) was doing this before Windows 95 existed, but hey, the Windows guys have to imitate SOMEBODY, right? :-).
2. PowerArchiver: A clone of WinZip that does it better. Drop a zip file into a PowerArchiver window and it opens up. If there is a 'setup.exe' file in the zip file, PowerArchiver offers to automatically unzip it to a temp directory and run 'setup.exe' to install the program. If you want to view a file, double-click on it and it comes up in the text editor of your choice. It even understands .tar.gz Unix-format archives and can uncompress gzipped stuff!
3. VNC. Control your Windows box from within a window on your Linux box. This is *much* slower than running Win4Lin, but Win4Lin has limitations (in particular, it can't control hardware-specific stuff like the specialised sound card in my Windows box).
4. Corel PhotoPaint. I've tried The Gimp on Linux, and Adobe PhotoShop on Windows, and both require you to have a PhD in electronic publishing to understand them. PhotoPaint is clean, simple, and just right for cleaning up the background on gif's or smudging out a sensitive dollar figure in the occasional scan.
5. JDK 1.3.1. If you *MUST* develop Windows software, at least do it in a language that allows your software to be easily ported to Linux. I've tested the various JVM's for Linux and the Sun JDK 1.3.1 is the most reliable under Red Hat 7.1. It makes sense to use the same one under Windows if you want to create cross-platform programs. And the JDK 1.3.1 is *FREE*, unlike Microsoft's Visual Studio, which costs $$$$. Why enrich Microsoft when you can use Sun's tools for free? (Same argument goes for StarOffice, BTW -- I do *NOT* own a copy of Microsoft Office!)
6. Forte' for Java. This is the only Java IDE that has a fully functioning Linux edition. I've used Borland's JBuilder and its Linux version crashes all the time (its documentation browser *IS* great though). IBM's Java IDE relies upon IBM's Java engine, which doesn't work right with XFree86 4.x and Red Hat 7.1 (it doesn't draw buttons correctly for some reason) and besides they no longer have a free edition. You don't *have* to use an IDE, but its class browser is pretty cool and lets you easily track down stuff. XEmacs's 'jre' Java development environment is *almost* as cool, but not quite as easy to use, and doesn't do Windows very well (needs Cygwin, which has serious problems). And best of all, Forte' is *FREE* unless you're wanting the enterprise edition (which integrates with the Tomcat applications server for writing server-side Java web apps and .jsp's).
7. And since we're doing Java, make sure to populate your bookmarks with links to Sun's online Java documentation, and to the Tomcat Apache-based servelet engine's documentation.
8. And of course your standards: Acroread, Realplayer, WinAMP (which is *ALMOST* as good as xmms on Linux!), Flash plugin.

Also note the following things that I do not have on Windows, because they are better on Linux:

1. CD Ripper: GRIP + LAME on Linux is better than any Windows rippers. It is faster, more flexible, and (perversely), easier to use. As with XMMS, this is a case where the clone is better than the original.
2. Staroffice: Okay, this is a pig whatever platform you run it on, but Linux can better cope with its piggishness.
3. EMAIL program: I use good ol' pine on Linux. That way I can 'ssh' into my system from work and read my EMAIL without worry about security. About the only virus that Outlook Distress doesn't spread is AIDS, and I understand that the programmers at Microsoft are working on that glaring omission :-).
4. Encryption program: I use GNUpg on Linux, though I'm not a big user of encryption (I use it for signing messages because of some spammers who may wish to spoof being me, but otherwise have little that needs encrpyting -- I have nothing particularly damaging on my home systems, I keep my financial records the old fashioned way, with pencil and paper :-).
5. Web browsing: I mostly use Konquerer v2.1 (the built-in KDE browser) nowdays, with an occasional drop down into Netscrape non-Communicator on the rare occasions that Konquerer won't display a page or when I want to add a bookmark (I have not, alas, figured out an easy way to generate a bookmarks.html file from Konquerer, so I add my bookmarks in Netscape -- Konquerer will use the Netscape bookmarks.html file if it finds it, and my web site builder understands the bookmarks.html file just fine).
6. USENET news reader: I have found nothing better than good old 'slrn' for plain old news, though I will occasionally use Netscape Communicator's newsreader (for those annoying folks who have their own private news servers for customer support etc.). It's fast, and if I want to catch up on the news from on the road, I can ssh into my system at home and do so.
7. HTML editor: XEmacs on Linux. Can't you tell? :-).
8. C/C++ development environment: While there is now a couple of free ones for Windows based upon the Windows-native port of GCC (as vs. the Cygwin port of GCC), nothing beats the traditional Unix environment of autoconf/make/cvs/xemacs/gcc. Add in a good GUI toolkit like QT with its corresponding GUI builder tools, and you're all set to develop -- with no $$$ out-of-pocket, no spending hours downloading API documentation and include files from Microsoft, etc.
9. RAD environment: Python with a GUI toolkit (e.g. QtPython) beats the socks off of Visual BASIC. Python is a modern language (not a 1960's language with a few modern features thrown on as a bag on the side), and can be used for exactly the same sorts of "glue" programming that makes Visual BASIC so prevalent on Windows. And for quick'n'dirty scripting, tossing together a quicky sh/awk/sed/m4 script is MUCH faster than firing up Visual BASIC and running a wizard...