...A laptop with an R600 chipset is not easy to get working.
You have a good point -- graphics card choices in laptops are limited. But, instead of using windows, or linux without 3D, I just no longer consider laptops with ATI cards (which leaves nvidia choices for now).
I feel your pain though -- I had a T43 with X300 card for a couple years, and that experience is unfortunately burned in my memory.
Actually I am sure that both men created lots of things. But what one thing stands above the others for each man? Or a better question, do you know more people that have used Linux or emacs? Those original tools were key parts needed for Linux to happen. But it was Linux that busted into the mainstream.
Stallman was building an operating system. Linus contributed a kernel for it. The Linux kernel and most open source software is built with gcc. I'll still agree that writing the kernel is no small feat. Otherwise the other two or three kernel options considered for GNU would have been completed before the linux kernel.
That is the point. Stallman founded a religion, and Torvalds gave us a tool.
Really? Maybe you aren't aware of the tools Stallman wrote? Stallman wrote the first versions of gcc, gdb, emacs, etc.
So if you still want to oversimplify it, this is more accurate: Stallman created tools and created open source. Torvalds created a tool.
If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the question back at him.