The biggest problem of adoption of Linux are the transactional users themselves. There are a lot of supporting vendors who just thrives because of the need for maintenance of the PCs. This mutual benefit of the transactional workers and the supporting vendors as opposed to that of the Organisation unfortunately calls the shots the world over.

This has to change and is changing but painfully slow.

I agree with this as far as tipping the tipping point into reality. Look at blender.org and the latest version is addressing these issues matching all the suites that http://autodesk.com has to offer in one simple solution even more with an actual game/simulation engine attached
Open Office is still not ready for enterprise but next year maybe.
Thunderbird is almost there but now needs that final push into the calender system which Kmail has by the way with Kontact.
Power tools are coming and with them brings more professionalism to the table as far as companies really trying hard to make sure the driver support is there. It's where the money is at currently, even though money is not the prime issue here as more something that works properly; which is a good thing.

I would say: wake up and smell the coffee.

I've been using the linux desktop for multiple years now. It's been tough going a few years ago but right now.. It is not "as good as" windows, it beats windows by far!
I use a windows desktop at work because i have to but there is nothing that I can't do at home that I can do at work (on the contrary, it is the other way around).
Now, my strongest point is this. My boyfriend is NOT into computers. He's just a normal end-users who needs help when things go wrong on his XP machine. From day one he never had any problem using my computer to do the things he does on his XP. I never had to give him "a course".
OK, if things go wrong he still has to ask me, but that is the same as on his own XP machine. And it happens not as often on my linux machine that things go wrong, so he hardly ever has to ask me something.

So why is it not "catching on" everywhere?
Why is my boyfriend not switching?

Support, support, support.

Hardware manufactures hardly ever take linux in account. I have a brand-new ASUS Gforce 6600 with TV out. Well, my 3D works but i have no TV-out because ASUS does not supply linux drivers. My boyfriend uses Reason to create music, but there is no decent port for linux, ...
I have my wireless keyboard, a 5.1 audio system, a dual VGA video card, my shuttle barebone, usb external harddisk, Creative Zen MP3 player, digital camera, ...
And it all works for their main function; but features mostly don't work because there are no "full" drivers from the vendors. If you are lucky you have a basic driver, if that is not the case there are often community-created drivers, and if that is not the case you are lost.

So the problem doesn't reside in linux itself. It simply resides in the fact that nobody takes it serious. And that - i am afraid - is mainly media driven. The news on our national television always mentions windows releases and virusses, never anything opensource related. Even 90% of Computer magazines only mention linux in dedicated articles (the famous: howto setup your own linux box which appear over and over and over again). In my opinion it would be more usefull if they would add a "linux supported?" collumn in hardware and software reviews.

Thanks for reading this, sorry for the bad english.

Regards and happy tuxing. :)
rottie.

Just because something is technically ready, doesn't mean the masses will rush to it. Not only does the technology take time, so does the marketing and awareness of that technology. Look at DVR's. I've had a Tivo (and other DVR products) for over 6 years now. You'd have to pull my DVR out of my dead hands before I'd ever give it up. It's wonderful, amazing technology (just how DID I ever watch TV the old way?) But...as wonderful as DVR's are, probably less than 10% of the homes have DVR's today. Things take time. The Linux technology IS ready for a good portion of the market (for basic computing, office suite productivity, Internet work, etc. Linux is actually better than Windows), but it takes time for people to learn of it as a viable choice.

So, no, if you build it, they won't automatically come. It takes marketing, education and awareness. But, that will come. Linspire has been doing it for over 4 years and will remain doing it for years to come.

Kevin Carmony
CEO, Linspire, Inc.

Very true Kevin, which is exactly why I wrote the article in the way I did. Linspire is a great example of taking Linux in the right direction...adding in all the tweaks and support mechanisms that make it palatable. The drag of desktop Linux is that the apps continue to play second fiddle. But I completely believe that they will get there and that much of the reason why is because of companies like yours who are starting early and making the desktop OS a non-issue. In the end, all that matters is that the computer serves it's purpose.

You misunderstand me, Dave. I actually used a Linux desktop at Novell quite comfortably before I left (and then went back to my Mac as fast as I could upon leaving ;-). It's not that desktop Linux is unusable - it's that I can't find any compelling reasons to use it.

To escape Microsoft? That happened long ago with the advent of the web. I don't need to switch my OS to find free and open computing. Those who promote the "Linux desktop" neglect the fact that the true Linux/LAMP desktop has already been ascendant for some time. Think Google, SFDC, Yahoo!, etc.

Matt

I use linux because I have x86 intel, linux doesnt force me to update, there is not such thing like an outdated linux (as opposed to mac). There are no upgrade fees, and also most apps I have the insurance that will be there and a community to support me in case I want to push the software farther.

As far as I know, this is hard in proprietary world, Macromedia mailing lists and mac user groups is an example of horizontal casual support. Linux is all that but not just for the OS but for each tiny application, is incredible.