The FUD machine is broken.

> Linux has been trying for many years to become the dominent player in the desktop

> market and has resolutely failed, a fact which Linux fans should wake up and accept.

Linux was used as a blunt instrument by OEMs to force Microsoft to extend the lifetime of XP. Linux remains a stated threat to Microsoft in SEC filings and propaganda presented to retail sales clerks. Linux has by no means "resolutely failed" in terms of "domination".

Things are only getting better. Interfaces improve. Applications are improved. New applications are created. Corporate support improves.

In most of the things that people generally do with computers, Linux is a drop in replacement.

There is no need for the current Linux user to think of themselves as something akin to a BeOS or Amiga user.

Try some better lies next time.

> Or listen to MP3s. Or watch videos. Or... I know these can be done

> (I have set them up), but hey are post install and not always straight-forward.

Not straightforward?

All you do is open up the file and let the package manager sort things out.

It's hardly rocket science and it is EASIER than what Windows will subject you to in identical conditions. This is simply absurd and a**inine as a FUD talking point. Update your FUD. Run something from this millenium and get better talking points.

The entire community should just

get behind the Linspire initiative, or something very similar! Before Linspire was linspire, it was Lindows, a linux distro trying to mimick and deliver the experience that people are familiar with in windows. I understand Linspire is now under/alongside Xandros, so i don't know where it lost it's way, but the idea was perfect. Their pre-installed distro was even being sold in WalMart!

Sounds stupid to some maybe, but with enough momentum and clout this should have been the movement that brought linux to the massive masses.

Speaking as a non-geek, what linux needs is consistency and predictability. It's fine that it's so flexible and diverse and all things to all geeky men, but in a world where most people have a specific list of things that they expect to be able to do with/on a computer, the linux community should really be working to establish what that list is, develop child-proof solutions for each of those items on the list, bundle those things into a distro, back it with unprecedented hardware support and watch the thing fly.

As people ask for more, reach to that massive linux shelf, and give them more. Make it child-proof, and it will sell itself....

Dead before arrival?

Linux has made great strides in very few years. It is reliable, efficient, and quite usable. Gains continue to be made. I'm sad to see people declaring it dead just as it is starting to take off. I've used nothing but Ubuntu for my desktop for about three years now. I would never go back to Windows. Part of the problem is predatory business practices by Microsoft, wherein folks are pretty much forced to buy their OS. If consumers had the choice - this PC with Windows or the same with Linux for $100 less, desktop penetration would improve.

@Kevin Bailey

Ubuntu is Linux' answer to MacOS, and it's adherents betray the same slavish devotion to the object of their fetish.

What you should have said: "Ordinary users are fine with Linux and a dumbed Gnome deaktop."