That is most definitely NOT the reason Linux hasn’t made it to desk tops. The reason is that Linux is absolutely user-hostile: “if you’re not part of the guild, you are an ignorant fool, who we wouldn’t even want to use our product.” Any given program has dependencies upon dependencies upon dependencies, each of which is maddening for the non-CS-major to install. WHAT? You don’t know how to sed your recursive grep of the root directory?
“But there are more user-friendly GUIs that run on Linux that are expanding all the time!” Yeah: like MacOS, which has been around how many years, and had how many of billions of dollars behind it? Like Ubuntu (which *is* a nice program) is going to make it where MacOS couldn’t?
The new OpenOS 4 looks very Windows-like
I can install major pieces of software--even if no dependencies are already installed--much easier on Linux than I can on Windows.
Ya. Unless they plan to run Linux on a console. Consoles have beat out desktops for games.
Games are still a lot better on a desktop, though. By far. But a >cheap< console (in comparison to a desktop) is adequate for most.
Typing in “apt-get” can be really hard. :-)
Linux is the way to go if you want a reliable server. Nothing irritates me more than having to remote out to Windows servers and fix stuff on them.
Mac and Windows is the way to go for a work or gaming station. Unix needs a GOOD GUI, with good default settings (most Linux apps have, if anything, too much configurability!) before it can be the average person’s desktop computer.
Amen! I’ve been suckered several times over with the latest promise that Linux truly is ready for the desktop. Not until they can standardize on ONE version and have all apps run on that version without needing me to hunt for the right libraries and then compile—it will never be truly ready.