While I agree about tech writers getting Linux wrong, I don’t disagree that it’s not entirely suited for everyone’s needs.
I love Linux. I have been an IT professional for the past 18 years. I have used Linux and Unix since the days of Windows 3.1. My home computer is a dual-boot Win7 and Linux Mint machine that these days, almost never boots into Linux for the following reasons:
1. Handling of large music libraries. I have over 2TB of music files, spread across 5 hard drives, and I have yet to find a Linux music app that doesn’t crash when trying to index these sources. That said, only Foobar2000 on Windows does a good job with all this, but it does work flawlessly. I also run my weekly public radio show off of a Windows laptop running Foobar2000, and it works all the time.
2. Photography. I taught myself photo processing in Photoshop many years ago, and despite knowing my way around Gimp, I can process photos in Photoshop and process RAW files in Canon’s Digital Photo Pro without much thought. There is finally a version of DPP for Linux, but even then, print support for my large-format printer is just not there.
3. Netflix. I haven’t looked into it lately, but last time I looked, there was no support for Netflix on Linux.
For me, it turns out that my more intensive use of the computer makes Windows a better bet for me.
Netflix can run under Ubuntu and other distros. The issue revolves around DRM and Silverlight. The studios demand DRM.
Do a google search on Pipelight. It is a nice, straightforward solution that is available.