[SpaceBar]

You guys have been predicting the Year of the Linux Desktop for the past 7 years, at least.

And every year Linux makes new inroads. Each year hundreds of new drivers written, better installers, bugs and security risks addressed, ironing out standards, and an amazing breadth of available software introduced or upgraded available for the downloading, all under the auspices of a peculiar kind of peer revue that weeds out crap quickly. Each year Microsoft's hegemony on the home computer market is nipped away at by a growing body of computer users and enthusiasts who have had enough of gaping security holes, confusing and restrictive licensing schemes and so forth. Linux is fun, fast, mature, and highly configurable to ones tastes. It also comes packaged in a highly user friendly way for installation for a variety of specialized uses and intended tasks. Local dead tree libraries are filled with books on Berkeley and AT&T style unix, so there's no shortage of resources to find out more for the curious mind. Microsoft has its place and will always have it's adherents. Linux just levels the playing field a bit and adds real choice to the equation. This is also true of the fine open source BSD products as well. Competition is a good thing.

[edchambers]

It also comes packaged in a highly user friendly way for installation That's Debatable, My last two Linux experiments ended with one distro stuck in a CD drive so badly I had to pry it open with a butter knife and the other left me at a command line interface I had no clue how to operate.At least Knoppix works as advertised from the CD.I have not had a problem installing or learning to use a Microsoft OS since DOS 5.0.

[Bush2000]

And every year Linux makes new inroads. Each year hundreds of new drivers written, better installers, bugs and security risks addressed, ironing out standards, and an amazing breadth of available software introduced or upgraded available for the downloading, all under the auspices of a peculiar kind of peer revue that weeds out crap quickly.

Linux desktop market share is negligible at best. It is growing on the server -- and primarily in shops that are moving away from proprietary (aka more expensive) versions of Unix, not Windows.

Each year Microsoft's hegemony on the home computer market is nipped away at by a growing body of computer users and enthusiasts who have had enough of gaping security holes, confusing and restrictive licensing schemes and so forth.

As I said, Linux presence in the home market is almost non-existent. It's just not ready for consumers.

Linux is fun, fast, mature, and highly configurable to ones tastes. It also comes packaged in a highly user friendly way for installation for a variety of specialized uses and intended tasks. Local dead tree libraries are filled with books on Berkeley and AT&T style unix, so there's no shortage of resources to find out more for the curious mind.

Agree. I use Linux on a daily basis for some portions of my work, and I do find it useful. I rarely have to buy books to cover the types of dev topics that I'm interested in -- because the answers are generally readily available on the Web.

Microsoft has its place and will always have it's adherents. Linux just levels the playing field a bit and adds real choice to the equation. This is also true of the fine open source BSD products as well. Competition is a good thing.

Absolutely.