Comment by blhack

I think that was sort of the point of the article...

There is no "year of the linux desktop" because Linux and Windows should be looked to to fulfill different roles.

To me, windows isn't a "real" operating system. I don't use windows for anything other than running putty or chrome. It isn't really doing anything.

Linux, on the other hand, is at the absolute core of the business that employs me. ALL of our servers (except one domain controller) run either Linux of OpenBSD.

If I had my way, all of the workstations would be running it as well. This is an okay solution for me, because all of my workstations have identical (or very similar) hardware. An install would be as simple as imaging a disk, running a few scripts to configure things like networking, and powering it on.

Naturally, I can't speak for everyone, but I do have a considerably larger amount of experience with linux as a desktop than most. I also have a lot of experience with support. Supporting linux on a hodge-podge of hardware is definitely not something I would want to undertake.

Guiding my mom through Ubuntu would also not be something I would want to do.

I think a lot of Linux nerds (members of the church mentioned in the article), have a bit of a cognitive bias when it comes to how easy linux is to use. They WANT it to be easy. They overlook the bits of tinkering they have to do to actually get it working correctly.

Like I said, this is all my own experience. YMMV. However, if you are having as easy a time installing and running linux as a desktop OS as you do with windows...please tell me what hardware you're using!