All of which are not attributable to Linux per se, but to 3rd parties who refuse to deal in Linux. Reverse engineering hardware to create a driver is hard work,

All of which are not attributable to Linux per se, but to 3rd parties who refuse to deal in Linux. Reverse engineering hardware to create a driver is hard work, and all because vendors refuse to provide a stable driver for their own hardware (trackpads and graphics cards being the obvious examples). Valve has proven that there IS a gaming market for Linux when everyone said there wasn't, and proved it months in advance of the release of the first SteamBox. How many other software vendors have been parroting that "there is no market" reasoning without ever backing it up? And sometimes you have to create a market, not wait for it to exist before trying to fill it.