I've been there. I lasted two years with Linux and went through the same progression - hacker bliss to "dammit, I just want to get something done besides shavin

I've been there. I lasted two years with Linux and went through the same progression - hacker bliss to "dammit, I just want to get something done besides shaving yaks!" I would still take it over Windows, but not over OSX. But in defense of Linux, it has come a long way over the last decade, due to a few earth-moving forces: - The rise of the web and end of the Windows native app lock-in - The mainstream acceptance of open source and platform independent software engineering - Canonical's aggressive, financially backed push to make Linux a viable mainstream desktop OS It's easy to forget how many classic pain points have been more or less cured: building everything from source, recompiling the kernel, font rendering, working with office documents, configuring everything manually by editing text files, complete absense of tasteful design, no cross-platform apps or games whatsoever, and nobody having ever heard of your OS. Linux is not there yet. It's still perfectly reasonable to throw your arms up and switch. But at this point, the historical trend suggests that it will get there eventually. It has never really stopped inching forward and we haven't yet seen anything that could stop it. The Linux ecosystem doesn't burn through capital, so it can't collapse overnight like a commercial platform can. All it needs to sustain it is interest. The interest could dry up, for example if everybody starts caring only about data and not code. But if nobody's interested in it anymore, then it probably doesn't matter if it goes away.