Linux on the Desktop is like owning your own Cessna. It's not something that you do unless you have a very good reason to. You need it for work (crop dusting)

Linux on the Desktop is like owning your own Cessna. It's not something that you do unless you have a very good reason to. You need it for work (crop dusting)? Great, it can accommodate you. You need it because you have an exceptional use-case (live in Alaska)? Great, with some effort it can probably be adapted to work there too. You need it because you have an unquenchable thirst for power and control, or because you yearn for freedom? Yeah, it'll do that too. Do you need it because 20 miles is too far a commute to walk every day? What the hell are you thinking? Just get a car; the advantages of a Cessna are of no use to you, it can only be a hassle. The flying car is a fool's errand. For people who need airplanes, or want airplanes, airplanes are still here. For people who just need a car, there is no good reason to make that car fly. If my mother asks me what kind of car she should buy, I don't tell her to buy an airplane. If she asks me what sort of computer to use, I don't tell her to run Linux. The downside to a bunch of suburbanites commuting with Cessna's should be obvious. The downsides to a bunch of "suburbanites" trying to casually use Linux are admittedly less obvious, but still present if you think about it. How much money do you think Microsoft and Apple spend on customer support? The community sure isn't going to take up that slack, and I see no reason to think that companies like Canonical are up to that task (they can't even handle their current (skewed technical) user-base (see: other commentators in this thread). In practice, unskilled users put additional pressure on volunteer developers. Non-technical users are not free; they come at a price. I love Linux on the desktop, I've been using it as my primary OS for more than a decade now. The flying-car/'Year of Linux on the Desktop' dream though? I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt, and turned the t-shirt into a shoprag.