I'd love to see viable alternatives to the current mainstream operating systems. The PC market stands ready to be revolutionized by something new. But is Linux the agent of change that can do all of that? Not yet, I'm afraid.

Every few years I take a fresh look at the question of whether Linux can make it on the mainstream desktop (or laptop). For a while last year, things were looking up for Linux. Many of the early netbook vendors were forgoing Windows licenses and instead offering consumers machines that ran some form of Linux. That didn't last long, though. Return rates for Linux netbooks were much higher than for their Windows counterparts, and most netbooks today are sold with some version of Windows, not Linux.

What this means is that, though Linux is a great value for many server applications, it's still a non-starter on the desktop.

rest here