The real problem is that the most popular Linux distribution (Ubuntu) and one of the two most popular window managers (Gnome) are going in exactly the same direction as Apple and Windows. These two projects are so busy emulating what Apple and Windows do, they can't see that they're going to go right off the usability cliff for desktop users.
That, more than anything either Apple or Microsoft does is what worries me about desktop Linux. We have met the enemy and he is us.
As a strangely pertinent anecdote: I've been a Windows "poweruser" for a long time, and have never used much of Linux. I never had a real need for it. But I've been doing rails development lately and Windows kept getting in the way, and so many people are using OSX and I can't afford a Mac... so I tried Ubuntu.
I'm using 12.04, and it's the first significant amount of time I've used spent with Ubuntu. I can say that a month in, I'm digging it. It beats Windows for me in a number of ways but I actually like the level of ui polish -- it's smoother than Windows. (That and it renders fonts far better than Windows, for some reason).
Rails on Ubuntu is also far, far easier. Terminal beats every pretend version on Windows, rvm and bundler work the way they're supposed to, and I really like gedit more than Notepad++.
gedit is available on Windows too. If you really want to harness the power of Linux, run Vim. You'll see at least an order of magnitude in productiviy improvement.
I've heard this a lot -- in fact in a recent Stack Overflow "best rails IDE's" thread, Vim was near the top of recommended answers. I've been using gedit with a few add-ons installed to make working with rails a little easier.
I also grabbed RubyMine but I haven't spent any significant time there yet as I already have the terminal->gedit workflow down and fighting through RubyMine modal menus to setup BitBucket git pushing started to get old quickly. Terminal is easy. I just push.
What does Vim offer that gedit doesn't? I guess I don't understand the main difference.
I would really like to get some code suggestions/completion features, certainly not a need but I think it would help cut down on my occasional stupid mistake.
I keep hearing this. I can do basic Vim (i.e use it as a standard text editor) but for "serious" programming tasks I mostly use Eclipse.
What advantages other than freeing up screen room and RAM would I get from using Vim over eclipse that would give me an "order of magnitude" productivity increase?
I know vim has a lot of keyboard shortcuts, but there are also quite a few in eclipse.
Well, to be fair, it depends on whether you're willing to spend a week or so getting the hang of it. That level of investment isn't necessarily for everyone (even developers).
No. There are monetary and performance gains for using Linux on servers and embedded products. As a result, OEMs have a financial incentive for making sure those products run Linux well. No such incentive exists for desktops.
Apple incorporates the cost of OS X into selling hardware. Windows' licenses are effectively free for OEM manufacturers.
Dell is the only major OEM I know of that offers a Linux laptop and I'd guess that division is in the red. The original Asus EEE PC was Linux only and spawned the netbook revolution, but Linux only did not last very long once the market took off and Microsoft intervened.
I believe some countries require vendors to supply the computer with an OS installed; in this case not needing to include a half-assed version of Windows Home Underwhelm Experience can help them cut away those 10% of $300 low-end models. There's a reason many netbooks come with linux and it's not user-friendliness.
Additionally, more and more governments pass laws that require their institutions to use linux or open source, or choose bidders that do. Then you have an incentive for a company which wins such a bid to use linux on umpteens of desktops.
Those are just two incentives. There are probably more.
OEMs get paid for pre-installing bloatware onto machines which can add up to $40+ per machine. Offering Linux costs them money (in addition to R&D, support, training, marketing, etc).
That begs the question, what is the future of the desktop?
It's not a knock on Linux, but if the mass market moves to tablets and smartphones (not sure if you count laptops as desktops), owning the desktop is going to be like owning the mainframe market. It doesn't disappear but it's not what it once was either.
Both Windows and OS X are becoming walled-garden tablet-centric shitfests.