His house was littered with computers/devices, and a lot of visitors, knowing this, ask to ‘get online for a few minures’. The interesting thing for me was that they rarely even realised or mentioned that they were using Ubuntu. I honestly don’t think it made one jot of difference to them, ‘average users’.

Us professionals may still be faced with client constraints that force the odd XP boot… but hopefully that is getting less. I agree that Adobe could do a lot to help the world in this respect.

However, to all the naysayers and newbs confused by too much choice, I say one thing: download a LiveCD version of Ubuntu, burn it and just try it. There will be a learning curve, but I bet it’ll be less than you thought; persivere and you’ll be converted!

Please stop “thinking” for a second and listen. The logic of your statement says an OS is a failure if fewer people use it compared to some other OS. So Linux will continue to be a failure, by your logic, until it reaches 51% of the users. Was Windows a failure until version 3.1. Was it measured against Apple or DOS or both? Is Linux a failure on the 500 fastest supercomputers in the World?

“The fact is there are billions like me. Windows (and now increasingly Mac OS) is still within reach for a person like me.”

Is still within reach? When was it not in reach? What else was there to reach for? Windows comes installed on every computer (yet people still wipe it off and install Linux). Is that the kind of “reach” you are talking about? You still have known only one OS and your thinking is completely influenced by that OS. The easiest OS will be the one you’ve had the only exposure to. You cannot comment on which is easier, Windows or Linux. I can because I’ve spent years using both. Can you understand that? Comment on Windows, it’s what you know. I’ll comment on Windows AND Linux because I know them both.

After years tolerating XP’s memory management (two restarts a day, that’s all we ask), I just couldn’t see putting up with Vista’s tarted-up, hard-to-find-anything interface for years more (open the control panel, and tell me that’s clear).

On a whim, I test-installed Ubuntu, used it for a day, then re-installed it in its own partition, and I’m running my freelance business atop it.

Faster & more reliable than Vista, but the real key is the nice, clean interface.

That said, a decision to use Linux today is largely a philosophical one; it runs well, but still has issues dealing with some audio & video formats.

Ubuntu Linux is close. If most Windows users were handed a PC with Ubuntu already installed (including the audio/video/DVD stuff), they’d do just fine.

I’ve been a fan of the concept of Linux for a long time, but unfortunately it’s still not quite ready for prime time with the general masses, in my opinion. For browsing, email, office applications, there are no problems at all. But I still have strange random audio and video problems. I reboot more often than I would have expected (due to the windows manager locking up) and I still feel like knowing a bit about command-line Linux is best if you’re going to run the OS.

If I had to choose just one OS with the requirement of running all of my current apps, I’d choose XP right now. If I could dump my legacy apps for equivalent apps, I’d choose Mac OS X for sure. Linux is still relevant, though in many ways. And it is getting closer to being the kind of system you would recommend to your father-in-law who only browses online, writes a few letters but who consistently installs and runs every toolbar, “performance booster” and other malware program targeting Windows.