An OS is only as good as the catalogue of software that runs on it, and Linux will always play second fiddle to windows on the desktop. This is partially the Linux community's fault since we have a jungle of competing distros, and not enough effort put toward LSB. Additionally, it's honestly insane that package dependencies are still an issue for soo many distros! Also, compiling programs is something the average user should NEVER EVER be expected to do. I see someone talking about gentoo in here, on a thread about linux in the desktop space!?!? Did u enjoy your 2 week long install? Even if u did, I'm guessing the average user would rather pay for xp or win7 because they want to actually USE their machine, not wrestle with the unique problems that linux brings.

I've been hearing 'This is the year of Linux on the desktop' since 1999 ffs.

Exactly when is this 'miracle' going to grace us on the desktop exactly? Oh right, maybe next year eh?

A good article on why Linux didn't make it to desktop just yet- it keeps reinventing the wheel, and makes it square:

http://blog.esync.org/2009/02/reinventing-square-wheel.html

So we user Redhat on the server but we are now moving over to ubuntu server because this is what we use of the desktop.

So maybe he isn't right..

The desktop won't be obsolete in 5 or 50 years. There are too many people in the tech business that think it's cool to multitask on a 4 inch screen while talking on the phone.

In the real world, there are many users who want to comfortably sit down in front of a nice big monitor to do one thing after the other, then shut down the computer and go watch NCIS sitting down in front of a nice big TV screen.

As for cloud computing, no thanks, except for critical backups. I prefer to stay in control of my files.

What you describe is nothing new; business and education does this the whole time. Cloud computing is only a new name for it.

We haven't said it this year. Altogether now.
This year is the year of linux desktop.

Red Hat's focus has always been in the business/server area, so it's not surprising to see their disinterest in desktops. (That's Fedora's turf)

Interoperability-wise the top spot for desktop would be shared between SuSE and Ubuntu. Both are rock solid. SuSE may have an advantage being closer to the Vole, however. (Drivers, Mono API etc)

The industry is not driven by the needs of Mum & Dad using hotmail at home, or 14-YO's with a network consisting of gaming computer and a "development" computer... but by the needs of business & govt implementations.

People read "CLOUD" and imagine that business is suddenly going to start storing it's data and apps in the internet.

Far more likely, is that the technology will allow them to centralise data & apps in the server room, and get rid of the thing that causes them most grief on a daily basis... the desktop computer. i.e. Intranet clouds.

Internet clouds will definitely play their part in the total picture and allow the full spectrum of access to be served for the common client, but it's unlikely business & govt would leap into that as its primary information store.

I see no reason why there won't be some sort of hybrid "off-line" system developed to allow cloud clients to function from locally cached copies of data & apps using flash-ram... that syncs once the service is available.

I have a laptop which dual boots Ubuntu and Vista.

If I *have* to boot Vista it is so painful - even a clean install is terrible. It makes XP look good - and XP is always terrible after a few months use.

Cloud, schmoud - let's face it - that's a big leap of faith. Probably only truly corporate if you have a backup cloud available.

I feel that Ubuntu is simply *so* superior that the tipping point is on its way. Everything is better, hardware installation, networking, connecting to network services, speed, applications, utilities, reliability, security, lack of future upgrade costs, the knowledge that the software will just get better, etc etc etc.

The desktop is perhaps not a Red Hat business and it is OK if Whitehurst says so. But Red Hat always says it like it was a sort of general truth concerning everybody.
And well, Whitehurst will go long before the desktop, I am afraid.

Well of course no one is going to use Red Hat as a desktop. They'll use Ubuntu! My CS dept is all running Ubu 8.10. It's been generally pretty smooth. They've required nearly the same tech support time as when they ran windows the problems are just different. hr
Linux is viable on the desktop. It's not perfect, it still needs some polish. Vista needs some polish too. But it is viable. As linux matures it's viability will hopefully increase. br
GZ

Nice comment, sir!

Yeah get ridch of The Office, and all of those hierarchy managers, too. Models have to change, though, so Real? or No Deal?

Cloudies should not forget what Chuck Peddle (of MOS and Commodore) discovered on a big deployment way back when -- see the old VCF interview at http://www.youtube.com/user/hazydave , the anecdote is buried within -- the "desktop" or "terminal" is where humans get work done, and when the lines get cut (or the clouds part, forcing basement-dwellers to step outside and squint at the daystar), giving them the ability to continue doing business is an important feature that's worth money.

The only problem is that, in the decades since the original "smart terminals" (look at how IBM positioned the original PC!) appeared, they've become such unreliable money sinks (how much will 1,000 seats of Office cost you this year?), and the "alternatives" have been so halfassed (Ubuntu is nice, but Ubuntu is still only nice if you have a full-time admin on call; the Mac is nice, but only if you can tolerate being limited to whatever Apple will deign to sell you in a given year) that people are blind to the fact that the PC isn't "dying," and that the blessed alternatives that they do like (Blackberries, smartphones?) are either subject to the central-point-of-failure syndrome or are just PCs in a tiny form-factor.

I think RedHat underestimates the demand for a commercial product -- but the problem is that the commercial product has to offer some polish for the money, and in the heady days of the '90s when they discovered their desktop sales were flat, RedHat was offering Linux "at all" (and investing a lot of manpower into kernel and compiler work that still needed doing), not Linux "completed." Getting the desktop projects to declare a feature freeze (or to stop removing and refactoring bits and pieces that users and developers rely on) is still like herding cats, but it's much easier to go the final yards now than it was ten years ago. After all, SuSE seems to be getting somewhere, and Ubuntu's able to do it (in fits and starts, with lots of distractions by new shininess) for free.

but only because using 'desktops' in a business environment is an admission that you dont really know jack about computing but are prepared to follow the herd to the point of loosing all your companies data in your own network cloud.

With all respect, i don't think that i'm gonna put my files on some cloud.
Red Hat was the first distribution i ever tried (long time ago) and we have few boxes with rhel 4 in office. My impression was "don't ever touch this thing again".
Long live Gentoo for geeks and Debian for the masses.
Since i tried later ~7 years ago, i have only one license and installation of XP as a secondary OS on my gaming rig and happily using Gentoo for most of the time on all (gaming, media center, laptop, file/print/stream/mail/backup server) home computers.

I deliberately deployed a linux desktop in the office.
The user was a complete computer n00b, and had a nasty habit of receiving virus exe links from her various friends on MSN and causing me no end of trouble removing the nasties (yes she had AV, but you know how quickly these MSN infections spread before the AVs catch up with them).
Eventually I'd had enough, she got Debian'ed. Pidgin for MSN, open office for all the office needs, and she's perfectly happy (and thinks she's really 1337 as she uses linux), especially as she can open any document emailed from a new version of office and save it as an earlier version so the rest of the office using 2003 can read it!
Biggest problem was the printer drivers, but I got that sorted eventually. Can't blame Linux for that, just the lazy printer manufacturers.

Why does Linux mail software have to be certified by Microsoft?

If Microsoft is tampering with mail messages to or from Linux software, then perhaps Linux mail servers should start delaying mail message from Microsoft Windows, let's say randomly between one and two hours delay per mail.

What is Red Hat Linux anyway?