Linked by Jeremy LaCroix on Thu 3rd Jun 2004 07:02 UTC
During the majority of my time working with computers, Windows was the operating system of choice. Reason being, it's all I've known. In 2002, I took a college course titled "Linux Administration" which entitled me to a few cd-roms of Redhat 7.x. While this course was nothing more than a few extra credits for me, I fell in love with Linux and went through the entire textbook a week into the class. It was a nice feeling to use something "different" than what I was used to.
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Seeing the existing comments and the original post, I think some issues have been overlooked. Yes, choice is good and there are distros around that make package installation pretty easy, and even recognize most hardware. But if Linux is really going to open up the desktop OS sector there are still some obstacles.
It works very well for casual users who don't try to administer or install much, and it's fine for geeks who love command lines and config files. It is not so good for "power users" who have managed to be fairly adroit with what Windows gives them now and can't READILY gain the same capability in most Linux distros. This may seem weak, but these people spend the bucks on consumer PCs and apps and drive widespread adoption.
Windows is also helped by the vast array of vendors who sell and PROMOTE their apps for the Windows OS...CNR is fine if you like the subscription bit, but most consumers are used to buying anything on a shelf that says Windows, taking it home, and being able to run it.
In enterprises, especially small ones, they also have to have their PCs interact with Windows over networks, and although Samba, Wine, and Winbind have come a long way they still are not easy to set up well for full rights in a Windows domain (Xandros excepted...great job there). Yes there are good ways to network Linux, but users will not GIVE UP their Windows capabilities and resources to switch or add in Linux.