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That sentiment is basically true, but you can't demand what you've never heard of. Linux needs more publicity and exposure before demand will increase. Unfortunately, due to the non-commercial nature (which is good), Linux in general doesn't have any kind of conventional advertising (at least not in Australia), just word of mouth.

This probably would be fine *except* that Microsoft was convicted of anti-trust...abuse of their monopoly position in the US.

That makes things somewhat more complicated. Its unfortunate part of the anti trust settlement didn't include breaking MS's ability to make exclusive OEM agreements which is at the root of their illegal anti competitive behavior.

United States has some interesting trademark and copyright laws, which Microsoft uses to exclude competitors.

For example, retailers must license the rights to use the Microsoft trademarks and logos, and one of the conditions of that license is that they must get Microsoft's prior written approval before taking any action that might "damage the brand".

This was how Microsoft prevented IBM from being able to sell OS/2 and forced them to accept Windows 95 exclusively. The retailers were told that if they put an OS/2 machine right next to a Windows machine, it would damage the Microsoft brand (since Warp 4.0 was much more impressive in it's capabilities). As a result, the retailers were told that if they turned on a PC with OS/2 on the display shelf, they would have to stop using the Microsoft brands. This meant that they would have to turn off all of the computers on the the display floor.

In other countries, this would be considered collusion, and retailers who excluded competitors could become codefendents with Microsoft in a collusion lawsuit.

Corel licensed their Linux to a number of motherboard manufacturers, offering it for 50 cents per copy. They were prepared to sue the OEMs for collusion when Microsoft staged a proxy war and had the CEO overthrown.

Several motherboard makers are now offering "Linux in Flash" on their motherboards, and again, OEMs who willingly engage in conspiring to exclude competitors such as Red Hat, Ubuntu, or Novell, could find themselves in a similar situation of being named as codefendents in collusion lawsuits.

In some countries, like the US, it's harder to prove collusion. In other countries, simply the act of effectively excluding a competitor who has already contracted a presence (via the motherboard makers) is enough to consitute a provable collusion case.