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Windows 7. No significant amount of people are going to switch to Linux because of Windows 8. Vista didn't either. If they don't like 8, they'll use 7.

This meme really needs to stop. People don't want Linux. Deal with it. They want Windows or Mac OS X. Harsh and sad, but that's the reality supported by the facts.

People are sheep who go with whatever's installed on their drive when they buy their computer. Always have been, always will be. If a Linux distro were to get the marketing right it could very well gain momentum.

Not that I lament their not moving en masse to some form of Linux one bit.

Things change, During the Vista débâcle we saw the rise of Apple, Windows 7 allowed MS to recover somewhat, during this time Linux has grown slowly on the Desktop. However, it has made in roads in other areas and Desktop Linux has slowly improved. If some of Canonicals plans come together we will see Ubuntu take off in various new areas, and this may well renew interest in the Desktop.

One problem with Desktop Linux has been the willingness of a big player to take the plunge this may change.

Edit I do hate mouse taps on laptop tracker pads - forgot to turn it off on this new install of 12.04

Edited 2012-03-07 09:42 UTC

Thom you can't see a possible scenario in the near future where Linux might take off on the desktop?

Let me paint a picture of how it could *possibly* happen.

1 - Windows 8 is a disaster, loss of desktop functionality leads to frustration with the operating system. MS bleeds a lot of customers

2 - Apple continues to turn OS X into iOS and starts pushing mac computers with ARM processors and locks the user to the appstore for all software needs. People called you crazy when you proposed this will happen but I fully believe it is just a matter of time. I'm in your camp on this one.

I can def see Linux on the desktop becoming popular. We hear a lot about the 'war on general computing' and you have posted about it yourself. There is a war. As more people start waking up to the *freedoms* they are losing linux will start looking a whole lot better than ever.

I'd call this very shortsighted.

With the advent of streaming and provisioned desktops, the end device is getting dumber and could easily be replaced with a Linux client. In fact, I already have plenty of Linux devices (thin clients) that are Citrix endpoints.

Thin clients are getting more powerful, and soon, they'll essentially be desktops. They have GPUs that can decode HD video and render Aero and other compositing, they have gigabit NICs and dual core processors.

Seeing Linux as a capable desktop is definitely possible in my mind.

Thom, I don't know why Linux is that horrible.
KDE 4 and GNOME 3, plus severe shortage of good apps, I know.
Personally, being the admin of one of the largest Mac forums out there. it is only normal that I prefer OS X.
But in the past (that is now several years ago) I'd often prefer Linux to Windows.
The Linux golden age has already come and gone, alas.

I gotta agree, nobody is gonna deal with all the hassles and the "busted toilets" as i call them, the bugs that simply never get fixed like serious driver issues, lack of complete docs, lack of good regression testing and QA in Linux just to get rid of Windows, not when Windows 7 is supported until 2020 at the earliest and more likely if Win 8 doesn't pan out may get an XP style extension until they come up with another winner.

I'd say the bigger problem with Win 8 is metro is obviously a touch OS when touch is by far the minority interface and frankly won't be changing. Sure iPads are nice but how many people want to poke their greasy fingers at their monitor or laptop all day? I'd say less than 1% of the x86/x64 units being sold are touch enabled and when you take out kiosks and POS machines the numbers are so tiny to be worthless as a target audience.

IMHO what MSFT should have done was REALLY rip off Apple instead of just going halfway, I mean you don't see Apple trying to run vanilla iOS on the new macbooks do you? of course not. they should have left WinTab just that, an OS for tablets, and kept Windows what it was, which is an OS for desktops and laptops. Instead with the incredible stupidity that can only come from the mind of Ballmer you'll have Win 8 ARM which will be a Windows that doesn't actually run Windows programs....now think about that for a minute. Your average Windows buyer doesn't know ARM from an Xbox so what do you THINK will happen? i can answer that as i saw it first hand last Xmas season when a local retailer was selling "Windows tablets!" with a little CE in the corner. All people knew was it LOOKED like WinXP yet when they got it home none of their Windows programs would run! They brought it back en masse and they ended up covering the Win logo on the boxes and selling them at a loss.

Mark my words unless they seriously change the name and marketing strategy you are gonna see the end of MSBob jokes as those will be replaced with Win 8 jokes. When people see the name Windows they expect to be able to run Windows programs, this WILL be the case in x86 but won't be the case in ARM. Now most folks can't even tell you if they have 32 bits or 64, you expect them to know how to tell identical looking Windows versions by knowing the arch? I don't care if metro is the sweetest thing your eyes have ever beheld Mr Holwerda you have to admit that is full of fail.

I expect we might get a dedicated/forced way to enter a "fallback" or "classic" mode, for corporate use or people who don't want to use Metro.

If not, there will be third-party apps to do this (Stardock already released one called Start8 - they claim it took only one day to code it).

You gave a faulty assumption, so your syllogism fell apart. Classic fallacy

I would really like to know what intrinsic property of windows 8 makes "serious" development impossible. I think there is huge potential for developers with windows 8 because of the live tiles.

I have been using it on my laptop for over a week and my biggest problem with it is that I do not have more metro apps.

I don't exactly agree with you on this, but I modded you back up as there was nothing wrong with what you said. There does seem to be some serious Windows/Metro hate in this thread though.

I really don't like Metro on the desktop just yet. It's cool and flashy and familiar thanks to my phone and game console, but even on my relatively high resolution screen it feels like I'm on a kid's computer. The fonts, chrome and buttons are way too big. It actually looks clean and nice, but it's just too jumbo sized to be even close to efficient for me. It does suit the laptop just fine in other ways though; the speed increase alone was worth some broken stuff that I don't use anyway (i.e. Flash Player is broken in Metro IE but fine in Classic IE; I use Firefox and hate Flash so it's a non issue for me).

I really hope I'm not the only one who sees it this way, and that Microsoft takes note and attempts some realistic scaling for hi-res displays.

And I do hope you're right, that we end up with some great programmers who will write (or port) great software to Metro the right way. I have a feeling Windows 8 will never be my first choice on the desktop, but I could see a Windows 8 tablet in my future, sometime next year.