While, in many ways, this may be technically true, it is not the common perception of the people who matter; potential users, who tend to be far more conservative when it comes to changing software.
This conservatism in users puts the lie to the idea that open-source equivalents can easily be substituted for widely used Windows applications according to Geoff Perlman, CEO of Austin-based Real Software Inc.
Likewise, Dave Rosenberg, CIO at Glass, Lewis & Co., an investment research and shareholder proxy advisory firm in San Francisco, likewise pointed to the lack of fully functional applications as an issue that’s holding back desktop Linux:
“Does OpenOffice meet my needs? Almost,” Rosenberg said. “Does GIMP [an open-source photo editor] meet my needs? Same answer.”
Rosenberg, who also works at Open Source Development Labs Inc., added that improvements to Linux’s hardware drivers and battery life are needed:
“My laptop running Ubuntu [Linux] only lasts half an hour,” he said. “But these are solvable problems. We’re getting there.”
Via: Interprise Linux IT
Tags: Desktop Linux
These are the ramblings of 
This is very true. When my curious friends ask me if they should switch to Linux, I give them an honest answer based upon what I think their technical skill level and tolerance for ‘mucking about’ is.
I’ve always felt that there are two groups of people that will enjoy desktop Linux: computer enthusiasts who care about their computer and infrequent computer users who don’t give a rat’s @ss about their computer. Those two groups will do well.
Anyone else is probably not going to enjoy desktop Linux very much.
What about us regular computer users that simply want something that will work without having to be a programer specialist to get things like DVD players to “just work” or to figure out how to play audio etc. I hate the windows empire, but just don’t know enough about Linux to be fully 11% gung-ho about it as I’d like to be.
I have Xandros which I was told would be a great halfway house between the windows stuff and that of Linux. I can’t play DVDs - it just gives me the FBI warning again and again. I have heard this is something to do with copyright laws? So I can’t play DVD’s at all even though I purchased them legitimately and didn’t just DL them or such.
One can’t play .wma files which a great many sites that have bands audio available to sample use. That bites…
I am told you can program your iPod to work with it just fine, though no one I know has ever done this or heard exactly how you do it.
My computer has miss-assigned the wrong audio card as well for some reason when installing Xandros. It tells me I have one thing when the person who built it for me says it is another entirely, even though he is familiar with linux, he says he’s never even gotten behind a Xandros desktop and has no idea how to change this.
These are the issues I have with my linux desktop and are what stops me from being really gung-ho about it. Though I’d love to be. Simply put, I have only half a computer it seems like, and Xandros was one version I was told is almost entirely ‘ready to go’.. So much for that. Do I just need to find another version of Linux that is easier to manage in these regards, or are they all the same, i.e. none of them play dvd’s, wma’s, etc?