Here's my point: Look at the games that install with [pick your linux distro]. They either suck or have graphic routines so bad that the animation makes them unusable on most systems. Or they don't have sound. Or they're just plain stupid. Or, the screen comes up, and you're left looking at it, wondering what the point is. Having a lot of good arcade-quality games available, and not having any of the sucky ones available as a default, would do a lot towards capturing at least a segment of the market. I'd like my son to learn Linux. But until it has good games to suck him in, he's not going to budge.

Also, let's quit saying that linux offers a lot on the desktop. It doesn't, at least by comparison. Hardware detection's getting fantastic. Kudzu rocks! But although you can detect the existence of a new printer, you still can't detect what it is. When someone buys a computer, it can be purchased with everything set up. But what happens a month later when the grandma, grandpa, wife or college student purchases a printer? Or, God forbid, a scanner? Unless they have a good administrator-friend on call, they've got a really cool piece of technology to use for a paperweight. This precludes adoption by the masses.

It doesn't matter that the OS itself is vastly superior to Windows. It doesn't matter that the user can control code bloat down to the most minute detail. It doesn't matter that the user never has to deal with the blue screen of death that I actually encountered when I was reading this article. I want everyone to use Linux because I wouldn't mind writing code for it. But for now I'm writing code for Windows because that's what people are using.

John