I have never really understood why the free software people have been so enthusiastic about a clone of a 30 year old operating system with a 20 year old user interface. OK for servers but not what people want to run on their desktop. Surely it would be much better to have an OS designed from the ground up to handle video, music, 3D graphics, wireless connectivity, USB etc.
You might argue that the Linux kernel can handle all these things well now anyway, but there is no excuse for the truly dreadful X-windows based Linux GUIs. If Linux is ever to catch on as a desktop OS it has to ditch x-windows as the user interface and, like Mac OSX, get a modern, attractive, gorgeous GUI designed from the ground up to take advantage of the power and features of the modern desktop PC.
Free but crap has no appeal.
The_Walrus
Pro
The point is surely that the operating system should be a separate entity that the user need know nothing about. Users use applications. Much of the difficulty Windows gives users results from Microsoft attempting to force their applications on us by making them part of their operating system. I didn't want their film editing suite bundled with XP, it's dead weight to me, but if I decide to edit films on my PC I want to be able to choose any editor, and not have to fight the software already on my PC to get it to allow some other application to replace the one foisted on me.
But what do I know?