Future of Linux

I don't think it will happen overnight, but I do think Linux has a brighter future "soon". How soon is anyone's guess. But I do believe it will start to slowly grow, more people will take notice, and then.... boom Microsoft and Apple will have no idea what hit them.

Do you mean in the desktop or server side?

Desktop only 2.5% is Linux but when you look at server side it is 66% where windows is the other half.

Linux grows every day by millions of people yet Windows is only developed by Microsoft.

Linux will always be a head of Windows in the backend but because of applications and general use Windows will be top because of the "average consumer" wants it.

I think more people don't use linux because they're not aware of it. Any PC you buy in the market will come with either OSX or Windows.

With dekstop that are always coming out for both windows and Mac. in general the public may not know of linux that well. Because they only have heard of the windows OS or the Mac OSX that is associated with apple line of desktop and laptops. I had one client ask me what was linux for curiosity sake. I mentioned to her about linux over all. And the 350+ flavours there are of Linux depending on your taste of the UI on the desktop. most of today's server serving up web pages are Linux/unix based. And for which one is better is often which GUI you like using on Linuz. I have used all three kinds of operating systems here. Linx, windows and OSX. And it is all depends on your taste for things on the gui level for the desktop.

I do think Windows 8 will have a major impact. I think users will flock to alternative operating systems. Windows 8 is atrocious.

I think that if there was a place where people could go and try out the OS they would see if they liked it or not. Now that wouldn't necessarily make them want to switch, but it would get the people that like the OS to download it and I'm sure some people would get it just cause of the free upgrades. If Ubuntu does get some advertising or maybe a partnership with a store that promotes they're OS then maybe it will rise. As for now Windows has it's hands full with the people that where introduced to the computer Digital-Era. I think windows 8 might change that because if people are going to start from the ground up from the beginning again, maybe and just maybe then more people would just make the switch to Mac OS X.

Linux has a number of good, solid OS's. The issue is that they have "a number of". Most people don't respond to lots of choice on an OS, as crazy at it seems to us geeky-sorts. I have personally been using Linux Mint for over two years as my primary desktop & I love it. I could easily recommend it to friends & they'd be fine running it.

What would get Linux into the mainstream is promotion- but it's hard to promote a dozen contenders. Ubuntu had a bit of success- but the trouble of how to advertise Linux remains...

Even if you could get the word out, it simply isn't offered as an option on new computers anyway...

A shame, really.

I dont think linux will ever take hold of the consumer PC market. You will see linux in more and more things for consumers where you want to hide what is actually running it.

Not sure if windows 8 will push people towards linux.

Also any OS that microsoft puts out (regardless of how bad it is) will become very popular in terms of the number of people using it. that is because once they come out with a new OS, they stop selling older ones and since most people buy prebuilt, they will get a system that comes with windows 8.

all of the current linux builds wont really appeal to the average user because it is not as easy to use as windows.

With linux based OS, even if there is an app market place like with ubuntu, not everything is on there and most of whats not in the market place requires command line to install and setup. With windows, most people can go years without ever touching the command line and they can be sure that almost any random app they fine can be handles purely in a GUI

and in the rare case of there being a batch file, most of the developers, or community/ forum members will provide a batch file (in windows batch files are extremely easy to make), and that turns what would otherwise be a command line process into a single click process.

(PS most command line installs will generally have bad instructions, eg they may list the commands that need to be run and you will copy and paste each one into terminal and at a certain point, things will error out and you cant complete the setup process) (overall people want windows, especially since they don't have to worry about any tar.gz crap or other annoyances that make common processes take more steps to do)

also lately ubuntu has gotten even harder to setup because it now requires a more lengthy setup process with more command line in order to get rid of the unity UI (worst than the windows 8 metro UI crap, especially since it makes it a major pain to deal with multiple windows from the same program, eg multiple PDF files or multiple firefox windows.

overall current linux based OS are just not as user friendly and that basically makes them less appealing to the average user.

So many distros out there for testing. Linux is more than a "replace" type of system. It can give an aging system a way for usefulness. I have done many software repairs over the past few years and Linux brought the systems up to par for everyday use. Debian and Ubuntu are fairly straightforward to install, and on a typical x386 system only takes 15 to 20 minutes to install. Pretty fast upgrade for ailing PC's or laptops. Linux also works well in the Mac environment and maybe someone will make it possible someday to run Linux on a Mac in RAM mode.