content: Linux: is its' reputation and the way it's built actually the reason why it isn't used by more people? (Not talking about android!) Just read the post about HandyLinux and started thinking that maybe because Linux is so user friendly towards customization that this very ability is what has stopped its growth potential. (Note: I'm talking about the PC OS not android. I'm also a Mac OS / OS X user so pardon of I get some things wrong) I'm gonna put OSX with Windows even though it's a BSD distro for the sake of my arguement. What I'm thinking is that Linux is a developer OS. Not in as an OS for developing but meaning it's an OS made by developers. I do php programming and I'm always amazed by how so many other programmers like to build their own thing. It's like a pride thing or something. I use the laravel framework and cause it's still relatively new there really aren't any major CMSs that have a huge community behind them. Basically, the big ones are still small teams and you can find others that keep moving forward. The point here is that developers like doing their own thing rather than joining forces to make something huge like WP. My theory here is that Linux suffers from developer-itis. Lots of talent and good ideas that get lost in the sea of other good ideas and talent. Compare this to Windows or OSX which are essentially just as hard to learn and basically that same difficulty to learn as Linux. What separates these 2 major camps is how they sell themselves and how they work on the User experience. The Windows / OSX camp makes things easier for the User. They limit what a casual user will need to do and put on their own versions of eye candy to make that sale that much easier to consume. While Linux has various distros with various GUI/UIs and even though a majority is based off a major distro they are all slightly different because the main developer wanted to put something together. Being an end user it's easy to understand that it's kids over whelming and add on to taht the fact that most people don't want to be reinstalling their system to try all those flavor out. Is this a bad thing? No! If you are looking at it from the standpoint that variety is awesome and you love tinkering. Yes! If you want Linux mindshare to grow. Common people just don't want to fuck around with their machines. Install once and run an update once a year. I've kept Android out of the conversation because most people don't know it's actually a Linux OS. Android should be considered the most successful Linux distro but since it's still primarily a phone OS for now (Chrome OS should be included but ... For now let's just avoid it for the sake of not polluting the discussion). What does Linux (any distro) need to really take off to replace Windows and OSX? A solid and I mean a ducking solid GUI/UI that is Steve Jobs consistent across all applications. Jobs nailed it and I was hoping that Ubuntu would lead the charge but ... Once again, developers developers ... Oh well. Adobe! Adobe needs to port from BSD to Linux but the thing here is that unlike windows or OS X, Linux doesn't have taht consistent windowing system and widgets that the others offer so Adobe would have to decide which side of the war they would unify behind or build their own. Although a few applications are slowly become a defacto standard like gimp there is still lots of room for improvement or just simply a rallying point for each area of products. Jobs just had them built or bought them and modified them to his tastes. Linux has developer and more developers ... Are you starting to see the pattern? Basically Linux needs a vanguard company to pick and choose what users need. Linux really needs a Steve Jobs to say that we need this, this and that. The very thing that the Linux community will fight against because developers, developers will have shit fits.