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I'd say it's getting closer most definately. The dislike of Vista I feel has contributed a lot to this I feel, as people like myself started to get curious about the other offerings that there was out there. It's not there yet and still has a few speedbumps to go over, but it's got a heck of a chance I feel of becoming a real contender... especially with the distro choices now having some really solid contenders like openSUSE and Ubuntu.

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I'm not sure, but I think that the battle is a lot more than just producing a beginner-friendly experience and a nice DE environment. Some distributions have already conquered this. A lot of it is exposing people to how things work in a FOSS environment -- and why FOSS is a good and important thing.

For example, in your Windows world, someone goes out to the store and spends a lot of money for a software package specially designed for his OS -- and expects it to just work.

In the FOSS world, we have enormous repositories of free software. Some of that software is mature, super stable, and comes with tons of great features. Other software is young, developing, and a little buggy. Someone with a little bit of FOSS experience understands this, and knows how to sort through packages, and try things out until he finds what works for him.

Another big barrier is the whole hardware driver thing. I think that many Window users believe that a good OS just magically make all kinds of hardware just work (after you install the CD software that came with the device). In reality, its often a marketing/vendor side battle, with a lot of vendors just producing properiety drivers for Windows, because the Linux market share doesn't seem worth their time. I think it would help if people understood that it is important to buy hardware that is compatible with Linux -- where the vendors have either taken the time to make the drivers, or have made it legally possible for us to make our own.

So I think it is more the gap of mentality that causes the problem. The Linux fanatics (including the non-techy ones) like the freedom, the customizability, and the ideals. The know what is good and desirable about their OS and their FOSS. All the Windows fans see is a style of desktop, or a particular piece of software on the shelf that they want.

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