Is there any reason to use Linux besides for servers?
 

Not to sound disrespectful or anything, I love Linux it'll always be my OS of choice simply cause I put so much time into learning it. But is there any reason for like the average Joe to use it? I think the only 2 reasons to use it, and their good reasons don't get me wrong, is that it's more secure and optimal for servers.. Any reason for a Mac user to switch?

My friends, neighbors, so on, think I'm a computer guy and come to me with their virus-infected computers. My response is always the same: I can salvage your files but I will not install Windows. But you can have Linux if you want. Over years I have installed Linux for many computer-illiterate people. None - I emphasize none - has come back complaining it does not work! A mother of three told me four years later her kids have had zero problems with their PC after I installed Linux!

Does this answer your question?

Kinda but it just proves that it's stable, I'm wondering if it appeals to people who don't care about learning anything computers.. Like to people who just wants something that looks slick.. I'm thinking if you show those kinds of people a Mint distro it would not appeal at all to them, but if you had a custom cool/nice looking setup with Gentoo/kde or something, I wonder if it will pull them away from say Windows or OSX.. I guess I just wish Linux had more of that kind appeal to ppl.. IDK I was just bored when I wrote this, but it would be interesting to know if they would make the switch or not care..

Well, at home I use exclusively linux ((open)SUSE) since about 15 years, at work I have to use windows 7 by decree. So I see the differences all day every day.

Tasks do overlap (office with text and spreadsheets, file management, simple editing...). There is rarely a day I'm not whishing for KDE / SUSE at work but alas, no chance. Sorry, in my eyes linux is simply the better system. So, yes, there is (or rather, are) reason(s) for linux to be used besides servers. Many more than I mentioned here, too.

Can't disagree there Linux is by far the most versatile OS, I guess a lot of people just don't realize it, Linux FTW!!

i know that i am in the minority. but apple users are in the minority as well (especially years ago). i became more proficient with red-hat -> fedora so i just stuck with it. doesnt matter to me if it is meant for servers. certain windows only games i dual-boot for.

its like how suv's are meant for off-road but they are often seen on city streets.

I would be hard-pressed to recommend Linux over OSX for people who just want a system that (mostly, except when it glaringly does not) works -- provided they can afford it, of course.
What you gain with Linux is choice and configurations and what you lose, sometimes, is ease of use and "somebody to shout at".
Personally I think Windows has a place also, with some advantages and disadvantages of both, but I wouldn't recommend it and don't even know enough about it nowadays to help anyone with it apart from making sure they have anti-virus that's not a scam.
I have "converted" one person to Linux and he's a friend who is a scientist who records his own music (I do, on occasion, link to it in the music thread here) -- I told him why I loved using Linux and let him work things out for himself.
The guy who "got me into Linux". kept trying to dissuade me from using it because, at the time, Linux was much more difficult to install and use.

To me it is the science applications that make Linux invaluable. Bioinformatics, crystallography, modelling, all of these would be much harder and often more expensive to use on Windows or Mac OS. But that may not be an answer to your question since you explicitly mentioned the average Joe.

I have recently made Fedora my main os on my system. I mainly did it so that it forces me to learn more about using Linux in general. I am running a dual boot setup so whenever I need to run software that is only available on windows, I just just to my windows 10 OS

So far for work, I will definitely recommend using Linux over windows.

You missed the single biggest reason to use Linux: FREEDOM.

Technical specs, although superior, are of secondary concern. Security is really just one important aspect of maintaining FREEDOM, as is the choice of applications which you can support under GNU/Linux.

So the all important question, rarely asked these days, is this:

Is there a reason to prefer FREEDOM over Slavery? After all, the slaves are usually well fed with decent health care, all to keep them productive. They do not have to worry about housing or being out of a job - ever! There is little responsibility, uncertainty or risk of failure in their lives as there is for others. So is there any reason to accept all the responsibility and risk of being FREE over the somewhat limiting but always predictable life of the slave?

If that question is not of any importance to you then you are using GNU/Linux for all the wrong reasons.

OS or marketing tool?
 

I have been running various Linux distros since Fedora Core 4, without any need to dual-boot. For ten years I made my living as a journalist using my Linux all day, seven days a week. It is versatile, highly configurable, stable, and well supplied with open source software for a huge range of tasks.
Meanwhile, my wife, who is a masochistic technophobe, has insisted on using Windows (initially due to an addiction to Cardfile), which I have to support. Every release of Windows that I have had to work with has, since 98SE, been inferior to the Linux distros I was using at the time.
Since the implosion of her last PC, running Windows 7, I have had to configure Windows 10 for her. In some ways it is better than 7, but the file manager still has no tabs, and administration and user level configuration is messier and less comprehensive. If you want Thunderbird to open on startup Google is your only friend, MS sure is not.
The impression I gained with XP that Windows was not so much an operating system as a marketing tool is massively confirmed, the "Start" menu is dominated by ads for Microsoft products, there is even a "store" icon on the toolbar. All of these can be got rid of, but only if you know how.
There is a handy Skype icon, but it gives the impression that a Microsoft ID is the only way to fire it up. This is not so, Skype usable without an MS ID can be installed (http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-full), but MS don't tell you that. Looking in the "store" for a better photo viewer - the one supplied is buggy - I was asked for an MS ID. Many years ago I read a quote from a Microsoft person to the effect that their long term aim was to have everyone on the planet paying small regular sums to Microsoft.
It is a truism of Sales that the easiest sale is to an existing customer. The Microsoft World Domination Project seems to be alive and progressing, if Windows 10 is any guide.

I do quite well with linux as a desktop. I can do many things with linux because I use linux 100%.

If something can't be done in linux it's because the companies out there don't want to support linux like Apple, Adobe, Google to some extent and others.

Linux may not be strong on the desktop market, but linux shines ahead of other operating systems from super computers, phones, TVs and other embedded devices.

Average Joe here.

Yes.

Nuff Said.

You can go on and on about the great things in linux but apart from the freedom, I would say the next best feature of GNU/Linux is that you get the operating system source code.

NO ONE gives away a "operating system" with source code except in the case of Linux - be it Microsoft, IBM , Apple etc.

This maintains a transparency in the sense that you can go over the source code and see for yourself that there wont be any NSA certified backdoors, or any kind of malware in your system.

any average Joe can use linux - email, browser, office apps. All present and correct.

We are however conditioned by our employment where windows is used almost exclusively. Even if you use linux at work where do you buy a pre-configured system which looks like your work PC? And then there are the other aspects. Which of your friends use linux and can point you at all the "cool" new toys. And on it goes...