Consider your average user thinks a 'kernel' is a commissioned rank in the U.S. Army, Air Force, or Marine Corps that is above lieutenant colonel and below brigadier general / an person in the army (delete as appropriate)..

and I thought it was to do with fried chicken.

see thread in enterprise forum on 'open source in the woplace' :

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=173157

depends which bit of 'joe public' you mean. There are parts of Joe Public that aren't ready for windows!
Then again, when was windows 'ready' for joe public? win3.11, win95, win98, win2k etc..... depends.

So the answer is..
has been for years ... for the expert
now ... for the inquistive
2005 .... for the 'hey, have you heard of linux?'
2006 ... for the 'i'll wait a bit'
2007 .. 2009 ... for the 'i'll leave it a couple of years till I buy a new computer', and it comes pre-installed (hopefully)
never .. for the Amish

No, its means seed-pods of course. Peel and store in a cool and dry place.

For most part I second gaffel.

Here I differ:... the answer is..
has been for years considering GUI's ... but depending on your software needs.
now and earlier ... for the any beginner particularly without Win-experience

... but hard on experienced admins from Win/MS-Side

Any normal-user resistance is due to being adverse to learning new things (which pertains also to new versions of Win. Who has never seen tables or columnar layouts in Winword done with blanks and tabs? (New Poll? )).

The improvements over the last few years have been impressive. I feel the days of double click Linux is here today. Some users disagree with the double click mentality but if that is what the general consumer wants then.....

I don't see your point. IN Win -- at least since NT -- you can enable single or double clicks. Joe user's choice, this time over there (and he choose not to execise the choice ).

My point was a more automated Linux like Mandrake is more friendly to Joe user newbie than say Slackware, a fine distro but requires more knowledge. I have read some posts from hard core Linux users who disagree with the more automated Linux.

For your everyday desktop usage i think Linux is, and has been, good to go for at least a couple of years. True, getting your Linux box installed and up and running can sometimes be a pain, especially for the unitiated. However all things in life are a learning curve, Linux included. If you are prepared to take the time to learn something new then Linux has always been ready, If you live in the fast lane and "Dont have time", then stick with MS and the comfy bubble it provides.

Probably, when Joe can buy a pre-installed Linux box at his favorite brick-and-mortar store.

malmart will sell you a comp with preinstalled linspire over the net and if i got my history right, didn't corel try to launch a user freindly linux os and it was a total flop, so are you ready for double click or should we have both?

Does Joe buy his computers over the net? Last I heard, anyone who walks into a Walmart B&M store sees only Windows machines. And Corel was badly marketed, and probably not easy enough for Joe.

Joe Public should grab two six-packs and
go fishing, and leave them poor computers
alone ...


Cheers,
Tink

It's been ready for years!
For anyone not expecting Linux to be Windows it has been great for quite a while.

Consider also the number of people who are not ready for Windows.

Most users don't install their own OS, and continue to use them until the system has grown so corrupted that they either get someone to fix it or they buy a new machine with the OS pre-installed.
My guess is that Linux will never be ready for Joe until he can walk into a retailer and see a pre-installed Linux system sitting next to a pre-installed Windows system and make a choice between the two of them.

Christ, how I'd love to ...

Why? Mayn't Joe browse the net, word-process, game etc? Just have somebody administer his box and leave him alone .

i think that linux (when properly and completely configured) can be just as *easy* as windows to use. this depends on your definition of easy of course, but given a user friendly distro such as mandrake/redhat/fedora/etc and gui desktop environment, you could very well accomplish most everything you would ever need to without ever going to a prompt. this is what i picture as joe public, the point click click grunt click click type. unfortunate, but for the most part born of fact...

when will linux be ready for joe public? i guess when all the configuring is automated, or included from a major manufacturer so that it is ready out of box. until that point, it is not ready for joe. joe wouldn't be able to live without plug and play.