Published at LXer:

The entries in this blog flow through my Twitter and Facebook feeds, and once in awhile a friend of mine who has nothing to do with the open-source software world wonders what the hell I'm talking about. Just this weekend, somebody asked me, "What's this 'DEEE-bee-en' you write about?" Would the question be any different with the word "Ubuntu" in there? I don't think so. When it comes to desktop Linux (not to mention BSD, which is even further in the geek ghetto), nobody knows what we're talking about.

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Linux is ready for the desktop and has been for the last few years. Mark Shuttleworth and the linux community are making linux easier as possible for the average user.

The problem is that no one wants to use linux. Except for the 5% or so users.

As for the manufacturers, who once supported linux like Asus and Dell, they went off to window$ full throttle because they feel thay can sell more units.

If linux can get the same hardware support that windows get, customers wouldn't have problems with their ipods, cameras, webcams, printers and more. And linux would be returned less back to the stores.

I know for a fact, linux is desktop ready because I use it everyday.

Not trying to argue your overall point here, but this is a bit of a fallacy. Just because you might use it every day and like it doesn't necessarily mean the next average Joe down the street will feel the same. I primarily use Linux on my computers, too, but I don't assume that everyone else would feel the same way about it as I do, nor do I really expect them to. Hell, I doubt if there are very many (any?) fellow Linux geeks in my area at all...

I know that not everyone is going to like linux.

I've have seen many articles like this and hardware is usually the main culprit.

Linux tries to support as much hardware as possible, but we need the cooperation of the hardware vendors as well -- which is unlikely because they see linux as an obscure operating system at least on the desktop.

This is exactly the way most people I know are seeing it. They don't argue that their Windows may be better, but when they see what I can do with it, and how I do it, they shake their heads and are glad that their Windows is "so easy to use", because you don't have to use the commandline.
Explaining to them that you don't have to use CLI doesn't help. Even if they are interested, and I install a Linux for them, it is abandoned short time later and they use their Windows again, just because Linux looks different and does not behave exactly like they are used to it from Windows.

So I think, from the technical view Linux may be ready for the desktop, but it will only become really ready for the desktop, if people accept, that desktop does not mean, that is has to be like Windows.

But Mint and ubuntu made their OS to be easy as possible to attract windows users.

Anyway, I still believe hardware is the main cause. If a linux newbie can't figure a way to get their ipod, ipad, digital media player or other specialty device working -- they abandon linux just as fast as they tried it.