I have some bad news: your anecdotal evidence doesn't reflect the rest of the world. Your friends are your friends and thus are more likely to have similar opinions as you. The fact they use Linux as their desktop OS is not surprising. One could easily push family members to do this as well - especially if said family members only ever do most of their work through a web browser. I'm fairly certain I could change over a few of my family members to use Linux Mint or Ubuntu and they wouldn't really know the difference... until they start asking why a specific program they once used in the past isn't there/won't install anymore... or why the new printer they just bought doesn't work... etc.

Try asking some of your non-technical coworkers what they use at home. Ask acquaintances you talk to, but wouldn't consider friends what they use. Ask the ones that don't use a Linux distro (I'd wager most, if not all, of them) why they don't. You'll probably get answers ranging from 'I don't know how' to 'I'd rather run all of the things I use on a daily basis without hassle.' Those aren't bad reasons to use a platform at all. Blind dislike for a company that puts out an obviously usable and popular product just because you think you're the better man for running OSS is a bad reason. Wasn't a good chunk of the argument against Gnome 3 and Unity that there was no good reason to change what's already been proven to work? Funny how that works.

I'm not an anti-Linux-on-desktops zealot at all. I'm just pro-reality: Windows and OSX are the better desktop OSes because they're designed to be and were designed to be right from the ground up. Newer desktop friendly (and mostly Debian-derived) distributions of Linux have certainly come a long way, but they're just not able to compete with the simplicity of Windows or OSX. Anyone who's chosen either platform is already familiar with the desktop and all of the software they use. It's simply a case of 'don't fix what isn't broken.' The only compelling reason to use Linux over either platform at this point is ethos which, when you're trying to get real work done, just isn't good enough.

Mavericks-related merchandise probably. All you had to do was read the first few lines of the summary to see that he's the owner of the Mavericks and he's talking about their Facebook page.

Or he can just save himself the trouble and use Acrobat. Try explaining to someone that you extracted images from his PDFs and repackaged them in a OSS-friendly manner. At BEST, he'll go 'that's nice, but could you just give me a PDF please?' At worst (and most likely, honestly,) he'll call you an idiot and stop doing business with you.

Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean it's worth the time or effort. In the long run, the average user will almost always prefer Windows or OSX to any flavor of Linux you throw at him.

Linux fills its niches, but a desktop OS just isn't one of those niches. The primary goal of a desktop OS should be ease of use and compatibility of software. A lot of Linux distributions have come a long way in the former, but the latter is still just not there. Just because there's an 'equivalent' of a piece of software available for a Linux platform doesn't necessarily mean it's actually equal.

Blind zealotry for any platform is stupid because it's just that - a platform. A working environment. Every environment is going to be better at some things than others. There's a reason why multi-booting exists.

Uh. The PSP is -NOTHING- like the PS3. It's actually also lower spec than the PS2. It's more like a PS1.5.

Or if Jason Scott happens to get a hold of them and puts them on archive.org.

Mountain Dew-swilling*

Rootbeer has no caffeine.

Obligatory XK...Penny Arcade

Slew? You only really need two: NoScript and AdBlock (or any of its forks.) You can't stop people from making bad decisions or to think selfishly. Thinking you can, even with any sort of regulation in place, is pretty dumb. There isn't much soul selling involved here - especially if you use a fork of AdBlock that isn't explicitly being 'donated to' by a big advertisement company. NoScript itself also pretty much funded by donations from users and is otherwise done as a 'spare time' project by its authors.

I think I prefer it this way rather than a truly regulated WWW, honestly. That alternative is a potentially very scary one.

Why is this marked troll? Jesus Christ, Slashdot - what is wrong with you?

You'd think after enough years, they'd have leveled up enough to have enough intrinsic mana regeneration to handle it without pots.

Dear person who modded me troll: Troll is not a proxy for 'I disagree with reality.'

I love this thread. It happens every week or so in some fashion or another and it basically boils down to people saying this:

"YOUR PERSONAL CHOICE IN OPERATING SYSTEM AND WORK ENVIRONMENT SUCKS. MINE IS SUPERIOR."

"NUH UH, MINE IS."

Nobody ever puts any thought into the possibility that MAYBE if something has worked efficiently for someone and has produced the best results for them over time then there is no reason to change. Change is only good if the transition is to something OBJECTIVELY better than what was used before (horse and buggy to automobile, for example, in the case of speed and transport capabilities.) Change for the sake of change only serves to reduce efficiency. It's always nice to learn new things, but if those new things give you no net gain and instead only introduce a long learning curve for you to essentially get the same results then maybe it really isn't that good of an idea to change.

This is the primary problem with Linux vs Windows. Once you're used to one, there is almost no reason to switch to the other except in the case of using tools that are ONLY available on that platform and even then: that's what virtual machines are for. Yes, it's nice that you can completely customize everything ever in Linux if you put it enough (sometimes unfathomable amounts) of work or that you get pretty GUIs that explain everything for you in Windows, but unless either of those things are key to keeping up with your workflow, then there's no reason to switch.

Linux will continue to be a platform for some developers and hobbyists. It also continues to be the platform of choice for certain, specific applications that the OS can be tailored around for maximum efficiency and security (e.g. servers.) It fills those niches. It doesn't NEED to be anything else. When it tries to be something else bad things tend to happen (right, Ubuntu users?) Why does it matter how much of the desktop market it has?

Windows will continue to be the desktop OS of choice because of its simplicity (Windows 8 notwithstanding,) the ability to get things done for the average person with minimal fuss and for rapid deployment in most any enterprise environment. It will also be the OS of choice for some developers because some people prefer the development tools available on it.

This is, always has been and always will be a non-argument that exists only for people to try to tell others 'I'm better than you because I'm using xyz. abc sucks and you should feel ashamed for using it.'

Stupid.

Actually, no. GM made a deal with the USSR to send some engineers over to help build plants to develop and build autos, but Stalin became so paranoid over outsiders in his country that most of those engineers ended up getting sent to prison as traitors/spies.

The plan itself ended up being a failure as a result and most Soviet tanks were Soviet built and designed with only TINY amounts of input by the GM engineers.

For further information, you can get this book from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Under-Red-Star-Extraordinary/dp/1400070783

Also, I'm not sure what this has to do with this topic.

Yeah? I know exactly what you mean, man. Here, check out this sign I'm going to be protesting in front of D.C. with after Obama gets reelected.

ELMSFORD
12 GALAXIES
CESJROGRENICAL ERGONOMICS
NBC: XOXPHROZENIGUL COVERAGE
WASPROVRENIKIL
ADMONISHMENTS MINISCULE
STRATOSPHERICAL

Addendum: Also enable Javascript on pages that require it for the features to actually function (some banking sites, a LOT of gaming-related sites with build calculators and what not, etc.) With NoScript, you can whitelist by domain, so this isn't really that difficult.