Steve wants everyone in the USA to turn their wireless devices off. NOW.

Linux isn't successful on the desktop because when people buy computers, they use the OS and Desktop that came with them. Very, very few computers are sold with Linux preinstalled.

It's unfair to say that Linux has failed on the desktop by citing problems that exist in certain window managers or certain applications; if you want to do that, you need to say that "Linux distribution XYZ" has failed...

That said, I don't have the problems you cite using Ubuntu.

I'm not saying that Linux on the desktop is perfect, I just don't think it's that bad.