The premise of TFA is wrong. GNU/LInux does sell on the desktop and soon Android/Linux will as well. Many OEMs sell GNU/Linux and many retailers do as well, just not all of them. It's different in various parts of the world. In Germany you can go into shops with lots of shelf-space reserved for GNU/Linux and the share, according to NetApplications is 1.84%. In USA there are few shops that sell GNU/Linux and the share is reported to be 2.13%, not significantly different because it's business usage that NetApplications measure. Mountain View, California shows 80% because that's what Google uses. see this German site and compare it with Dell, who have hundreds of stores in China selling GNU/Linux http://www.notebooksbilliger.de/notebooks/notebooks+ohne+windows (That's Notebooks without Windows, according to Google Translate)

Change apps or run that other OS in a virtual machine or with WINE. WINE is much cheaper because you don't need a licence fee for that other OS.

Most of us are not in such a situation. Where I work we depended on only two apps, IE and Office. We chucked them for OpenOffice.org and FireFox and Chrome Browser. Things are working well. We get greater speed and reliability without having to buy lots of new hardware.

There is so much FUD in this topic. M$ and "partners" try to upsell this technology to make sure they can tax it. If you run GNU/Linux terminal servers and simple X window system clients you get all the benefits of virtual desktops at much lower costs: cheaper servers (more processes per gigabyte and no licensing fees), cheaper thin clients (no need for gB of RAM or hard drive) and better performance (files are cached in RAM on the server or retrieved by a hot RAID). I use this technology a lot. I get 5s logins and 2s opening of windows to huge apps even using old PCs as thin clients. The usual VDI solution involves one virtual machine per client, a huge waste of resources although flexible. If you want low cost and reliability keep it simple and stick with GNU/Linux. It costs about $30 per client to have a good server on-line. New thin clients can be bought for less than $50 and used ones cost nothing (old XP machines are $0). Don't listen to the FUD. Go all-in for thin clients and forget the VDI bloat. Use GNU/Linux.

Amen

One of the differences between working in a GNU/Linux shop and that other OS is stress. Last year, I worked in a shop using that other OS. It was always frightening on zero-day-malware-day because I always had to work late making sure updates were done in spite of having automatic updates enabled. With GNU/Linux, I type a few commands and it gets done for the whole system in a few minutes and I can go home to sleep. Last year I had trouble sleeping more than four hours. This year, I sleep as long as I want knowing things are safe. Next year, we will be 95% M$-free. I look forward to that.

So I can "invent" the shovel today? By moving manure, dirt, sand, rice, potatoes,.... I hope the USPTO has an infinite staff... Wait a minute! They CHARGE for applications! That's their new business plan: generate an infinite number of patent applications and pay off the national debt with the fees. I understand.

If Apple has to spend a bundle on marketing to get the meagre share they have, why has GNU/Linux twice the share? Could it be that its not about marketing only but price also matters?

Parent leans on facts not in evidence. 100 million users of GNU/Linux on the desktop cannot be GNU/Linux freaks/geeks/sociopaths. GNU/Linux works well. If someone with too much cash wants to spend money on CPU power to round the corners on rectangular areas of the screen, so be it. Others want to get on with what they are doing with less regard to M$ and pals bottom lines. I use GNU/Linux because it works and that other OS does not. That other OS phones home, sniffs files for DRM, BSODs, has a very EXCLUSIVE EULA, invites malware in, needs re-re-reboots, and messes up memory, storage and everything else it touches. I do not give a damn about how beautiful the UI is. I use PCs to get things done.

One of the richest companies in the world produces a crappy user interface. So much for the thesis that GNU/Linux must have professional UI designers. Take, for example, GIMP. Many say it has a lousy user-interface. I can give GIMP to folks who have never used PS and they have no trouble at all making the fish larger, eliminating fly-away hair, whitening teeth and eliminating ex-boyfriends. In what way is the UI not good? Only in that GIMP is not identical to PS, apparently. Folks who take the trouble to learn how to use GIMP have no problems with its user-interface.

"Stable" has two meanings: 1)features set 2)failures are rare

Hmmm.

Iraq: suicide bombers, IEDs, AK47s and RPGs

DC: handguns...

That does not look like a fair comparison, especially with bombs that can fly in a window from miles away, killer drones flying day and night and taxpayers tolerating thousands of casualties and billion dollar budgets for occupation.