I have been, for a very long time, a believer that the basic foundation of Linux being an inherent development platform makes it unsuitable for the masses in both the Desktop and Server markets.

While Linux has seen a lot of downfalls in the server market with the added maintenance costs, shorter hardware life, and lower quality of support contracts when compared to "real" enterprise server options (Solaris and AIX), it has still firmly set it's hooks into the entry level server market that was previously being taken over by Microsoft. This has allowed Linux to become a real player, and it's acceptance has marked the death of IRIX and HPUX as SGI and HP now offer there enterprise servers with Linux instead.

Now, with the new rise of the netbook, it appears Linux may be setting it self up to prove me wrong yet again... With windows simply not performing well enough on these less powerfull PC's to make the public happy HP, Dell, Acer, and MSI have all decided to look into the possibility of replacing windows with Linux on there upcoming netbooks. Intel has even started it's own distro that they hope to tune to a 2 second boot time on there Atom powered processors.

If Linux takes over the affordable and attractive netbook market, one would have to consider it a possibility that Linux may in fact make it to the desktop in some real capacity, being a supported and stable wide scale OS for the average end-user. I guess it could be thought that a large enough player creating a standardized distro could certainly make Linux viable, but Redhat has already tried and failed miserably. I'm still not sold on Linux ever being a real desktop option for the masses, but it's hard to ignore the progress it's making when you read the daily geek news.