Year of Linux on the desktop?

Every year, I see articles on various Linux related websites that this year is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop, the year when Linux desktop will start gaining significantly on MS Windows. This claim is then supplemented by various comparisons between Windows and a recent Linux distro (often debian or gentoo), feature to feature, proving that Linux can now do all that Windows can. You get to hear that you can use Evolution in place of Outlook, Firefox in place of IE, f-spot in place Picasa, this is my favorite: gimp in place of Photoshop. That is not all, article usually claims that Linux now supports most of the digicams, display cards, etc out of the box, installation is extremely easy and everyone, his mom and grandmom can now use Linux on the desktop. Later, it mentions a couple of applications or a couple of features that are available on Linux, but not on Windows, to claim that Linux is already ahead of Windows. Examples are command-line image manipulation utilities, richness of bash shell as compared to Windows terminal.

However, every year, we realize that the share of Linux on the desktop is just the same as last year. The number of Linux-only desktop boxes will be so few, nobody wants to mention that.

Once upon a time, people said it was because of hardware support. Then they said availability of applications. However, Linux now supports almost all normal hardware and it has applications to serve any average computer user. (No, Photoshop is not a 'normal' software, hardly anybody needs it). So why is Linux not gaining on Windows on the desktop?

The main reason, as I can see it, is the ease of use. Windows is still infinitely more easy to use than Linux. Let me give an example. I consider myself a 'power user', not an 'average' user of Linux. The wireless card and bluetooth hardware is supported by the Linux distro I run. However, I have not been able to configure them correctly till today. I agree that I have not done a great deal of research, I have not spent a great number of hours googling for solutions. But all these got configured without asking me a single question on Windows. Most people don't care and don't want to know whether they should use WEP or WPA-PSK or whatever for their wireless card uses. Most people don't want to edit configuration options for everything they do. If Windows can self-discover all these things, why can't Linux?

The reason, to some extent, seems to be the 'Linux attitude'. Linux no doubt benefits from having some of the brightest people on the earth developing it. However, the same people cannot think for the common user. They tend to call the Windows way of doing things 'dumb', because it does not let them configure all the options by hand. They tend to despise any UI, advocating that command line is the only right way of doing things. This is true in some cases, but it definitely is wrong in case of most average 'dumb' users. For example, nobody outside the Linux fanatic club would want to understand the command line options of 'cdrecord'. The other reason is infinite choice you get with everything on Linux. There is no doubt choice is good, but all choice, no standardization is not good either.

The distros are doing a reasonable job of making desktop Linux a viable option. However, they too suffer from the same dificiency. Also, they spend more time polishing their fonts or creating new eye-catching 3-d icons than making apps easy to use. yum and apt are a good step towards installing software, but they bring Linux nowhere close to Windows in this area. To some extent, the Linux model, where there is no central authority, is the cause of this. Most of my thoughts agree with this article
So what do I think should be done? Portland project , which aims to provide common set of interfaces for Linux desktop, is a right way ahead. It may finally end the war between gnome and kde. I also think the community should become more sensitive to the needs of common man. I don't how how this can happen, though. I think the Linux distros should put more thought in making desktop versions of their OS. I installed SuSE Linux 10.1 last week and found that it is pretty well integrated desktop. (Until you try to install some software you found on the web). Some say the Linspire way is correct, but it is clear that they will never be able to garner support of the community for this, which means it will never take off in a big way. Last but not the least, until we have really made Linux on desktop comparable to Windows, let us not go around claiming that we are already better or that Windows is dumb.