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Comment by gvb | Hacker News Reader

Mark Shuttleworth says Ubuntu is making inroads on desktops and is poised to take off:

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/738

FWIIW, IMHO there never will be a "year of the linux desktop." Linux on the desktop is an infiltration, not a blitzkrieg. As such, it will only be recognizable in retrospect.

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I've switched back to Windows from Ubuntu. I found one of the big reasons for me to use Linux was how much easier it was to move around / manage files between my desktop and other machines using the command-line.

With Dropbox, that has become less relevant for me. I just have a Linux server sitting somewhere that is kept automatically in sync with my Windows desktop and I can open an SSH session with a single click. With the pain of moving stuff back and forth in Windows gone, I no longer care for the pain of stuff like getting Flash or a Java plug-in to work in Linux.

Even as a passionate Ubuntu follower, I don't see the possibility of Ubuntu going main-stream. The OS may match or even exceed the capabilities of Windows, but it is more important to have a diverse number of generally used apps. I feel Chrome OS has a very good chance of getting mainstream popularity. It does what it intends to do pretty well.

But... Chrome OS is little more than Chrome, running on a Linux base. You can run Chrome on Ubuntu, and still access all your files and such. There are even tools to let you mount your Gmail storage space locally so you can use it for a document store.

The apps are all moving onto the web these days anyway - Ubuntu can run anything Chrome OS can.

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