I have to agree with Marvin on this one, there does need to be more standardization in the linux world. Package management would be one to think about. It would be nice if all distro's used the same package manager, this way once you learn how it works you can still use any distro out there and you can install packages just fine. I personally find the Ports system to be one of the best package managers there is. One thing that I think could be improved is the way gentoo installs proprietary software. Like take a look at how you install Sun's version of Java, you have to run the emerge command once and it gives you a url to download a package and put it somewhere and then you have to run the same emerge command you just ran over again so that this time I can install that package that you had to download from Sun. Well this could be simplified if say sun had an installer that once you download the package you run it by either entering it in cmd line or you double click on it and then the system will automaticly know that it needs to run the portage system to install it and find the dependencies. I know this route wouldn't be perfect but it would make it alittle easier then the way you have to install propietery software as of now with gentoo. This way atleast portage would still have it on record of what software is installed and what dependencies it installed with it.
Another thing that has been mentioned is the layout of the file system. Every distro does the layout slightly different. The main structure is the same but placement of different files are in different places. The linux community needs to agree on where everything should be put so that everything is in the same place no matter what distro you are running. This along would make creating installers alot easier as you wouldn't have to figure out what distro you are running so that you can tell the installer what distro you have so it can figure out what layout that distro is using so that it can finally install the files where that specific distro likes things put.
One other thing though. I personally can't see linux ever being fully adopted by the mass public, and to tell you the truth I think in the back of every geeks head they are saying please do not become a widely used OS. The reason I think it is because we geeks like to be different, and using linux besides the fact that we consider it better then other OS's out there we also know that it makes us alittle different. But as linux is growing more and more popular, it is actually making the OS we use the norm and most geeks don't like to be normal so once Linux is adopted by the masses we are all going to end up switching what we use. I don't know how many people feel like that but I think that it has some truth to it. If you don't think it does then I guess it don't matter.
