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Originally Posted by Marvin
It would be lovely to download Mono for example and it would come with mono develop and all the tools it requires in one single installer package and it would be the only package they provide for whatever version of a Linux standard system.
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To achieve that Linux would need binary compatibility across distros. It doesn't technically have that, especially when one compares old distributions to new ones. However, binary compability is something the LSB is working on, and a number of large distros have already expressed a great deal of interest in this (for obvious reasons).
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Originally Posted by Marvin
Linux's one advantage is that its free as in beer (most people dont care about the speech part). There is alos alot of forums that will support it.
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I assume you're talking about the average user here, as I can think of a lot more advantages for those with greater technical skill.
One could also point to security (at least over Windows), and package managers. If all your computing needs are served by the official software packages for your distro, then Linux works out as having a far easier installation process than either Windows or OS X. Go beyond the packages offered by the package manager, however, and things rapidly go down hill.
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Originally Posted by DaWei
The fact is, Linux is inferior, both in mass appeal and competent geek appeal. It's limited popularity is because of the fairly large number of geeks of somewhat limited competence, those who have never contemplated (or understood) the requirements of slickness, prime utility, and top-notch programming.
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I'm not quite sure I understand your argument, DaWei. In your first sentence, you suggest that Linux does not appeal to competant geeks, whilst your second sentence appears to imply the opposite.
I consider myself fairly competant technically (read: geek), and I use Linux because it manages to serve my needs more efficiently and more effectively than any other OS on the market. From what I've seen, most other desktop users of Linux have similar reasons for adopting the OS.