Hard to believe you're making that argument. When Linux has to deal with the enormous diversity of current and legacy applications, hardware, drivers, configurations and such that Windows does, then we can talk. It's not tough to do a simple job reliably. Our Windows servers rarely ever fault either. I think people consistently fail to underestimate the enormity of what MS has accomplished. To drive a team of 10s of thousands bright, temperamental and highly opinionated developers to produce a such a highly reliable and capable package is quite something. There's a reason that nobody has come up with a really viable competitor - except perhaps for in niche applications (like servers) where the demands on the software are so much less.
WHAT are you talking about ? Linux runs on a LOT more widely varied hardware than Windows, starting from wrist-watch through smart-phones (ever heard of Android?), desktops, laptops, PS3, Tesla (your center screen runs Linux too), all the way to supercomputers with thousands of CPUs, not to mention various embedded devices, routers etc. List_of_Linux_supported_computer_architectures In terms of applications: an average Linux distribution comes with thousands of applications available right from the install DVD, then you can download many tens of thousands more. And the number of developers in the open source linux community is also several fold the number of Microsoft employees and they are more diverse in terms of background / languages spoken. And no, I do not underestimate the enormity of what MS has accomplished -- companies / sw it has either bankrupted via illegally leveraging its monopoly or via "business deals": - Stac Electronics - Digital Research/Caldera - Netscape (see DOJ action) - Spyglass (source of Internet Explorer, deal was to pay x% of revenue, then MS gave away IE for free bankrupting both Netscape and Spyglass) - Q-DOS (became MS-DOS, and cost $3M or so later on) - Lattice (for their C compiler) - Multiplan (became Excel) - Sybase (became SQL Server) - Powerpoint - Fox (became FoxPro) - Avalanche (SGML tools) - Visio
Not a holy war, just a little education for the misinformed, who thinks Windows runs on larger "diversity of hardware, drivers, configurations" than Linux.
Always gotta be somebody that just doesn't get it. You're furthering the problem by "just making one more point/dig" that feeds to fire.
UNIX is more of a philosophy and architecture, there's no such thing as an official UNIX OS. Linux, Mac OS, iOS, Android, Solaris, IRIX, OpenStep/NeXTStep etc... are all variants of the same thing more or less. These days there's only really two OSes on the mass market: UNIX and all it's variants and Windows.
UNIX is a trademarked brand. To call an operating system "UNIX" it must be certified by the Open Group to meet the Single Unix Specification (The UNIX System). UNIX® | The Open Group Many different OS's have done this (Solaris, HPUX, even Apple brands OS X as UNIX), but Linux has not.
Jeez people, everyone knows that OS/2 is where it's at. *nix can be a pain to configure. Distros help, but they all have their own annoyances. That's understandable though, being free and all. MS has no excuse for explorer + no VTs.
While waiting for Gil to ship you a copy, here's the next best thing: [video]http://www.weihenstephan.org/~michaste/pagetable/copland/copland-d9.mp4[/video]
Love Linux Mint. Had a problem with my desktop this weekend. Asked a question in the forums. Problem solved. It was easy, no fuss. Not so easy with the Windows PCs I've had. Linux Mint. Faster than Windows. Easy to use. Picks up new hardware immediately, installs drivers with a click. It just works.
Linux is great for servers, tinkerers and technology gurus, but not so great for the general public, where Windows shines. As a software developer, I work with both. Linux is superior in many ways. But here's the thing. No matter how great it is, it doesn't change the glaring fact that I have mult-page cheat sheets I have to reference frequently when working with Linux. I don't need cheat sheets on Windows. They both have their place I think.
So you think 87.6% of the smart phone users do not represent the general public ? I hope you do know that all Android phones are running on Linux...