We also had some desktops with KDE and most students had no trouble doing their usual work (web browsing, text processing, e-mailing, etc.).

I wonder if things improved that much. Yes, we now have Android and iOS, which have a limited scope (portable devices). But, on the desktop and laptop it's still Windows. Mac is only an option for the rich contingent of Western countries. Meanwhile, the Linux desktop has splintered into a market where there are no clear market leaders anymore - Red Hat abandoned the desktop, SUSE is not really visible anymore, and Canonical is working hard to get rid of its user community. That, plus a half a dozen desktops (GNOME, Unity, Mate, Cinnamon, KDE, Xfce). Frankly, it's a mess! However, what's perhaps more damaging is that 'the hope' is gone. There was a time where many people believed that the Linux desktop would eventually take over. Now nobody believes that there will ever be the year of Linux on the desktop and a large number of developers has left to OS X.

The only spark of hope are web applications, since they are platform independent and there is usually some competition. However, you never purchase or own an actual license. So, the vendor could go bankrupt, cancel development, remove features that are crucial, etc. You can never make the decision to stick with an older version, since you don't own a license. Moreover, usually you get a backup of your data in any easy way, let alone convert your data to a web app of a competitor.

tl;dr: mobile devices are not good computers yet, on general purpose machines one of the best competitors fragmented itself into oblivion, in platform-independent web apps you are dependent on the whims of the vendor and locked-in.

To end on a positive note: at least Android is mostly open and captured most of the smartphone market and will do the same on tablets. It's really good to see the work of the Cyanogenmod community, etc.

Edit: Downvoters: Is it because you believe that the Linux desktop hasn't fragmented? Do you disagree on the downsides of web applications?

I strongly disagree with this.

In 1998 Linux was not easy to use. Sure, KDE, etc, was nice, but to get to a minimally workable system it was hard.

I know, I did that, coincidentally in 1998 as well.

Getting the video drivers to work, very difficult. Find the right driver, install, etc

Configuring Dialup, hard. Using dialup, hard as well.

After that, sure, it was nice to startup KDE and browse the web.

Linux, as a "unix clone" was good if you had standard hardware and a permanent configuration. Then you can justify setting up wvdial like it was (and probably is today)

True, it took me 5 days to download MKLinux correctly via dial-up. But it worked, went back to OS9 but soon I had build a phalanx of PCs as servers and for friends, and while I used a Mac as my main computer (still to this day) I fell in love with Linux. That's a pretty powerful experience for a girl growing up on the edge of civilization. It's thanks to Linux that I consider myself a child akin to Stephenson's Diamond Age, but thanks to the Mac's friendly introduction to computing that I get could started.

And for servers it worked great, the problem was the "user friendly" part of it.

I had looked at taking a few CS classes at university but the overwhelming perceived hostility towards women, or anyone not clearly 'belonging' at my science department at the time kept me away. So you can imagine just how much I love the Internet, and the Mac, and Linux. Times have changed and that's cool - I've run some coding classes since then primarily for women and everything they need is at their fingertips and my university's CS and Science department is far modernized and getting a healthy balance of women and minorities. I'm very aware that my jump into CS was made possible by a very special convergence, freedom, and surge of information.

So yes on paper Linux had/has everything Windows does but in practice it was another story. It arguably still remains the case even today which is shocking considering how longs it's been.

Most of it is related to drivers and hardware industry support which will never happen until the other dominant players (Windows, OSX) stumble.

In the early days, I did fine with VESA support. Then, I actively chose hardware that I knew it would work basically out of the box. I had minor problems, never a showstopper. It could be a bit cumbersome at times, that's true.

Nowadays it's a lot easier to install Linux in most computers than Windows. If you want to install a version of Windows that isn't specifically supported by the hardware, you're SOL.

Right now, the biggest problem is GPU support from AMD/ATI and nVidia, which happen to be the leaders when it comes to high-end graphics. You're either left with a partially-working Open Source solution, or with an often glitchy proprietary solution. Intel works fine but it's just for the lower end.

Please substantiate this. Aside from the Macintosh EFI mess, Windows will install on pretty much anything and has fallback drivers for just about everything. Its backwards support is impressive, too; my one single-boot machine is a Win7 Thinkpad A22m with a Pentium III in it.

There simply was no support. The solution HP, Dell and MS would give is to "get on with the times and migrate" which wasn't possible at the time. Alternatively, buy another computer with specific XP support. Complaints were met with a "RTF EULA" where it stated that no support was guaranteed for other OS than the preinstalled one.

The solution was to buy new laptops with WinXP support (ended up costing more, since the company specifically needed serial ports and not many machines had them + WinXP support, limiting choice).

Ubuntu installed flawlessly with absolutely every feature the hardware supported.(This happened when we basically had to either find some new usage for the machines or throw them away). Much quicker than XP too, and objectively simpler as it would choose reasonable defaults instead of asking esoteric questions, making us call phone numbers or insisting in us registering anything. The single thing XP has on Ubuntu or Mint regarding installation, is that you often don't have to do it yourself. In some respects it's worse with newer MS systems as their DRM has "intensified" and OEMs ship more resilient bloatware/rootkits.

Small division within biggish company, so the process was followed by some of us, including me although I wasn't in IT.

But that's not a really fair comparison. Windows Vista was GA in 2007. You wanted to install a 2001 operating system on >= 2007 hardware. If you used a 2001 Linux distribution on 2007 hardware, it wouldn't work either. Quite possibly even worse than Windows XP.

Your parent was arguing in the other direction. E.g. Windows 7 will install fine on most pre-Windows 7 hardware. In fact, on my last to non-Macs I didn't have to fetch any drivers to install Windows 7 or Windows 8. It all worked out of the box.

Of course, Linux is even better with respect to backwards compatibility. A light distribution, such as Slackware, will probably work fine on a 1998-era Pentium II. Both in that most of the hardware will still be supported and that it will run with an acceptable speed. The same won't be true for Windows 7 or 8.

Unless you're talking CAD/CAM, game dev, 3D modelling, movie/music editing, sci computing, people are simply not buying laptops proving mobile devices are great computers for 99% of the world. Oh yeah; they don't care about the OS either; they care about what 'others' in their situation have; they buy what their friends have or what looks good when sitting at the hairdresser.