Honestly, I think that stable, modern operating system is Windows 7. I was at Best Buy looking at computers recently. I asked if I could get one with Windows 7. The sales associate was practically grinding his teeth telling me that no, I could not. "So what if I want a computer that works well as a laptop rather than an extra-bulky tablet?" "Well if you're interested in Macs, we have a lot of nice options over here that fit that bill..." Ouch.

Hah! If you're going to have to relearn everything anyway, might as well consider switching out completely.

I'm sure there is, but it's a bit like looking at the power grid and saying "Isn't there a huge opportunity here for cold fusion?" Stable, modern operating systems don't grow on trees after all, and if part of the problem is inertia relating to a few perfectly good, stable, modern operating systems, yet another new one doesn't seem to add much to the bargain.

I run Debian + Xfce and it's extremely good, stable, and modern; if there was a Wine that would work with all apps, we would be there.

You mean something like the Windows Runtime that used to come with some apps that I've since forgotten? I'd find you a link to what I'm talking about but...no, not that Windows Runtime, Google, the other one from the late 80s or early 90s.

Of course now it would be a specialized, stripped down VM, which Microsoft would never sell you because licenses. So if you're willing to pay for it, it's called (your VM software of choice) + a Windows license. Not optimal, I know, and way overweight but that's what we get right now.

I remember that -- it was shipped back in the Windows 2.x days. This is when most people ran Dos, and Windows was an app that ran on top of Dos. I remember it coming with Pagemaker for one thing -- it installed very similar to regular windows, but you didn't get any type of shell or other desktop apps -- just a command to launch the target app under it.

This is one thing I would like to see developed again, but in reverse -- a Linux runtime for Windows. There was already a Linux kernel that would run as a user process under Windows (colinux, I think it was); combine this with an X frontend, and file system sharing, and you would be able to package up any Linux app for Windows.

Actually I think there is an opportunity here for a workstation company.

Can you go into some more detail about what kind of product you have in mind here?

EDIT: Are you talking about a company that would develop a new operating system and sell workstations running it? Or a company selling pre-configured Linux workstations, of which there are several? Or a company selling pre-configured high-end Windows workstations, of which there are several?

I am thinking about what it would look like if Canonical bought System76 and launched machines on which there was a developer focused OS where the manufacturer of the machine was also driving a standard distribution/api/eco-system. Let's call it 'Moon Microsystems' but what I'm thinking about is a company that sells desirable hardware to developers, and can provide solid developer support to software companies trying to sell to those developers, and most importantly assurances a road map and a migration strategy and durable APIs that last for years rather than months, and don't change at the whim of a couple of disgruntled folks unable to reach consensus. Where 'Moon' compatibility is a Thing and you can count on it.

The economics are in this area aren't at all good for someone new to come in. The price of the OS is trending towards zero and even the completely free to the end user linux hasn't made significant ground into the general desktop market for all the effort that has gone into it in the past 20 years.

Supporting everything is such a massive problem and it is hard to gain mainstream traction before people can plug in any combination of hardware, use almost any app they might want to and play all the latest games.

Canonical has been trying to do that with Ubuntu. Unfortunately they and open source community haven't gotten along well enough and they haven't managed to apply enough polish to the UI.

The "container" I run my Windows apps on in Linux is, amusingly-enough, a VM running Windows XP.

I think Microsoft would be very smart to release a multiplatform replacement for W7/8's Windows XP Mode. Presumably it'd be an even-more-stripped-down version of Windows Embedded 8, with no shell, and all background services configured to only start on request.

It's just missing a way to easily add shortcuts for the contained software into the container DE.

But I think that if Microsoft releases a multiplataform replacement of XP mode, they'll turn the slow fade of Windows into irrelevance into a tremendously fast fading of Windows into irrelevance. Yep, that'd be great, and maybe even good for Microsft (they could focus on software that people actualy want - they have some), but I don't think they want it.