When my colleague Neil McAllister made the case for desktop Linux, I snorted, "Give me a break! Desktop Linux is nowhere." He challenged me to try it myself. He had a point: It had been a decade since I fired up any desktop Linux distro. So I accepted his challenge. My verdict...

The biggest issue keeping the X desktop from feeling like a polished system is the presence of multiple desktop environments leads to applications being developed using a wide variety of GUI toolkits.

Over the years, the question “is Linux ready for the desktop” has been raised time and time again, and countless articles have been written about the strengths and weaknesses of this operating system. While desktop Linux adoption has yet to go completely mainstream, recent indicators show that a major change is underfoot.

But the one area in which (Matt Asay and I) have never seen eye to eye is the Linux desktop. I certainly don’t agree that desktop Linux is “utter crap” compared to Mac or Windows, and I’ve disagreed with his statements on desktop Linux for years, particularly in the area of application installation. Matt’s on the record as not liking the Linux desktop, though I’m not sure why, so the fact that we agree to disagree on this subject is not surprising.

Is the Linux desktop ready for mainstream users? The developers behind the latest KDE Linux desktop release would probably say yes, that it lives up to the promise of the first KDE 4.0 release a year ago. KDE 4.2 is the second major point release for the KDE 4.x desktop. Its codename, "The Answer," also telegraphs its goals.

A search for "linux ready for desktop" brings millions of results on any search engine. The phrase "Linux Desktop Year" has been around 5 years now. Over the years, the question on its validity has been asked again and again. Fundamentally what does one mean by "Linux Desktop Year"?

When it comes to the mainstream desktop Linux market, Red Hat has mostly sat on the sidelines — letting folks like Canonical (Ubuntu) and Google (Chrome OS) pursue the spotlight. But now, Red Hat is making some serious desktop moves. But not in a traditional way. Here’s the strategy.

This is not some death curse on the Linux desktop environments, nor the "traditional" PC platform. The market is not done with this niche yet. Yeah, I said it: niche. Because very soon, I believe, most consumers are going to use computers they carry in their pockets and purses--and nothing else.

Dell announced new Ubuntu Linux-ready OptiPlex desktops, including a power-efficient model claimed to be the "world's smallest fully-functional commercial desktop."