Ubuntu is no replacement for Windows. It can be a potential alternative, but it is in no way some sort of drop-in replacement.
This particular article reeks of someone who doesn't actually need to get work done "Free is unbeatable!" and "Windows is a poor value for the price!" -- uselessly ambiguous and all-inclusive statements.
If you are a PC gamer, big into video editing or professional image editor using the Adobe suite, Linux is not an option for you. Please ignore all the people that tell you WINE "totally works great" and has "no problems!" and is "rock solid"... I would recommend jamming glass in your ears if you see someone talking like that.
You are certainly welcome to try and take them up on that, but you'll decide in under a month that all the little gotchas you only find once you dive deep will drive you crazy.
I understand the intent of these articles ("The year of Linux on the desktop!") but people have been writing them since 1998 and it has never been true, all that has happened is each OS has grown up to fill its particular niche and if your use-cases fall in that niche, then you are all set... otherwise the move will be a complete waste of time for you.
The only reason Linux has been able to make more headway (IMO) is a good majority of our lives have moved online with web-based apps so the reliance on Linux matching parity with the software on other platforms has lessened.
There is no amazing new office suite for Linux, it's still OpenOffice and always will be. I don't know if KOffice will ever hit critical mass or individual GNOME-based efforts will grow beyond clean v1 implementations.
There is no fantastic PIM software that finally replaced Outlook.
There is no awesome, stable, robust video player except 75 different shitty GUI interfaces to mplayer's codecs that work for the most part then core dump sometimes oh but then are easily fixed by recompiling with the --bullshit flag turned on.
It just goes on an on... of course your mileage will vary depending on what kind of user you are, the more intense/hardcore you are the more warts you'll notice and try and fix/workaround (key bindings, mouse button support, audio card, hardware acceleration, optimal power saving management, etc.) and after a month of pissing half your day away with some broken configuration for the 10th time, you'll go back to some other OS.
The lighter or more online user, you'll probably be just fine.
That is my own personal opinion from 13 years of trying to finally adopt Linux as my primary desktop OS, even giving up games to make it so and finally giving up with Ubuntu 11.04 after realizing I was always going to have the same magnitude of problems... no matter what.
Ok, I've lead with my neck out, everyone go ahead and comment about how their desktop is "rock solid" and I must be brain-damaged and doing something wrong consistently for the last 13 years to always have this experience.
My 'buntu desktop environment is the most solid I've ever used, with the caveat that once a year I can expect to spend a few hours in driver hell. I think this balances out with the once-a-year BSOD hell I encounter on Windows.
I agree with you that WINE is terrible, but I have Win7 running brilliantly right now on VirtualBox. Other than that, linux has all the specialized tools I need for coding and web development, I switched over to console gaming a few years back because I was tired of the hardware upgrade treadmill, and the Microsoft productivity stack, while better than Libre Office, isn't compelling enough to tie me to that platform. Also, I'm not sure what problems you had with video players. VLC has served me well on Windows and linux.
I guess the real killer app for me is sudo apt-get install [some incredibly useful open source library I really need right now, dammit]. The open source infrastructure on Windows is so anemic it drives me nuts.
This particular article reeks of someone who doesn't actually need to get work done "Free is unbeatable!" and "Windows is a poor value for the price!" -- uselessly ambiguous and all-inclusive statements.
If you are a PC gamer, big into video editing or professional image editor using the Adobe suite, Linux is not an option for you. Please ignore all the people that tell you WINE "totally works great" and has "no problems!" and is "rock solid"... I would recommend jamming glass in your ears if you see someone talking like that.
You are certainly welcome to try and take them up on that, but you'll decide in under a month that all the little gotchas you only find once you dive deep will drive you crazy.
I understand the intent of these articles ("The year of Linux on the desktop!") but people have been writing them since 1998 and it has never been true, all that has happened is each OS has grown up to fill its particular niche and if your use-cases fall in that niche, then you are all set... otherwise the move will be a complete waste of time for you.
The only reason Linux has been able to make more headway (IMO) is a good majority of our lives have moved online with web-based apps so the reliance on Linux matching parity with the software on other platforms has lessened.
There is no amazing new office suite for Linux, it's still OpenOffice and always will be. I don't know if KOffice will ever hit critical mass or individual GNOME-based efforts will grow beyond clean v1 implementations.
There is no fantastic PIM software that finally replaced Outlook.
There is no awesome, stable, robust video player except 75 different shitty GUI interfaces to mplayer's codecs that work for the most part then core dump sometimes oh but then are easily fixed by recompiling with the --bullshit flag turned on.
It just goes on an on... of course your mileage will vary depending on what kind of user you are, the more intense/hardcore you are the more warts you'll notice and try and fix/workaround (key bindings, mouse button support, audio card, hardware acceleration, optimal power saving management, etc.) and after a month of pissing half your day away with some broken configuration for the 10th time, you'll go back to some other OS.
The lighter or more online user, you'll probably be just fine.
That is my own personal opinion from 13 years of trying to finally adopt Linux as my primary desktop OS, even giving up games to make it so and finally giving up with Ubuntu 11.04 after realizing I was always going to have the same magnitude of problems... no matter what.
Ok, I've lead with my neck out, everyone go ahead and comment about how their desktop is "rock solid" and I must be brain-damaged and doing something wrong consistently for the last 13 years to always have this experience.