Linux, the final frontier. While never at any point in the history of the operating system have things been so red hot, Windows still has been able to “one up” the Linux desktop in a few key areas.

1) Plug it in and it simply works. When using Windows XP, this is a common theme. Even if you have to use an installation disk, getting devices to work is easy.

2) Drivers are plentiful. No matter what hardware device you use, there is always a Windows driver that can be found to make it work.

To be fair through, I can think of a few areas that Linux beats that pants off of Windows.

1) Security. I don’t care what Microsoft claims, Linux is simply more secure. Even if it was targeted half as much as Windows was, Linux would still be less likely to fall victim to the never ending attacks from cyber criminals.

2) It is open. Linux is your OS, it is my OS. It is totally open and available to receive clever innovations without the need of some corporate conglomerate trying access what the next “big move” ought to be before issuing the next round of updates to the end user.

So while Linux still has some growing to do, it has made all of the right moves early enough in the game that when it becomes a big time desktop OS like Windows, they will not find themselves in the same situation as Windows is right now.