[citation][nom]resonance451[/nom]In many ways Windows is better than Linux because it offers a familiar interface with lots of support for what consumers use most. Welcome to the spoils of a monopoly. I don't see the average user installing all the auxiliary stuff needed to let Linux support even half of what Windows does.And Linux will never catch up. Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. It's open source: free. Companies are built to do one thing: make money. The money will stay with Microsoft and that's what will be developed for and supported. It's a circular loop. If Microsoft and Windows are finally toppled, it won't be by Linux. And it won't be any time soon, and not without dramatic changes in the marketplace.[/citation]
imo the only way windows can truely be replaced is if something along the lines of flash and silverlight one day start working as intended. Once any given piece of software only needs to conform to a single standard (a given runtime version of a framework), and the standard is installable on any given platform (read : opensource), then, and only then can windows be replaced.
In english - once you can run your Quake 6 via a sandbox in a future java at the same speed on CentOS7, OSXII, Windows 9, and still run inventor 2014 as well, printing to any printer using a modern evquivalent of the ancient postscript language. Only then can you replace windows. And it still requires that it can be done without modifying the standard setup of that java install (or silverlight, flash etc).
In short - it won't happen as long as applications/binaries are platform bound.