Ubuntu is a great example of a OS ready for the desktop market. If only Stallman would see it as such. I suppose we can continue in spite of him. I don't see how you can go against what people want; if people want to use Skype in a Linux OS then Stallman to me is engaging in anti-marketing by not putting it on a recognized OS list of "free" software".
Anyway. What I want to get to is why people use Linux. This was discussed on SFD. I want to concentrate on my own motivations. I left school in the early 90's with absolute computer illiteracy. I couldn't put a disk in the drive. I couldn't turn on a computer. This was in spite of an abundance of computers and being taught about computers at school. It took me a long time to get anywhere with computers. I didn't really understand what a file was until about 2004. Now I experiment with any computer technology that I can find. It might be free software or opensource. It might be paid software. I am dual booted with Win 7 and Fedora 15 mainly to experiment with fedora. I use Windows most of the time and it alone would meet my needs. Sometimes in my experiments the instructions are wrong in documentation or tutorials so I have to "work it out". In such cases I try to avoid going to forums or mailing lists except as a last resort; it's my intent to "solve the puzzle" with my own brains. That I have succeeded in that a number of times with my own unassisted efforts makes me believe that I am "good" with computers. At least by that definition. I have never learnt C++. I don't understand IPV6 and so many other things. I have no idea how to set a laptop display for talks; I have never had a laptop. But for all that I am "good" with computers. And all that with a lack of any training. I have never studied computing at TAFE or university; I wish that I had been in the system 5 years later and I might have done comp sci at uni. But I was in the wrong era in the last days of a pre-internet world when computers were thrown at kids without any help. Web application frameworks. Shopping carts. Databases. GUI programming. Prolog. Python. Clonezilla. Backtrack. VMware. OpenIndiana Linux [fork of Solaris] IPV6 [trying to understand it! Whether I get anywhere with NAT and Teredo tunnels is another matter]. Had I a dollar for everything that I try and get into I would be rich. It all fascinates me. I spend hours with it all. A lot of the time it is random. I might go to Wikipedia and look up say, comparison of web application frameworks. What's that one? Never tried one. So I set it up and play with it. I wish that I could learn it all. But of course nobody can. So I guess that I have narrowed it down to a broad intent of sorts. I am studying a mixture of graphics design [Dip of Design] and some IT certificates in php and python and .NET. The providers are online courses and there are no deadlines. So I can romp down whatever IT rabbit hole I wish. So in the end it's graphics design/web programming that is the overarching broad intent. I am heading for a similar skillset to that guy who does the VTC.com lectures, Geoff Blake. So that's it. I am an experimentalist. I have no bias for it. I will experiment with anything. I have astonishing opportunities as a student.I have access to a free, entirely legal student copy [can't be used for commercial work] of 3D Autodesk Max. Because my college for graphics is recognized by Autodesk. So I am playing with that. Sometimes I have played with blender.
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