@John: I am a big advocate of Linux and agree with you that many
simply do not know any alternative.

I personally do run - against all odds - my Workstation on Ubuntu in a
nearly Windows-only company. Nobody, neither in IT nor in management
is ever considering Linux (and Mac). And I had a similar situation at
another company last year. In both cases there are product decisions
done that make it very hard for me as a Linux user (ranging from
IE-only web-apps - yes, still done in Microsoft-brainwashed
environments - to other windows-only apps). None of the internal
installation and setup documentations do ever contain information for
Linux users.

Similar situation when it comes to VPN clients used at different
clients. Only with a lot of begging they try to get me a Linux client
(if available).

I got a new co-worker in august and got him to install Ubuntu after
some driver-troubles when installing Windows on his company laptop.
Guess what: He migrated back to Windows as he noticed a whole bunch of
workarounds he needed to do. It started with the fact that he as a
support-guy needs to use a IE-only trouble ticket system. Attempts
with IE under Wine/Playonlinux) failed because of stability issues.

Not to tell about some TeamViewer glitches on Linux (extremely
annoying when TeamViewer is one of the only remote-support tools that
work on Linux and you either pay for it when using it for the daily
job).

Apart from that I had a few issues on my workstation myself that have
nothing to do with the Windows environment, I have to cope with: I had
lock-up and reboot issues after switching to 12.04 (several different
reasons - see https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/993187 just for
example). So far everything solved with tweaking, manual updates and
hand-work. Most annoying: The current kernel status is not stable (not
only for me) and so I currently use 12.04 with the manually installed
3.5.0-18 kernel. But this means, I need to manually upgrade to newer
versions with security updates. :-( - Stuff I cannot put onto the
shoulders of the "normal" user. - BTW: Most major distros these days
have problems - be it stability issues with changing desktop
environments or "early-adopter" style run to newer technologies when
finally older ones got stable enough (nearly every month I read about
some planned change - I already worry about what will be after change
to wayland...). Compiz is also such a thing - finally quite stable
(for me personally since about september or october) I hear that they
want to throw it out for the sake of something else.

So - by now - status for me is:
a) I finally (after a lot of extra analyses, bug reporting, testing
etc) got - again - a very stable system with Ubuntu 12.04 + kernel
3.5.0-18. And this although I use a Canonical-certified machine!
Unfortunately with some manual udpates that now mean I don't get newer
versions automatically through normal update channel. - However, at
least I am ok.

b) I currently do not try to convince other people to Linux/Ubuntu
because they will blame me if some windows-only crappy thing does not
work or some shitty windows-only file format is sent to them and they
can't cope with it. If somebody really wants to have Linux, I will
help of course, but so far I am quite fine by telling people, that I
don't fix their Windows machines. Lost some "friends" - but only those
I don't care about after noticing the reason why they keep their
contact with me.

But - to fix Bug 1 from current point of view:
1. Things must work out-of-the-box again (we had this status already
but IMHO currently somehow lost) and Ubuntu must be rock-solid and
stable again. My current experience in comparison with Windows 2008r2
over the last months is: Far more lock-ups/freezes and accidential
reboots than on Windows Servers I need to work on. Far more RDP
connection drops (remmina still crashing at least once a day on my
machine).

2. Before doing marketing for Linux/Ubuntu, marketing for open
standards is required - I mean open protocols and open file formats
that can be handled on all platforms. In the ideal world it should be
irrelevant which OS you are using. To real success of Linux/Ubuntu
there need to be less barriers.

Regards, Martin.