When Evans Data released its survey on Tuesday showing a sharp shift toward Linux (and away from Windows) among developers in North America, the Linux world went wild. Wistful pengiun heads heralded the coming Open Source Age. But the real measure of OS success is in the number of users, linux not the number of developers. After all, most of the world’s PCs end up in the hands of ordinary people who have no interest in coding. Fortunately for open-source addicts, there are several signs that the coming year could bring a sea-change among end users, making 2008 the year of the Linux desktop.

There’s nothing bold about pointing out that modern Linux distros have made leaps and bounds in usability in the past couple of years. A monkey could download and install Ubuntu Feisty in the time it takes most people to decide which version of Vista to drop a day’s pay on. And the recent release of Fedora 7 delivered improvements in wireless support that make mobile configurations nearly idiot-proof. (Although, in my experience, nothing can withstand the sheer brute force of a complete idiot.) Now all eyes are on the upcoming releases of openSUSE 10.3 and Ubuntu 7.10, both of which will drop in October.

Meanwhile, Dell has consistently made headlines with its new Ubuntu-powered PC line. Now four models strong and selling for $50 less than their Windows-equipped counterparts, these PCs come preloaded with all necessary drivers, and offer consumers the same assurances of usability and support that they could reasonably expect from a Windows machine. Whether other major hardware vendors will follow suit remains to be seen, but the momentum is certainly gathering.

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