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Personally I think Linux on the desktop is in a far worse shape than it was 12 years ago. Sure, Linux works much better on laptops then it used to, but what good is that since the software provided by distributions is less stable and of a lower quality then it was 12 years ago. It's all anecdotal evidence, but I've had far more success 10 years ago introducing Linux to non-so-technical users, previously exposed only to Windows 95/98, by using a default Gnome/KDE environment then I'm having now introducing them to recent versions of Unity/KDE/Gnome.

Linux became worse when the commercial alternatives only got better.

This website under Chrome under Ubuntu 12.10 (Unity): http://i.imgur.com/oUTwi.png

This website under Chrome under Mac OS X 10.8.2: http://i.imgur.com/UwTl8.png

This is completely unacceptable as a default experience.

(edit: grammar; screenshots)