@1Rafayal: Re: What prevents Linux from conquering the consumer PC market?
"A lot of people seem to be saying that Windows 8 will be the death of desktop computing, especially for games and media." I would not be surprised is this highly-gimmicky UI-formerly-known-as-Metro turns out to be highly popular with casual computer users - the ones who like to download emoticons, change their desktop background pictures regularly, and play browser games exclusively. And that is a *huge* mass of users. And if it works well on tablets, then the sky is the limit. I have no interest in it, and used to think that it would be an unmitigated disaster for Microsoft, but after taking another look at how some typical computer users (family members) use their computers, I have had to rethink my opinion.
"YouTube works fine on Linux, well the distributions I have used anyway." Well I guess it works for everyone.
"These days we have Linux everywhere, in our cameras, in our phones, our tellies and STB's etc. It is a gloriously flexible platform. " It's yet to flex sufficiently much to be a good fit on the desktop, though. That your television runs on Linux has *no bearing* on its suitability for a typical computer-user's desktop. None. None whatsoever. It's that simple.
"When it comes to games, its a bit light at the moment, but with people like Valve aiming to put Steam on Linux, things can only get astronomically better." You know, I am at a bit of loss here. That "Steam" runs or will run on Linux - or on some selected distros - poses a question that I can't answer: Will Steam allow DirectX games to run on Linux?" Because if it doesn't, than you will realize that "Steam" is one thing and "Steam games" are a very different matter indeed. And in that case, expect the number of Steam games that run on Linux to be very small. (And this does not even touch the matter of graphics card drivers for Linux: how well are Steam games going to run with the drivers currently available for Linux.)
"'I think the idea of "Linux works for me, but not for the average consumer' doesnt really ring true these days anymore. Most people are clued in enough to understand what Linux is and use it." I could not disagree with this more.
"I think the question these days is 'Linux works, but what can I do with it?'". Here's a better question: "Here's what I want to do and note please that 'what I want to do' means 'I want to do what all my friends do and I want to do it *with* them'; can Linux do it?" and the answer is, "I use Windows at work so I already have some familiarity with it, and since my friends use Windows they can show me how they do whatever it is that they do so that I can do it too and we can all do it together because that's the reason I even have friends." And that is about as good as an answer can be.