John Gruber writes a good article titled Windows Versus the World:

Most regular people donít even realize that there exist any choices other than Windows. Itís not they havenít heard of Apple or Linux, but that they donít really understand what they are. Part of Appleís stated reasons for launching their own retail initiative a few years ago was simply to raise awareness that the Mac even is an alternative to Windows PCs.

The article’s a little bit Apple-centric, but that’s quite OK considering that John’s blog is largely about Macs. I think he’s completely right that desktop Linux distributions will start overtaking Macintosh marketshare in the next few years, though (if it hasn’t already).