Sam Varghese at ITWire just bylined an article entitled 2008: Not the year of the Linux desktop. I tried to post my comments on that article to the article page. Apparently, however, every email address I use is "invalid", so I've attached my comments here. Enjoy…
I don't disagree with your point that the progress in Linux desktop acceptance has been slow and steady rather than dramatic. Some of the details of your article, however, detract from this point, and do a disservice to your readers.
Good luck with finding that $350 new "ordinary PC running Windows" (including a display, mind you) that is more than vaguely usable—especially now that new systems are coming bundled with Vista.
"Why would a middle-aged or elderly person opt for a 7" screen (as in the Eee PC) in preference to a normal monitor?" Because they want a laptop—you presumably are aware of the sales figures of laptops vs desktops in 2007—and want to save themself about $1000? Anyway, is there some special giant elderly new-laptop market of which I am unaware? I think you'll find the computer purchase demographics skewing kind of the other way…
In my mind, the "Year of the Linux Desktop" was even prior to 2007. Somewhere in 2006 Linux ended up with a desktop that was roughly functionally equivalent to a Windows or Mac desktop. Once X, Firefox and Open Office got their stuff together, one could do all the same basic work on any of the three desktop platforms (or four, depending on how one counts KDE and Gnome).
This level of technical parity is far more interesting to me than hard-to-define user acceptance numbers. And it's this technical parity which is starting to drive products like the Eee PC. Even if Microsoft were to give Vista away, there's just no way you could build a price-competitive box running Windows. By itself, Eee PC and its cousins won't change the world dramatically. However, I think it's too early to tell whether they're a harbinger of a new price/functionality tradeoff that could ultimately be almost as compelling as the one that put the IBM PC on the map in the first place.