I have used various versions of Linux for several years, alongside Windows XP, always in a dual boot setup. Gentoo has been the usual suspect, with a dabble here and there into OpenSuse, Damn Small Linux, Debian and Ubuntu.

I love the hands-on experience in Gentoo, the powerful package manager - Portage - and the huge amount of available packages. Despite the downside of compiling time required when doing an installation or a system update, I consider this to be my distro of choice, and yes I love that system manipulation defaults to the command line!

However, I am no C++ programmer, no Linux Guru, I am merely a normal bloke who loves surfing, e-mail, IM, trying new applications, playing movies and music.... oh and GAMING.

And therein lies one problem. This is why I have to dual- boot.

Office workers may be content with their work and communications applications, programmers and server admins may love the ability to run for months without rebooting (Windows 98 anyone...?), but for many home users, access to games of the same quality and variety as they are used to in Windows XP, as well as being able to play mp3-based music or DVDs is something that is non-negotiable.

Why should they lose the ability to do what they love, just because I tell them Linux is essentially virus-free, stable and effective, and nowadays can do all the eye-candy their system can handle?

I think that every purely open source Linux distribution should come with an icon saying something like "mp3 info" and when activated, this should ask whether the user wants mp3 capability. Upon hitting "Yes" the root password request should appear and thence the installation manager should go get the required codecs and install them. Likewise for DVDs.

Gaming is another problem altogether. I am aware that there are several games of the Quake variety that have good graphics and that there are many online games with good graphics.

However not everybody has broadband internet access, and not everybody likes first person shooters, nor playing online. I have heard several answers to this ranging from "Get a Playstation if you want to play games" to an impressive list of games that are still in alpha and beta stages.

Think standard user, guys. Shove in CD, or click on icon on desktop and game plays. Yes, exception are there. BUT Linux needs games that have graphics as good as in Windows, with subtle gameplay (if appropriate) and which you can buy easily - well marketed, and in commercial stores.

Linux IS good. Linux IS stable and secure - not unhackable, but resistant. And Virii are not something to be concerned about, except insofar as you might pass on a virus to your mate running Windows...

The chicken or the egg issue applies to Linux - the game designers won't spend their time coding a game if it will only sell a couple of thousand units - so Linux needs to be easily available.

Linux needs to be sitting on the computer when he walks into the store, so the user never has to install the system - there are plenty of people who have never re-installed Windows XP, they just listen to music, play the games, use the e-mail and type office documents. They don't want to know about the system, about the X server configuration file, about the technical aspects in any shape or form.

More and more distributions are ensuring that the technical aspects "just work" which is great. Let's get the games onboard and let's make them accessible, not several pages down in the search engines. Let's go into stores asking for PCs with Linux. Get the sales person all excited about the fancy PC you want to buy from him, and then tell him you want Linux on it...