There are downsides to running Linux on one’s primary machine, of course. This biggest downside is that very little commercial software runs natively on Linux. Gamers use Windows, and drive purchases of high-end processors and graphics cards. Offices run Windows for the almighty Microsoft Office suite. Creative types are often loyal to Macs, but most popular graphics, recording and video editing software is available for Windows as well as OSX.

Since people buy computers based on the software they need, very few people are buying computers with Linux installed from the get-go. Because nobody’s buying computers with Linux installed, companies aren’t spending time to port their programs over. And the cycle continues.

When netbooks began to rise in popularity, I thought Linux might actually start to pick-up some market share, since it makes sense to package a fast, lightweight OS with small laptops primarily intended for surfing the Web. Asus, Dell and HP all offer some flavor of Linux with their netbooks, but sales of Linux netbooks get crushed by sales of their more expensive Windows-packing siblings. The fact is, people are reluctant to use an unfamiliar OS, let alone one that won’t run their existing programs.

While Linux might be a bit of a bust on the desktop, there’s one area where it’s experiencing phenomenal growth and has the opportunity to become the dominant OS around the world: mobile phones.

The advances in power and user interface among mobile phones in the past five years has been astounding. Better hardware has made browsing the Web from a mobile device both useful and downright pleasant, a fact that isn’t lost outside the United States. Already 155 million Chinese are accessing the Web from their phones, and the number is rising.

While much of the mobile Web revolution was sparked by high-end smartphones like the BlackBerry and iPhone that run proprietary operating systems, heavy hitters in the mobile world are pinning their hopes and futures on Linux. Much of this is due to Google’s open source, Linux-based Android platform, which is being embraced by HTC, Motorola, Dell and Lenovo among others. Palm built their WebOS platform on Linux. Word came out today that even Nokia, who have traditionally included their Symbian OS on their phones, will now be building high-end smartphones running the Maemo platform, which as you might guess, is built on Linux.

For the foreseeable future, Apple and BlackBerry will continue to sell zillions of phones with proprietary operating systems. Every other manufacturer will have to decide whether they’ll devote the time and money to develop their own proprietary OS, shell out money to Microsoft and license Windows Mobile, build a platform based on Linux, or embrace a ready-made open source Linux-based mobile platform like Android.

For most hardware manufacturers, the latter two options will increasingly make more sense and enable them to produce advanced smartphones that compete with anything on the market.

In the next few years I bet that I’ll still have a difficult time finding someone who runs Linux on their home PC, but will routinely sit next to someone on the train browsing the Web from their Linux-based phone.

Sometimes there’s a logic to this. It made sense for Google to create its own mobile phone OS, for instance, because there were few great operating systems that would deliver the Web to phones—and Google’s future depends on the Internet being available everywhere, all the time. Thus you can think of Google’s investment in Android as a kind of loss leader—it gives away the OS for free in the hope that billions of people around the world will one day use Android-like phones to click on ads at the gym.

But the Chrome project is unencumbered by any such rationale. If 20 percent of the world’s computer users switched from Windows to Chrome, would that help Google’s bottom line? Sure, all those people would now be using Gmail and Google Docs—but they could have been doing that in Windows, too! An MBA might describe the Chrome OS as a wasteful customer acquisition expense; Google would be wiser to use all the cash that it’s pouring into developing the new program for advertising instead. But a gangster would call this move what it really is: The point of Chrome OS—the only point of Chrome OS—is to screw with Microsoft.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t welcome a slick, lightweight non-geek friendly OS for netbooks (where Windows doesn’t usually make sense), but I too had a difficult time figuring out where Google was coming from on this one.

Fortunately, I was finally able to get to a command line, and from there was treated to a bit of deja vu as I was able to reacquaint myself with all sorts of DOS commands I was so familiar with as a teenager. I copied most of my files to an external hard drive, and then had to figure out how to make my laptop work again.

Having no access to my original Windows license, I made up my mind to install Linux. But once you’ve made that decision, you’re overwhelmed with various distros, specialized distros, window managers, and so on. I settled on Kubuntu, a variation of the ultra-popular distro Ubuntu, which bills itself as “Linux for human beings.” As a human being, I figured, this was an ideal fit.

During installation, I was most nervous about my wireless card not being recognized, since without WiFi my laptop is about as useful as a paperweight. Luckily, Kubuntu had no issues with detecting my wireless card, accessing my network, finding my video card and even recognizing the buttons on the front of my machine that control audio and video playback, which pleasantly surprised me. The OS is not without its glitches, but for the most part the experience is quite smooth. Of course I’m still learning my way around the system, and haven’t had any reason to tinker around on the command line or really earn my geek cred.

As someone who’s used to Windows XP and OSX, Kubuntu doesn’t feel as “polished” (particularly compared to a Mac) but I can tell it’s well on its way. For someone who basically uses their machine for Web browsing and word processing, though, it’s a nice alternative to shelling out cash for Vista. As I’ve learned, if you feel like dipping your toe into the true realm of geek operating systems, Kubuntu seems like a decent way to go.