"what does Linux not provide, that the common user needs"
Office, Outlook, most AAA games, itunes. Don't tell me that because you can run them today on your machine (well maybe) that that somehow translates to what common users have experienced over the last decade.
Arguably, the majority of PC users don't care about heavy gaming. While gamers are an important factor, they aren't the blocker for any OEM to provide an option of Linux preinstalled. There are lot's of people who use their computers merely for browsing, reading e-mails and some minimal document editing and multimedia like audio/video. Many don't even use desktop office applications, using some web services for that. And Libre Office or Calligra are decent options as well. The age of immature office options on the Linux desktop is gone.
Outlook is a rather heavy monstrosity. There are better e-mail clients out there, including those on Linux.
Having tried to use Open/Libre Office as a MS Office replacement I can say it's definitely not on par with MS Office (sadly). So many little things that you take for granted on MS Office either aren't implemented or are incompatible with others who are using MS Office. For collaborative documents in an academic setting, using track changes, extensive bibliographies, stupidly large wordcounts etc., it's far, far easier to just use MS Office. I'd love to move these people on to google docs or something but old habits die hard in academia - emailed word documents is still where it's at.
As for Outlook - while I've set up my home computer to not use it, for most it's just easier to use it. Convenience has a lot going for it. For non-tech-savvy people it's also a lot easier, since then calls to tech support at work will actually get you help. :)
> And Libre Office or Calligra are decent options as well.
I use Linux machines for what they do well, and pretty much all my machines sans the "main" Laptop are Linux-driven.
That said: This statement cannot be refuted enough.
Libre Office and its forks are merely bad imitations of previous versions of MS Office while offering few to no benefits once you exclude cost. They are not "decent" alternatives. They are free, but noticeably sub-par alternatives. They are in no way drop-in replacements.
If I want to take the cost of working with a low-end Office-suite which covers the bare basics and sticks to a late 90s design-paradigm, I'll go with Google's online-offering because it actually provides some benefits to weigh up for the cost.
And sometimes I do just that. But you'll never find me meddling with the desktop Linux office-suites. They're simply not worth it.
How many users use 100% of functionality of MS Office? And what part of functionality most users use? We were not talking about drop in replacements, were were talking about satisfying enough needs of a common user. There always can be cases of some functionality lacking. But for common needs - Libre Office is way more than enough already. Google's options are way too limited comparing to desktop applications, but they work well for some use cases. I find Libre Office more than satisfactory for above average complexity document editing. And while it can lack some obscure functions of MS office, I just probably never needed them in the first place.
You'll have to read my comment as me talking, as a reasonably capable user, which normally merely access around 5% of what I know MS Office can do.
Just basic things like creating sections, chapters, tables, footers, headers and making it all look good and consistent, quickly and easily.
MS Office, since the move to the ribbon-system have really excelled at exposing the functionality required to do this. It's always there in your face, just one click away, when you need it and then it gets out of your way. It's fantastic.
Libre Office and its forks are still stuck in the last generation of UIs where you have a million toolbars, all just mediocrely capable and insufficient to your full needs, none adapted to your current context and always there taking up space and cluttering the UI wheter you need them or not.
There's just no comparison between the user experiences here. MS Office is in a league of its own.
UI unfamiliarity is not equal to the lack of functionality in the program itself. Comfortable feeling about UI is also a subjective matter to a degree, so what works well for some is irritating for others.
But the reason Microsoft moved from the safe (familiar) UI to the new one was because they realized the old UI-model didn't scale well with expanded functionality.
They decided to try to improve the user experience by leaving behind what clearly did not work.
For a company which owes most of its legacy to users preferring familiarity, that's very much not a small thing. But they decided it had to be done.
More than five years later, Libre Office still haven't done anything at all to fundamentally improve UX. To me that sounds like somebody simply not caring.
I agree. Making a turn like Office did with the ribbon interface was a bold, commendable move. Sadly (Libre/Open)Office can't follow suit unless they design and develop a good alternative to it, which is not an easy task. And because of patents, they couldn't simply build upon the ribbon UX.
I think they care, but they have their constraints. They'd rather polish and add important functionality first, rather than radically redo the whole design. After the LibreOffice / OpenOffice split it's still probably not at the point of such step. But I'm sure at some point they'll address it.
Options are great but frankly haven't always been there and are not options for everyone. OpenOffice/LO are great options and I have long used them myself but if my 1000 employee business is currently built around MS Office then I need to buy new computers with Office, end of story. If those employees want full compatibility with their work files and email at home they needed to buy windows.
For a very long time for most things casual users did Windows was a better fit then linux. Want to play games? Windows by a mile. Burn DVDs? Windows. Download music legally? Windows. Download music illegally? Windows. Word Processing? Windows. Spreadsheets? Windows. Use that new camera/scanner/printer/ipod? Windows by a mile. Read your office email? Windows. DTP? Windows. Visit flash websites? Windows.
Honestly, besides gaming (which becomes better with maturing Wine) I don't see how Linux lacks in any functions you mentioned i.e. DVD burning, legal music downloads (one can use Banshee with Amazon for example) and etc. and etc. The only issue can be that of unfamiliarity, but it's not a functional issue. Any decent digital player can work with Linux (and I don't consider iPod to be decent one ;).
Office, Outlook, most AAA games, itunes. Don't tell me that because you can run them today on your machine (well maybe) that that somehow translates to what common users have experienced over the last decade.