OpenGL lacks the complete tool chain offered by directx (and everything that has developed around it).
Much easier to come up with linux versions of the api than to get developers to switch. I'm sure if there was enough money in the endeavor, it would happen.
BTW, linux only has a chance as an appliance OS (chome OS, or maybe a mediacenter where no one even could tell you what OS it's running by looking) unless some hardware vendor (say Dell) picks it up and sells it as a boutique OS and pimps the hell out of it as their version of Mac. Which of course they won't because it lacks high end apps (most linux software is marketed/designed as good enough, rarely superior or even equal unless it's more networky or software codey) and because since it's free, why would they ever bother to foot the legwork on something easily copied? (unless they create a custom linux, ala droid, which barely counts as linux at that point, no more so than a reskinned windows that doesn't run windows apps would count as windows)
I'd say it's hardly an issue at all. Making a distro is relatively minor effort, and most development is shared anyway. A distro is little more than a collection of default installed apps at this point. Of course, trying to move it beyond that breaks compatibility with other distros, and gets into something more OSX like.
If linux ever takes off, you wouldn't even know it's linux. It'll be corporate branded (and that brand won't be ubuntu) and the situation will be similar to the current smart phone market...
Droid, OSX-lite, WebOS, Maemo (in its latest iteration) and probably a few others (Symbian?) are unix based to some extent, but you'd never know. They make huge use of open source, but that's not what people see.
The Linux distros seem to be standardizing on an app store like interface, rather than trying to follow the windows model of "search google, find sketchy shareware site, download and run exe" it's "start up application center, type keyword into application center, get a list of apps related to that, double click on one."
You'd probably want to go with ubuntu's latest release, it's the most end-user oriented of all the distros, though it is going through some growing pains. Most of the initiatives to improve linux's end user experience were only started within the last few years, and ubuntu quickly migrates to whatever new project that promises to simplify things as soon as possible. This means almost every release breaks compatibility with something, which probably wouldn't effect the average user, but almost everyone has at least one 'special-case' beyond "OS that boots and run Firefox, Openoffice, and a few other minor apps" so there's always some subset of ubuntu users getting pissed off with each release.
It's not much different than new Windows releases tbh, but those only come out once every 2-3 years (1-2 if you count service packs), while ubuntu refreshes every 6 months. And if you choose not to get the 6 month incremental upgrades, you are left with horribly out of date software. Ubuntu's long term releases are once every ~2 years. The first one, 6.06 (that's June 2006) included Firefox 1.5. The next LTS was October 2008 and included the Firefox 3 beta. The April 2010 release will finally include Firefox 3.5, but Firefox 3.6 will be out by then, and Firefox 3.7 probably not long after (which may become Firefox 4.0). It may not sound like a lot, but firefox undergoes some pretty big changes rather rapidly (as do most major open source projects), so your options are either to go with ubuntu's rapid release schedule (not that bad, but can be annoying) or to stick with out of date software.
So to refresh:
Ubuntu's LTS release dates are:
6/06 10/08 4/10
And respectively include Firefox 1, Firefox 3 beta, and Firefox 3.5.
Firefox's release dates are:
1.0 11/04
1.5 11/05
2.0 10/06 (ubuntu skipped this release)
3.0 6/08 (the LTS launched after the final, but still included the beta because that's what they finalized with)
3.5 6/09 (what the next LTS is shipping with)
3.6 Early 2010
3.7 6/2010
4.0 Late 2010 to Early 2011
It's a pain that ubuntu makes you upgrade the whole OS in order to get up to date versions of single apps, which is the primary downside of the whole 'single app for all updates', you pretty much get all-or-nothing upgrades, whereas Windows 2000 running the latest Firefox (which auto updates itself) is still a pretty competent web-browsing platform, but if Windows had the same system as Ubuntu, in order to move beyond Netscape Navigator to the latest firefox release, you'd have to upgrade Windows 2000 to each of its service packs, then to Windows XP, then to each of its service packs, then to Windows Vista, all its services packs, and finally to Windows 7. You'd probably just format and start fresh with Window 7, or buy a new computer whenever you wanted to upgrade. Ubuntu's upgrade model just wouldn't work for joe six pack, at least Microsoft occasionally forces IE to upgrade.
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