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It is a good thing to have more than one distro to provide a competitive market but there are too many in the linux market. Often it can be difficult for a user to select a distro to use. Many distros do not survive very long and still others do not update as quickly as other ones. The multitude of distros also makes it difficult to have universal software. Programmers must make sure their programs can run on at least all the major distros. In the Windows world programmers only need to ensure XP compatibility and sometimes 98 compatibility. The plethora of distros also makes it difficult for any one of them to gain momentum and become a serious challenger to Microsoft.

No Universal Software Installation

The only way to universally install something on Linux is to download and compile the code yourself. Every distro uses different or unique ways to install software. For example Red Hat uses RPM installers while Mandrake uses drake installer. The lack of a universal installer like Microsoft's Windows Installer or InstallShield makes software installation on Linux a difficult task and hurts Linux's user friendliness.

Steep Learning Curve

Since most people grew up using a Windows operating system the switch over to Linux is extremely difficult. There are dozens of GUI's, all of which are different. The distros themselves are different which can cause other problems. Some Linux GUI and distro programmers are trying to make a beginner Linux operating system and GUI for new users such as Lindows and XPde. These still do not offer a windows environment and are more difficult for a beginner to pick up than windows. When a user sits down to use a Windows PC, he experiences basically the same thing every time. Also the concept of a root user with supreme authority can be confusing to Windows users. In Windows XP a user is either and Administrator or a Limited account. The limited accounts are not very limited as their name implies, they can do almost all of the same things and administrator can. An administrator has total control over the system. In Linux only the root user has this control. When a user creates their login name, they cannot do everything from this name, this could be confusing for many Windows users and will take time to get used to.

Weak Official Technical Support

Linux does not make the massive amounts of money that Microsoft does (due to the fact that Linux is provided freely) so most distros do not have very good, if any, technical support. Users often have to rely upon forums and other Linux users for help in their troubles. These forums can be and often are helpful for users but they are not guaranteed to provide help. When a user calls Microsoft tech support that are given a professional support specialist and they offer official Microsoft-backed support. With Linux, users must rely on third party support if they cannot get an answer from the distro FAQ or email support. The developers of each distro do not usually have the time to deal with technical support issues. This also hurts the user friendliness of Linux. Inexperienced users often need to call tech support to solve problems and Linux cannot offer then the same quality support Windows XP can. Red Hat Linux is an exception to this, they offer very good Technical Support for businesses, but it is not provided freely; Red Hat charges for its tech support.

No 64-Bit Support

Some of the distros currently available support 64-bit processors and others do not. In the future it will be crucial for Linux distros to run on 64-bit chips as they will gradually phase out the current 32-bit chips.

Different GUIs

For users who are used to it, the varied Linux GUIs are great, but for a new users some kind of consistency is required. When a user sits down to use Windows XP, it looks basically the same every time. This is not so on any given linux distro. When a user sits down the computer may look completely different then another computer running the exact same distro. There is a trend towards GNOME and KDE as the standard GUIs but others still exist and are still used.