Desktop computing is transitioning from mainstream to niche. Increasingly, “normal” computing is phone, tablet, and web. Normal people increasingly use desktops as big screens for the web.

Linux is a great platform for people to access their applications on the web. It is a good option at this point to give to your aging parents to grand parents the next time you have to setup a computer for them.

The other people buying desktops are buying them for things like gaming or dev. These are more technical audiences as you suggest. Gamers are a certain kind of technical though. We are almost at the point with Linux that gaming could go mainstream. I think it already makes a good ( perhaps the best ) dev platform.

Where Linux is worst is probably “technical” Windows users as these are the desktop people that are going to have specific needs and organizations that Linux may not meet. Part of the problem with Linux is that this is the group it has been targeting. That has led to a lot of desktop complexity.

Don’t get me wrong. I am one of the people taking advantage of and contributing to the diversity and complexity of the Linux desktop. That is not helping it make the jump to mainstream desktop users though.