I think Linux played an important role in providing a free and Open Source Unix at a time where the BSDs were fighting demons both internal (segregation of their community) and external (with all their lawsuits). Linux was the turning point between Unix being a very expensive commercial product, and a hobbyist tool for the wannabe hacker.

It also, and this may be a personal impression more than an absolute truth, was the Unix to play the most insistent role on the desktop. I, like many, got introduced to Unix through Linux (Ubuntu to be exact - the year was 2006). Sure I fell in love with Unix and quickly moved on to other distros/unices, but at the end of the day, I still believe that I, and a lot of people my age, only discovered Unix because somebody somewhere fought for the desktop, something neither Solaris nor HP-UX deemed "profitable" enough.

I was using Unix long before Linux came along, and you're right it was the fork that pushed the most for the desktop. Even though today I am using it as my desktop that's really only because I write server software. I think the main thrust for Unix on the desktop was in fact OS/X, but among us geeks it has been Ubuntu. But that was really my point, it was the distros like RH and Ubuntu that put together something installable with a mostly workable window manager that most people associate with Linux, not the kernel.

While I am very much not taking anything away from the work that Linus has accomplished, my point was that much of the credit for today's Linux installations comes more from RedHat than anything Linux did in the kernel.

There indeed was the BSD wars, but most of the old timers that started their career with a flavor of Unix (for me, it was HP-UX on an HP9000), since then they have all been much of a muchness, varying only in their applicability to a given problem (including suitability to the desktop.)

I am reasonably sure that the number of Linux desktops is very small, nearly every practical use for Linux is running servers. I would wager that OSX dwarfs Linux in terms of unix-on-the-desktop comparisons.

Since history provides no A/B testing capabilities, it's very difficult to isolate the impact Linux has had. Would we today be all using some form of BSD, or maybe Solaris/Intel with ZFS. Who knows, but I am thankful to Linus for a number of things including his efforts to promote OSS.

While it is true that OSX very probably accounts for more unix-on-the-desktop than linux, they are two very different desktop audiences.

While OSX is indeed a unix, it hides this so well that unless you know what you're looking for you would never use any of the things that most people mean when they refer to unix.

I write this on a iMac I use for developing iOS applications, but honestly, if I hadn't been using linux since 2006(Ubuntu, gentoo then arch for the past 2 years) I would never have learned the use of the command line(and tools such as find, sed, grep, etc...) just from using the mac.

For me, the switch to linux was mainly because I wanted an alternative to Windows(when I first heard about Vista) and I could definitely not afford a mac(I was a student at the time). I suspect that many a tinkerer/hacker has gone down this path. In fact, most linux users have met have had similar stories, while mac users have mostly been professionals and/or design/hipster-type people. I have not met a single programmer whose main unix learning experience has come from OSX while I've met tons that have learned from linux(and a few from other unices) even if they eventually ended up using OSX in their daily work.

As I said, this is all anecdotal, but I wouldn't be surprised if these trends were more general.

You're probably right. I'm a developer and I fit this group.

I've always been amused because it is a "free OS" that's really evolving. Since the my first tries with Red Hat, Mandrake, Connectiva... I never stopped. Used Debian for some time and 4 years ago I really got into Ubuntu, switching all my machines to take full advantage of the client x server environment it provides.

Now I've just switched back to it after a year of OSX on a macbook air. Lion is a great OS, but I just like Ubuntu approach and to be involved with Linux, I can't help it.

My experience was extremely similar. I think one of the many reasons that Linux has gotten more popular was due to how poor Vista was as an OS. Ubuntu 7.04 was my first intro to Linux and I was only using it because a friend had given me a LiveCD after hearing me complain about Windows Vista.