For most people born within the last 35 years or so … using a computer has become and inextricable part of living. Unfortunately [for Linux] most of the not-too-technically savvy amongst them got started using some version of Microsoft´s Windows or an Apple Macintosh. These people have been used to a certain way of doing stuff and how things should look. For Linux to appeal to this people, not only must it flaunt it´s technical excellence, freedom of choice and low cost, but must also prove as easy to use, flexible, simple and aesthetically pleasing. In computer-speak, eye-candy refers to how beautiful or pleasing to the eye the whole user experience is. It involves beautiful graphics, icons, mouse cursors as well as animated feedback.
These characteristics plus simplicity is perhaps the primary reason why Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distribution today not only on the desktop but for servers. I used to be a Fedora fan but today, I don´t see myself downloading and burning six iso images and spending about an hour to setup my system when I could do all that from a single CD in about 30 minutes. Therefore, switching to Ubuntu on both my desktop, laptop and any server services was just a no brainer. A key department in which most desktop linuxes have improved is the eye-candy department but to get the kind of eye-candy that makes people drool a little tweaking needs to be done which may be more than the average joe is comfortable with doing [eg installing compiz theme manager, emerald, using svn to get keys and then download themes.]
Eye candy has become important because our laptops have become very personal objects, much in the same way we by cute phones with nice covers for them and change wallpapers regularly. Eye candy is the primary reason why most people go WOW!! when the first see a Macbook [both hardware and software eye candy]. Personally, one way in which I have spread the Ubuntu word is with my own laptop. Immediately after installation, I enable compiz themes, install emerald theme manager, get some beautiful themes, cute icon packs, cursor themes and nice looking fonts. I also get rid of most of the default login screens (except the Human Circle) and add cutter ones which come up at random. So when most people see my laptop, they go WOW!! … what OS are you using? — giving me the perfect opportunity to sell them not only to how aesthetically pleasing [aka eye candy] Ubuntu and Linux can be but also the fact that I usually don´t bother much about antiviruses, the moral issues of pirated software, or system instability. Yes I know, focusing on eye candy might seem like a trivialization of the technical excellence of Linux, but then most of the people out there whom we´d like to adopt Linux on the desktop are people who would gladly ´…make the mistake of falling in love with a dimple and then marrying the whole girl [and live to thank God for the mistake].´ to paraphrase Evan Esar, italics mine. I think eye candy is that dimple that can be used to seduce people to marry the whole girl (desktop Linux)
