Why are Free-Desktop Developers Wedded to Linux?

An anonymous reader wonders: "We have been hearing promising predictions like 'This year will be the year of Linux on the desktop' for the last decade. However, the Linux of today seems to be as far away as ever from realizing the expectations of mass adoption we once had for it, without significant growth in home usage since the late 90s. Clearly, if Linux is unable to reproduce a third of Firefox's end user uptake over a much longer time-frame, there are deficiencies with the direction the GNU/Linux/X/Gnome/KDE system has taken. Of course, almost all free software and desktop efforts and development remain unquestioningly oriented around Linux. Other free-desktop operating system projects which take different and innovative approaches like ReactOS, AROS, Mona and Syllable remain comparatively starved of developers and interest. An often cited reason for using a non-Microsoft OS is to avoid a monoculture, but free-desktop efforts have created a total monoculture around developing and promoting Linux, despite a decade of failure in supplanting Microsoft's proprietorial OSes with it. Why are free-desktop developers neglecting to consider an alternative to the penguin?"

Comments

Some do

[Enderandrew]

Some do consider alternatives, and that is why programs like ReactOS exist. Most of the smaller alternatives aren't really designed to be desktop replacements for the world, but rather small niche desktops. Of all the alternatives, Linux is the best candidate to supplant Windows on someone's PC.

Firefox used aggressive marketing in quick blitz. It had a great name. And Firefox had rapid growth because of that.

Linux is associated with geeks and carries plenty of negative baggage with the average person. When Mozilla became Firefox, it was able to be reborn in a marketing perspective, and may someday win the fight that Mozilla never could.

If Linux gets a similiar marketing facelift, you could see similiar adoption rates that Firefox had. It is a much bigger adjustment for people, but in the wake of Vista, more people may be looking for alternatives. However, the majority of the Linux community is quite content to cater to themselves rather than try to cater to the outside market. For mass consumption you would really need:

1 major primary distro for home users.
1 major desktop
Easy conversion wizard to help people convert Microsoft documents, desktops and settings.
1 major form of package management, and thusly one major package repository

Remember the GetFirefox.com campaign? Remember all the CDs thrown around?

Imagine a LiveCD distribution campaign that did the same thing, but also helped you convert/migrate? Give it a snappy name, and a cute mascot and there you go!

Re:Not really

[kotj.mf]

++

As far as I'm aware, neither the GNOME nor the KDE devs explicitly promote Linux as the sole underlying OS. The whole point of having an X-based desktop environment is to make it portable to different systems.

The question might as well be "Why do the GNU people spend all their time developing the Linux userland tools?" The answer is they don't - Linux distributors use the GNU/GNOME/KDE stuff, not the other way around.

Duh.

The reason you find the Linux kernel in most free desktop systems should be pretty obvious - it's currently better at handling the random hardware that desktop users throw at it than anything else out there.

Firefox and Linux ... not really comparable

[swanriversean]

This is a bit of a red herring. Firefox gained market share for a number of reasons, some that may be applicable to Linux as well. But the single biggest reason for Firefox's market share is that you could install it on Windows.

I'm still looking for a Linux that's easy to install and use without having to "rebuild kernels, install hundreds of packages, etc". I tried Ubuntu and that never worked..."

Have you ever tried installing Windows from scratch? That is like two days effort (by the time you get all your drivers and programs installed, and everything set up as you like). I don't think Linux is worse than Windows, just different. And for certain setups, its better (consider all the good programs that are already available by most distros default install).

So, the main reason Firefox gained so much popularity compared to Linux, was that you could use it on whatever OS you were already using. Possibly this includes it being "so easy to install and use", but that is a misleading statement because you are implying a Linux distro isn't. Firefox installs like any other application on any supported OS, and is as usable as most mature programs. Linux distros are likely the easiest operating systems to install, but that doesn't really matter, because most people will never install an OS. Linux is quite usable, as long as you don't expect it to be the same as Windows or OSX and are willing to get used to it.

Mu

[swillden]

The premise of the question is that Linux' lack of desktop market penetration indicates some failing with Linux. I think that premise is flawed. I think Linux has achieved more desktop market share than could reasonably be expected in the time elapsed, and that all of those who have predicted more widespread use were simply fooling themselves.

See, every bit of desktop market share that Linux achieves must be taken away from the Microsoft desktop monopoly (plus maybe a bit from Apple, but that's a tiny corner of the market and one that is very hard to crack). That means that Linux has to deal with the fact that pretty much all of the desktop software in the world, and all of the PC hardware in the world, is built for and around Microsoft Windows.

Look, for example, at the reasons why people here on /. commonly say that they don't want to (or can't) switch to Linux:

1. Hardware support. Some bit or piece of their system doesn't work properly under Linux. While these problems are rarer than they were in the past, they'll never go away completely until Linux is big enough that hardware vendors do what's necessary to make sure their hardware is supported on Linux.
2. Software support. Whether it's games, photo or video editing tools, Microsoft Office, or whatever, the other major complaint about Linux is that it doesn't have whatever app the user wants. The Linux community's response has been to try to build Free versions of everything the user might want. That's great in many cases, but in many others what the user wants is *exactly* the particular app they like on Windows, rather than something similar.

Looking beyond the slashdot crowd to the more general PC user base, Linux has another, even bigger obstacle: Most people don't install their own operating system, ever. They buy a PC with an OS already on it, and that's what they use. What OS comes on every PC on the shelf? The latest version of Microsoft Windows, of course.

Given that these are the real problems holding back widespread desktop adoption of Linux, what is some other OS, that supports less hardware and has less software available, and even less mindshare among PC vendors going to do to fix the problem?

Not a damned thing, obviously.

Desktop Linux will make its breakout, if it does, in exactly the same way that Desktop DOS and Windows achieved theirs -- via the business desktop. In the more-controlled corporate environment, where hardware is less varied, the IT support staff is better educated (i.e., there is an IT support staff), application sets are more limited (e.g. no games), and there is a stronger focus on cost containment and security, Linux is beginning to make some inroads, and will continue to make more. Linux is getting serious attention as a preferred desktop platform by governments, both for reasons of openness and for reasons of cost management.

When a significant percentage of the world's desktop PC users use Linux at work, then you'll start to see significant home market penetration as well. And that business desktop penetration is happening, but it's going to be a long, slow process because it's a fight against a very deeply entrenched and very powerful monopoly.

I think Linux is doing an excellent job of getting there. The Free desktop environments and application suites are in excellent shape, and are continuing to improve rapidly. I think KDE and GNOME are both much *more* usable than MS Windows, each in their own way, and I can cite numerous Free applications that rival or even exceed the best of their commercial competition. Linux is *ready* for the desktop, and has been for quite some time. But being ready isn't enough to displace Windows. There have to be other advantages, to counter the massive juggernaut of Windows inertia. And there *are* other advantages, but even so, it will take time. Lots of time.

People don't focus much on the other a

Re:BSD

[Cius]

Cliff clearly suffers from a myopic conception of FOSS systems. He also demonstrates the danger in representing an entire ecosystem of software with a single moniker. Free and open source software is not 'Linux', but Linux is free and open source software. The distinction is important. Linux is just one piece of a grand and heterogeneous domain of software. On top of that, anyone can contribute to it, take it and do what they like with it. I don't think it quite qualifies as a 'monoculture' the way that Windows does. I also find the Gnome/KDE reference amusing considering that they use completely different toolkits and libraries.