Linus Torvalds: 'I Still Want the Desktop'

darthcamaro writes: Linux has clawed its way into lots of places these days. But at the LinuxCon conference in Chicago today Linus Torvalds was asked where Linux should go next. Torvalds didn't hesitate with his reply. "I still want the desktop," Torvalds said, as the audience erupted into boisterous applause. Torvalds doesn't see the desktop as being a kernel problem at this point, either, but rather one about infrastructure. While not ready to declare a "Year of the Linux Desktop" he still expects that to happen — one day.

Comments

Why focus on the desktop?

[timrod]

Linux has so much going for it in the device market that I don't see why Linus doesn't just double down on it. The future of Linux seems to make more sense as a kernel used for other things (like Android) rather than trying to break into the standalone desktop OS market.

Apple as a model

[LessThanObvious]

Apple's success is an interesting model for what it would take to make Linux mainstream on the desktop. The average non-techie Apple user doesn't know or care that there is BSD running beneath the GUI or that a UNIX command line even exists on their Mac. Granted there is a legacy there where people are already comfortable with the idea of a Mac being a legitimate alternative to the Windows PC, but it is the seamless user friendly GUI and fully developed application ecosystem that make it desirable. The argument can be made that Ubuntu and maybe others are pretty usable and are getting close to mainstream useability, but we aren't quite there yet. Until there is a GUI that is so fully featured and bulletproof that the user never needs to do anything at the command line to achieve reasonable efficiency at all common tasks and the application ecosystem is developed to have decent parity with current mainstream OS in use, Linux doesn't stand a chance in the desktop. I'm not sure that the financial payoff is there for any business to undertake the investment needed, but I certainly hope we get there someday.

Re:Nobody else seems to want it

[Skarjak]

I'm always puzzled to see these kinds of posts. Do you do your work on a tablet? "Desktop is dead!" is a lame cliche the media came up with that everyone can parrot to show how "knowledgeable" they are about the industry, when a simple inspection of the facts shows desktops aren't going away any time soon. I'm writing this from a desktop, with a confortable mechanical keyboard, a good mouse and a widescreen monitor, cause that's what you need if you want to get shit done.

Re: Would be awesome

[tepples]

Try opening some of the larger, more complex Pages and Numbers docs and seeing what Word and Excel do with them. Or try opening Word and Excel, saving your complex documents in ODF, and opening them in LibreOffice for Windows. Let me know if that works any better.

Linus wants the Desktop?

[Lisias]

So I recommend him to start his own Desktop project. :-)

Seriously, I don't know of, now, any other Open Source leader capable of doing a decent Desktop. Torvalds finishes what he starts, and he finishes it vrey well (see git).

We had very good Desktops in the past, but nowadays things are just too shiny and too new and... too dumbed down to be useful to me: who knows me from other /. posts about this matter knows why I migrated to MacOS two years ago, and don't plan to migrate back in the short run.

I still love Linux - all my non desktop machines are Linux, no questions asked. But I just can't handle any of the present mainstream Desktops to use Linux again on my working box.

Re:Infrastructure?

[exomondo]

People who purport to know about computers need to stop asking stupid questions like "When will Linux be ready for the desktop ?", and start asking intelligent questions like "When will the general populace get a clue ?"

No, no they don't. What they need to ask is "Why do Linux desktop distros not appeal to end users?". The answer has always been clear, it is that they don't offer any significant advantage over the incumbents, they are not disruptive and thus will not disrupt the market.

Look at iOS and Android, they stole the smartphone - and much of the wider cell phone - market from the incumbents by being innovative and disruptive, users didn't care that they were different or incompatible because they offered features that were better! Desktop Linux distros do not do this, they are me-too products scrambling to do whatever OS X and Windows do and thus people don't want to abandon familiarity and compatibility for dubious benefit.

You can provide all the anecdotes you want about your hardships with OS X or Windows and I'm sure they'll be matched with anecdotes about people's hardships with Linux so that gets you nowhere. You can blame Microsoft or blame the user (which is what you're doing) but that doesn't make desktop Linux distros any more disruptive or innovative and thus no more appealing to users.

Offer real, tangible, innovation that is disruptive to the market and the ISVs and OEMs will be climbing over eachother to support it just as they did with Android.

Re:Nobody else seems to want it

[visualight]

In Linux, there is no ABI. Drivers have to be accepted and included in the kernel source tree. Yes really. It's that well thought out.

This means that you have to have code review from the Linux kernel team. And you have to divulge any amateur or buggy code embodied in the source. Which may compromise the imaginary advantage your marketdroids think they have on other platforms.

FTFY