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Linus Torvalds: 'I Still Want the Desktop'

Posted by Soulskill on from the go-big-or-go-home dept.

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.

7 of 727 comments (clear)

  1. Infrastructure? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Torvalds doesn't see the desktop as being a kernel problem at this point, either, but rather one about infrastructure.

    Is this a kinder, gentler Linus saying that it's everything but the kernel's fault Linux isn't on the desktop? Sounds like it to me, but I will have to see if I can watch the whole takl to get the correct context.

  2. Torvalds is true to form.... by bobbied · · Score: -1, Troll

    In true Torvalds fashion, he blames Linux's failure to take the desktop on.... What exactly?

    Torvalds doesn't see the desktop as being a kernel problem

    Now that's a shocker.. It cannot be HIS fault.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re:Torvalds is true to form.... by macs4all · · Score: -1, Troll

      perhaps you can enlighten us as to why he's wrong, and what the linux kernel has to do to better support desktop environments?

      How about "Coalesce into the 'One True Distro(tm)' "? At least for the Desktop.

      Seriously. The problem is, there isn't just one "Linux", but rather a plethora of "Linuces".

      So, from the (non-Kernel) Developer POV, it's just like the horseshit that goes on in HTML to support multiple browsers.

      Until the DESKTOP Linux babies quite thinking they have "THEWay", there will NEVER be significant outside (that is, outside of the Linux-Cult Community) Application Development. Period.

  3. Re:Nobody else seems to want it by hairyfeet · · Score: 1, Troll

    Actually Google is taking a page from MSFT and is going EEE on Android and if the rumors are true Win 9 will either be free or insanely cheap so...good luck with that.

    BTW what Torvalds SHOULD have said was "I want the desktop....but not enough to give up my shitty 1970s throwback driver model" because you look at the forums and a good 90% of what the problems in linux get boiled down to is that shitstorm of a driver model, it'd be like MSFT trying to build Windows 9 on top of the old DOS .INI drivers because when you have such a fundamental thing old and shitty it makes all the new stuff on top just new and shitty. BTW this is NOT a FOSS thing, its a LINUX thing, as nobody in the FOSS world besides Linux uses his shitty driver model, not BSD, not Android, NOBODY.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  4. Re:Nobody else seems to want it by BasilBrush · · Score: -1, Troll

    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.

    And yet here you are on /. showing that you're not getting shit done. Maybe it's the fault of the windowing system exacerbated by that large screen. Maybe, if you didn't have a browser window constantly on view, but just a single app filling the screen, you wouldn't be so easily distracted?

  5. Re:Nobody else seems to want it by BasilBrush · · Score: 0, Troll

    In Windows, there's an ABI (Application Binary Interface) that 3rd parties can code against to create their drivers. No cooperation is required from Microsoft to implement a new driver. And the 3rd party doesn't need to release source, so any trade secrets embodied or hinted at by the source can be kept secret.

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

    This means that you have to have cooperation from the Linux kernel team. And you have to divulge any trade secrets embodied in the source. Which may compromise an advantage that you have on other platforms.

    It is practically possible to create a binary Linux driver and embed it in an open source wrapper. But then politics bites you in the ass. Only some distributions will accept them.

    So the missing Linux drivers aren't just because it's a tiny marketshare that isn't worth bothering with. OSX was better served with drivers back in the day when it was as rare as desktop Linux. It's because the politics of Linux and it's broken model are often acting against the business interests of the device manufacturers.

  6. Re:Nobody else seems to want it by BasilBrush · · Score: -1, Troll

    So what you are saying is that NVIDIA and ATI don't release closed source binary-only drivers?So what you are saying is that NVIDIA and ATI don't release closed source binary-only drivers?

    It appears you didn't get around to reading paragraph 4 of my post.

    I wrote a FUSE driver

    Which are only for file systems, and exist BECAUSE of the drawbacks of the generic Linux driver model I mentioned.

    Apparently Basil Brush and hairyfeet are involved in anti-Linux FUD.

    Not really, we're just not emotionally invested in Linux, so we don't feel the need to make excuses for it's drawbacks.