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PC-BSD: Set For Serious Growth?
Artem Tashkinov writes: Luke Wolf, a KDE developer, argues that PC-BSD might become a serious desktop OS contender by year 2020, since Linux so far has failed to grasp any serious market share. He writes, "Consider this: In the past 10 years has the distribution you run changed significantly in what it offers over other distributions? I think you'll find the answer is largely no. I do have to give a shout out to openSUSE for the OBS, but otherwise I've used my desktop in the same exact way that I have always used it within the continuity of distribution X,Y, or Z since I started using them. Distributions simply aren't focused on desktop features, they're leaving it up to the DEs to do so." He continues, "PC-BSD on the other hand in fitting with the BSD mindset of holistic solutions is focused on developing desktop features and is moving rapidly to implement them." What do you think?
If any operating system ends up rising to become important, it'll be probably one that has some company in particular backing it, otherwise there won't be any way to get relationships serious enough to make others take it truly seriously. Now, what company would be it, or with what intentions, that's up to debate.
The war was fought decades ago, a winner was declared and for some reason the Unix/Linux neckbeards still sit around railing about how they'll take that hill someday..
The desktop is increasingly unimportant, or mostly an adjunct to where people do their primary computing which is portables. Give up on the desktop and accept that you have a niche, hold onto that niche and nurture it instead of constantly beating your heads against the desktop, it's not going to happen. Even Apple kind of half-asses their desktops now and focuses on their phones, and they have a development budget bigger than some countries.
Stupid joke aside, the year of the Linux desktop is the year that you choose to run Linux on your desktop. The end. People have been running Linux on desktop machines long before it was convenient or even sensible (Red Hat's early releases and broken GCC's come to mind)...now you can download something like Linux Mint and be up and running, fully patched, faster than you can with most Windows systems.
So yeah, the year of the Linux desktop? Whatever year you want it to be. All I can say is that I hope you're not as old and tired as your sense of humour because if you are, I doubt you'll live to see 2020 anyway.
You seemed to have missed the anti-systemd rant article and thought this was one by mistake. Here's the link to the article you want: Removing Libsystemd0 From a Live-running Debian System.
Like the systemd argument itself, most of the world has moved on.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Linux failed to catch on at the desktop because of too many distros creating confusion and lack of standardization, and not enough device support from vendors etc.
How will PC-BSD change those issues?
Table-ized A.I.
This. The interface is what defines the OS from a desktop user standpoint. Not only does it define ways of doing things, but also defines a great deal of UI driven software packages that a desktop user needs.
Say what you will about Stallman and his GPL, but one thing's for sure is that it's hostile to this type of siphoning off of users over to the new shiny thing marketed by large preexisting corporations.
Users wouldn't be siphoned off if GPL'd software wasn't a dull attempt at copying other software. RMS is all bummed about Clang/LLVM being more innovative and not being encumbered by his restrictive license, he's against the export of the AST from gcc in case a gcc user wants to use that output as input to a non-copyleft compiler backend, he sees non-copyleft open source software as an "attack" on free software, he's just getting more bitter that "free software" isn't what people want. People want "good software" and if that happens to also be "free software" then that is purely by coincidence, but "good software" is the primary concern so if there is no cohesive effort toward that then inevitably the GCC will be abandoned (by most) in favor of Clang/LLVM and Linux will be abandoned (by most) in favor of BSD.
In the early days the gcc succeeded because it was a good, free-of-charge, open source compiler that also happened to be copyleft. Now a better, free-of-charge, open source, non-copyleft compiler has come along in the form of Clang/LLVM showing that copyleft is not a defining characteristic for most peoples' choices. Even Linux is not about free software, it simply leverages copyleft for Linus' ideological view of "tit-for-tat" contribution, hence the reason he doesn't care about Tivoization, in fact he sees Tivoization as a good thing because it's more people contributing code!
this. I was a Linux guy starting in 94 (I actually still have my infomagick cd set that has the mother's day release on it), and yeah...stopped using it because of systemd. Call me whacky. Moved to FreeBSD. I know, I'm a whiner or something.
It already has about 13.4% US desktop market share already.
I have no idea why Mac OS X isn't called out for being the MOST UNIX operating system out there.
Why bother making a Linux desktop, when you ALREADY have a top-notch Unix desktop environment, with origins in BSD Unix (via NextStep), a proper Unix-shell, and every other command-line tool, with the ability to run real commercial software from Adobe and Autodesk.
Additionally, it seems like Mac OS X has officially won all the developers. I don't recall seeing any developer using anything BUT Mac OS X over the last couple of years.
Unix won the desktop.. it's just called Mac OS X.
Linux and the BSDs have been chasing desktop usability for ages. Hell, I've been chasing desktop usability for ages.
Microsoft has it easy. The produce windows and all the laptop, desktop, and server vendors spend hundreds of millions of dollars making sure their designs work with it.
Apple makes their own PCs, they don't have to chase hardware.
And us? Every time a new machine comes out (which is often). A new model, a new chipset, a different combination of on-board devices, whatever.. every single time that happens we developers have to write new drivers or modify existing drivers. We have to work out the kinks, the broken mobo hardware, the broken ACPI implementations, the broken sound hardware that doesn't follow vendor specs or has major exceptions because vendors are lazy. We have to glue the whole mess together not just once. Not just twice. But 20 or 30 times a year. Every year. Forever.
Until that equation changes, the general population simply can't depend on any of our open source code to work on whatever new cool computer they want to buy. And that puts us in the backseat in terms of adoption. Every time.
We can make our stuff work with specific machines, at least if the stars align (that is, if we have the chip specs for the chipsets that have changed and we can write drivers for them fast enough). Making our stuff work with everything, out of the box... it just doesn't happen on a macro scale.
In some small way the collapse of the external chip vendors into a much smaller set of companies has helped. Only two major video companies that we have to worry about now, plus whatever Intel is doing (which they at least provide some specs on now, finally). Only two WIFI chipsets that really matter, maybe three. Only a half dozen ethernet chipset families really matter now. Only two cpu vendors really matter. It's getting better but not because the companies are altruistic. Simply because there are fewer of them and we don't have to write as many drivers or make as many driver mods whenever new hardware comes out. But it isn't enough. Not nearly enough to make us competitive.
That's the #1 problem.
The #2 problem we face is that there is no suitable desktop that works as well as either Windows or Mac desktops. I've tried them all. In linux even. They ALL SUCK. They all break in one way or another and it's just as bad in the linux community as it is in the BSD community due to rampant N.I.H. syndrome. The desktops fail on many levels. Apple doesn't have this problem because Apple enforces a unified ABI for accessing major media subsystems such as audio and video. Microsoft doesn't have this problem either, for the same reason. Linux and the BSDs have no unified ABI, essentially forcing application writers to target their apps to specific user interfaces or hardware subsystems.
It annoys the hell out of me but I don't see anything on the horizon that can really solve the problem.
-Matt
You've got to admit, it is a bit sad/disappointing the number of people who are invested in Linux but actually like (and often prefer) OS X. What does that say for the rest of us who are wondering if expending the time and effort to learn Linux is worth it if many people who are influential in its development prefer OS X?
And yes I know, you didn't actually say outright that you prefer OS X, you merely said you liked it. I wonder how long it'll be before that changes though...
You don't marry an operating system, you can date all of them. How would anyone know what they really like if they limit themselves?
If you can't say five good things about an operating system, then you probably don't know it well enough to judge. Take that as a challenge to learn more. If you have fun doing that kind of thing.. otherwise go by whatever shows up on monster the most for all I care.
Are we talking about a Linux distro or Windows here?
A distro has everything neatly managed in the repository. Click, install and it updates automatically with the rest of the system...
# touch universe # chmod +rwx universe #
Are you REALLY buying your own BS, or are you just trolling? As one Linux friendly site easily defines "a year of the desktop where Linux desktop market share suddenly rises in relatively dramatic fashion."
And NO Virginia that does NOT mean going from the current lousy 1.34% which just FYI is sooo low that they officially now lump Linux in the "other" category to a 2%, that means a real significant rise as in double digits?
But lets face reality, its been...what? 24 years now? And you've NEVER even cracked 2%? I'm sorry but you have less of a chance at having a year of the Linux desktop than RMS has of becoming the POTUS. Its not gonna happen, it didn't happen when Shuttleworth was blowing millions plugging Ubuntu, didn't happen when Wally World was trying to hawk gOS desktops for $199, and its certainly not gonna happen now that Ballmer has been replaced by a guy with a functional brain, its just not gonna happen. We have already seen the future, and its a proprietary Android, a proprietary OSX/iOS, and a proprietary Windows....THAT is the future. Pretending the "year of a Linux desktop" is anything but a punchline? I'm sorry but you really shouldn't be hitting the pipe THAT hard buddy.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Will we still have desktops by then? Seriously doesn't anyone think they will eventually get these silly glasses to work and we can carry our computer around in our pocket? I've been trying to find ways to short companies that sell office furniture and desk chairs. Hope I'm not wrong on this.