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Ask Slashdot: Whatever Happened To the 'Year of Linux on Desktop'?
An anonymous reader writes: Investors, enthusiasts, and Linux distro makers have for more than a decade projected that the upcoming year will be the year of Linux on the desktop platform. But we just can't seem to get to that year for some reason. Windows continues to dominate the consumer market. Apple's macOS X is quickly gaining ground among business customers and designers, and is already ahead of Linux. Do you see Linux getting a significant boost in the desktop market in the coming years?
From 2016, 2015, 2014 . . .
I don't see Linux gaining a significant part of the desktop market in the foreseeable future. And, as an avid Linux user, I think that's a great thing.
I don't want Linux to get so popular. Getting that popular brings two really terrible things with it: more attention from hackers, and a more rapid degradation of the operating system as it tries harder to cater to everybody.
When was YOUR year of the Linux desktop?
Mine was 1998. I installed Redhat 5.2 and Linux has been on my desktop ever since.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I have used Linux as my primary desktop since ~1997. As a software developer it is a power platform. The shell is critical. However, as a conventional desktop it is just not competitive with Windows. And OSX isn't either. Both Linux and OSX are below 4% market share. Vertical integration is very weak. Windows has an identity management system that allows transparent filesharing, advanced group based access control, sophisticated business applications. Getting stuff like that to work on Linux is too difficult or simply not possible. So software venders focus on the Windows platform. And rightly so. I just tried and application that recently released a Beta for Linux and it was a total fail. I occasionally dabble in engineering related stuff and I have to have a Windows machine for all of the various programs for cad, PCB design, simulation. Yeah, programs like that exist for Linux but they're just not good. And I know people agree with me that the GNOME desktop has actually regressed. It used to be much more usable. But they dumbed it down for reasons that where not entirely clear. My guess would be that when new developers come along, they have a tendency to want to re-write everything from scratch. I'm not diametrically opposed to this strategy but you better come up with something that was at least as good as what you're dumping. And that didn't happen. There are other integration related issues as well. For example, for as long as I can recall there has always been a fight between X and the desktop over who should remember the positions of windows. X says applications should save that information and recall it when re-launching an app. Desktop people think it should be handled by lower level facilities. Now, whenever logout and back in, all of my terminal windows have to be re-launced and repositioned (I run 6-8 terms on 4-5 workspaces). That is something that actually used to work somewhat in GNOME. It worked in WindowMaker IIRC. The Linux desktop has been dumbed way down to the point where it's not nearly as useful as it used to be. At least not for people doing more than surfing the web and email. Might as well just get a Chomebook for that.
Exactly this -- although I don't necessarily recommend Windows. I recommend whichever operating system they are already most familiar with.
That's eminently sensible. However, if the needs are basic and the prospective user is not a "computer type" --- I might just install Linux for them.
I did that for my wife, who uses Linux and doesn't know it's Linux, and doesn't care, because she can do her browser-based stuff and maybe view some photos or documents off-line, and maybe play a simple game or two.
For basic needs, Linux is certainly no harder to use than Windows.
And when problems pop up (quite infrequent), then this "basic user" wouldn't be able to fix them whether it was Linux or Windows or Mac.
What moronic nonsense. There is not ONE thing in that post that warranted your reply. The fact that shit just works for a lot of people is just something trolls can't handle.
It's not 1995 any more. The "steep learning curve" is overblown. It's really no worse than it would be for anything. That includes strange new versions of Windows.
When things go wrong, they are equally ugly on all three platforms.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Yet you present no real argument. You just engage in a lot of unsupported claims and insults. Linux desktops and applications use a lot of the same GUI basic elements. ALL of the desktop platforms use "easy to discover" interfaces.
The biggest problem many people may have is that they are simply used to something in particular.
Ribbon pissed a lot of people off. So did Windows 8. Some of the peculiarities in MacOS alienate Windows users.
This isn't about some strange caricature that exists mainly in your head.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.