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Could 2018 Be The Year of the Linux Desktop? (gnome.org)
Suren Enfiajyan writes: Red Hat worker and GNOME blogger Christian F.K. Schaller wrote why GNU/Linux failed to become a mainstream desktop OS... "My thesis is that there really isn't one reason, but rather a range of issues that all have contributed to holding the Linux Desktop back from reaching a bigger market. Also to put this into context, success here in my mind would be having something like 10% market share of desktop systems. That to me means we reached critical mass."
He named the following reasons:
- A fragmented market
- Lack of special applications
- Lack of big name applications
- Lack of API and ABI stability
- Apple's resurgence
- Microsoft's aggressive response
- Windows piracy
- Red Hat mostly stayed away
- Canonical's business model not working out
- Lack of original device manufacturer support
Then he ended with some optimism:
"So anyone who has read my blog posts probably knows I am an optimist by nature. This isn't just some kind of genetic disposition towards optimism, but also a philosophical belief that optimism breeds opportunity while pessimism breeds failure. So just because we haven't gotten the Linux Desktop to 10% marketshare so far doesn't mean it will not happen going forward. It just means we haven't achieved it so far.
"One of the key identifiers of open source is that it is incredibly hard to kill, because unlike proprietary software, just because a company goes out of business or decides to shut down a part of its business, the software doesn't go away or stop getting developed. As long as there is a strong community interested in pushing it forward it remains and evolves, and thus when opportunity comes knocking again it is ready to try again."
The essay concludes desktop Linux has evolved and is ready to try again, since from a technical perspective it's better than ever. "The level of polish is higher than ever before, the level of hardware support is better than ever before and the range of software available is better than ever before...
"There is also the chance that it will come in a shape we don't appreciate today. For instance maybe ChromeOS evolves into a more full fledged operating system as it grows in popularity and thus ends up being the Linux on the Desktop end game? Or maybe Valve decides to relaunch their SteamOS effort and it provides the foundation for a major general desktop growth? Or maybe market opportunities arise that will cause us at Red Hat to decide to go after the desktop market in a wider sense than we do today? Or maybe Endless succeeds with their vision for a Linux desktop operating system...."
He named the following reasons:
- A fragmented market
- Lack of special applications
- Lack of big name applications
- Lack of API and ABI stability
- Apple's resurgence
- Microsoft's aggressive response
- Windows piracy
- Red Hat mostly stayed away
- Canonical's business model not working out
- Lack of original device manufacturer support
Then he ended with some optimism:
"So anyone who has read my blog posts probably knows I am an optimist by nature. This isn't just some kind of genetic disposition towards optimism, but also a philosophical belief that optimism breeds opportunity while pessimism breeds failure. So just because we haven't gotten the Linux Desktop to 10% marketshare so far doesn't mean it will not happen going forward. It just means we haven't achieved it so far.
"One of the key identifiers of open source is that it is incredibly hard to kill, because unlike proprietary software, just because a company goes out of business or decides to shut down a part of its business, the software doesn't go away or stop getting developed. As long as there is a strong community interested in pushing it forward it remains and evolves, and thus when opportunity comes knocking again it is ready to try again."
The essay concludes desktop Linux has evolved and is ready to try again, since from a technical perspective it's better than ever. "The level of polish is higher than ever before, the level of hardware support is better than ever before and the range of software available is better than ever before...
"There is also the chance that it will come in a shape we don't appreciate today. For instance maybe ChromeOS evolves into a more full fledged operating system as it grows in popularity and thus ends up being the Linux on the Desktop end game? Or maybe Valve decides to relaunch their SteamOS effort and it provides the foundation for a major general desktop growth? Or maybe market opportunities arise that will cause us at Red Hat to decide to go after the desktop market in a wider sense than we do today? Or maybe Endless succeeds with their vision for a Linux desktop operating system...."
No.
As long as there is a battle between KDE, gnome and others, as long as every distribution thinks they can do the user interface design themselves (ending up with 10 half-finished system configuration interfaces), as long as Puttering is still allowed anywhere near the Linux code base, the answer is NO.
I can't imagine developing software directly on a phone or tablet.
I prefer a comfortable and ergonomic workspace with three monitors, a Model M, good lighting and my Herman Miller chair.
Linux desktop may very well become the only desktop in the future. Not because it won. It's because the other desktops died.
The only real use for a desktop now is for business use. Personal use of desktops is crashing. Mobile devices have effectively taken over personal use.
The browser has taken over as the OS on desktops. The applications are provided mostly by website interfaces. I have desktop machines that no longer have office suites installed, or graphical manipulation programs.
We will still see beefed up machines. But only for the purpose of running online application via the browser.
Personally I run Linux on basically every device attached to a monitor or TV as well as all my server gear. I have token windows and apple devices / vm's. But even a Linux fan boy like myself knows Linux desktop will never have it's big year. Simply because the desktop is dead.
The problem, is that Linux appeals to people who are computer enthusiasts-- people who LOVE computers, because they are simply amazing things, and they want to get the most out of that purchase.
Most people are not like that. They want a computer to do a very short list of things, and want one that will never slow down, break, or get infected with something. For most people, that thing is "I need the internet, facebook, and stuff for work/school." The less they have to actually know about computers, or how computers work (EG, the more "Magic box" like they are) the happier these people are.
Linux dares to expose its internals, and worse yet, DEMANDS that you learn about how it works underneath in order to use it effectively. That is why it has never, and likely will never, take off as a mainstream desktop.
Apple and Microsoft have created the "Shiny plastic experience", and people love it. Linux might as well say "Batteries not included, setup time 6 hours, major assembly required" on the box.
Asking why Linux is not a mainstream desktop environment is like asking why McCalls clothing patterns are not the dominant source of apparel in the market. Sure, you can customize the clothing however you want, and you can modify the patterns to your hearts content--- But dammit, you gotta get the cloth, cut it, sew it together, and all that shit. Why bother when you just want a fashionable new sport top, eh? People would rather spend the money on something somebody else already put together-- VIOLA-- OSX and pals. Shiny plastic. No work.
Linux needs to stop chasing this fantasy where everyone stops being lazy gits and becomes excited computer enthusiasts. They need to understand that they are a niche market, and do that niche very well. Last I checked, that was the Unix philosophy anyway.
For this reason I am opposed to the efforts of Poettering and Pals. Dont dumb down Linux for the masses. There are plenty of shiny plastic offerings out there. There aren't a lot of highly mature offerings for enthusiasts.
The real problem is that each time you upgrade:
If ALL of these were fixed, and the settings were all in one place called settings, and not in "Gnome tweeks", "software centre", "systems administration", "gay tweeking place", and "Other places carefully hidden so you won't find them" Linux would have 200% of the Windows market, However, I agree fixing the video drivers so they actually work might help too. I suspect gaming probably accounts for less than 0.5% of the Windows market. Most people use their phones or a console to game.
As it is, I am moving to wvfm95 on NetBSD.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
You're forgetting a few other categories: gaming and creators. Smartphone or tablets really aren't a good substitute for these, as you really can't do equivalent things. The desktop PC is "dead" in the same way pickup trucks or full sized vans are "dead". Just because a typical consumer doesn't need one doesn't mean there isn't still a significant market, and a valid reason for that market to exist.
PC sales will bottom out as they find their niche (work, gaming, creators), and then stabilize. At the moment, we're seeing a massive slowdown in the PC market for three reasons. First, obviously, smartphones, tablets, and notebooks are the large-scale market consumer devices of choice these days. Second, the PC market is largely saturated. And third, even for those of us to need PCs, those PCs are actually lasting FAR longer than they used to now that we've hit a "fast enough" hardware threshold.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
The only real use for a desktop now is for business use.
You say this as if this is some tiny remnant of the PC market rather than the largest portion of it.
Yeah, the "remnant" of the desktop PC market.
Every time I see statements like the OP's I ask "what about the people who use {photoshop/premierepro/equivalents} as their income-producing software?
Laptops and tablets don't do large-scale video rendering.
Browsers don't do rendering at all, except perhaps as a limited example of what workatations or render farms can do.
Browsers are internet-dependent - which is great when you've got reliable internet.
And independent musicians and video producers don't use browser-based software to render their work.
So the OP is full of shit. There may be a shift away from desktop OS for some parts of the market, but until there's a viable replacement for the rest, desktops and workstations have a market.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
Linux will have the same problems as before: installing 3rd-party software will still be next to impossible unless it has been specially blessed by a "package maintainer". Despite its many flaws, this is one area that Windows managed to democratize (accidentally, and to Microsofts obvous chagrin): everyone can write software for Windows, and that software will run on every Windows OS. Compare that to Linux: I'd like to use GPIB drivers (yes, it's a specialist thing) but it is only available for Red Hat. But maybe I'd also like to use Oracle and that is only available on Oracle Linux. Oh, and I would like to use a special card driver that's not on every Linux either. And if at the end of the day I want to kick back and play some games... Oh, I need Steam OS. My own Windows computer fills all of those roles simultaneously, and it doesn't even have to reboot to switch from one role to another.
All of this is specialist software. All of it can be installed on Windows by clicking next-next-next-finish, and it just works. Sure, if you can get apt-get something from the appity app store, great for you. But that's not a democracy; that's the communist party blessing specific software and selecting what they consider to be useful to their perceived customers. All the software that's not blessed effectively doesn't exist, as far as Linux is concerned. And maybe with a _lot_ of tinkering you can get it to work... or maybe not. Again, on Windows it just works.
This being slashdot I can predict the course moderation will take for this message, but this is what I consider to be Linux' greatest weakness. Ignore it at your peril.
And a year later we know the answer is "No". For me, core reason is not the desktop as such, but interoperability with other systems. Why is setting up Samba such a pain in the you know where and the very few GUI tools for Samba, well, all suck? Add to that the driver issues that are about as bad as those on Win 10 and the rapid dropping of support for older hardware. Oh, and as worse is documentation and decent GUI tool availability. Yea, I want step by step guides and a GUI. It's 2017! The time of manually editing config files in some editor and being told to change a dozen rows of code and the recompile are to be over.
I do enjoy using desktop Linux on my 35$ Pi. As capable as a big PC for light office work and web use.
Yeah, in a way Linux (and if you want to lump Apple in there, UNIX in general) has already won. Almost every tablet, every smartphone, every smart TV, and every car system runs unix. Windows owns the desktop/laptop space - but so what? Even there, Chromebooks account for 50% of education sales - how long before certain businesses realize that most of their workers don't need more than a Chromebook, and all the kids coming in already know how to use them?
If, on the other hand, you mean that people will suddenly start using Ubuntu/KDE/Gnome or what have you, then yeah I think you are probably delusional :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Chromebooks are Linux.
So are TiVo DVRs. What they have in common is that their userland locks the user out of doing several classes of task.
Now that virtually all apps are moving to the Linux-powered cloud
I ride the city bus to and from my day job, and buses in my city do not provide Wi-Fi to riders. Let me know when I can run apps that have "mov[ed] to the Linux-powered cloud" during the commute without having to spend hundreds of dollars per year on a cellular Internet plan on top of what I'm already paying for Internet access at home.
Also let me know when specialized apps, such as machine-level debuggers for NES ROMs, have "mov[ed] to the Linux-powered cloud". I currently use FCEUX in Wine to step through instructions in the video games that I program for my second job.
Developer mode? More like "by turning on the device and pressing two keys as prompted, someone can erase all your unpushed work" mode.
Yet another copy of the famous list of major Linux problems - too bad with many crucial omissions.