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Is The Linux Desktop In Trouble? (zdnet.com)
"I believe that, as Microsoft keeps moving Windows to a Desktop-as-a-Service model, Linux will be the last traditional PC desktop operating system standing," writes ZDNet contributing editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.
"But that doesn't mean I'm blind to its problems." First, even Linus Torvalds is tired of the fragmentation in the Linux desktop. In a recent [December 2018] TFiR interview with Swapnil Bhartiya, Torvalds said, "Chromebooks and Android are the path toward the desktop." Why? Because we don't have a standardized Linux desktop. For example, better Linux desktops, such as Linux Mint, provide an easy way to install applications, but under the surface, there are half-a-dozen different ways to install programs. That makes life harder for developers. Torvalds wishes "we were better at having a standardized desktop that goes across the distributions."
Torvalds thinks there's been some progress. For software installation, he likes Flatpak. This software program, like its rival Snap, lets you install and maintain programs across different Linux distros. At the same time, this rivalry between Red Hat (which supports Flatpak) and Canonical (which backs Snap) bugs Torvalds. He's annoyed at how the "fragmentation of the different vendors have held the desktop back." None of the major Linux distributors -- Canonical, Red Hat, SUSE -- are really all that interested in supporting the Linux desktop. They all have them, but they're focused on servers, containers, the cloud, and the Internet of Things (IoT). That's, after all, is where the money is.
Linux desktop distros "tend to last for five or six years and then real life gets in the way of what's almost always a volunteer effort..." the article argues. "It is not easy building and supporting a Linux desktop. It comes with a lot of wear and tear on its developers with far too little reward."
His solution? Having a foundation create a common desktop for all Linux distros, so the Linux world could finally reap the benefits of standardization. "This would mean that many more Linux desktop developers could make a living from their work. That would improve the Linux desktop overall quality.
"It's a virtuous cycle, which would help everyone."
"But that doesn't mean I'm blind to its problems." First, even Linus Torvalds is tired of the fragmentation in the Linux desktop. In a recent [December 2018] TFiR interview with Swapnil Bhartiya, Torvalds said, "Chromebooks and Android are the path toward the desktop." Why? Because we don't have a standardized Linux desktop. For example, better Linux desktops, such as Linux Mint, provide an easy way to install applications, but under the surface, there are half-a-dozen different ways to install programs. That makes life harder for developers. Torvalds wishes "we were better at having a standardized desktop that goes across the distributions."
Torvalds thinks there's been some progress. For software installation, he likes Flatpak. This software program, like its rival Snap, lets you install and maintain programs across different Linux distros. At the same time, this rivalry between Red Hat (which supports Flatpak) and Canonical (which backs Snap) bugs Torvalds. He's annoyed at how the "fragmentation of the different vendors have held the desktop back." None of the major Linux distributors -- Canonical, Red Hat, SUSE -- are really all that interested in supporting the Linux desktop. They all have them, but they're focused on servers, containers, the cloud, and the Internet of Things (IoT). That's, after all, is where the money is.
Linux desktop distros "tend to last for five or six years and then real life gets in the way of what's almost always a volunteer effort..." the article argues. "It is not easy building and supporting a Linux desktop. It comes with a lot of wear and tear on its developers with far too little reward."
His solution? Having a foundation create a common desktop for all Linux distros, so the Linux world could finally reap the benefits of standardization. "This would mean that many more Linux desktop developers could make a living from their work. That would improve the Linux desktop overall quality.
"It's a virtuous cycle, which would help everyone."
Standardizing the user interface is what makes a desktop useable.
Haiku is a completely separately developed desktop OS, that rose from the ashes of BeOS after MS killed it, it wouldn't take much to make it compete directly on the same level as Linux and Windows.... mainly graphics driver porting.
It has a Posix layer and supports QT pretty decently in addition to it's very nice BeAPI framework.
And one thing that is *very* clear there is that it is a standardized desktop OS with sane defaults.
I think the potential for doing some really cool stuff there will open up once they release R1 in a few years most likely.
... again (the guy is just an computer nerd: he's views on the real life are, mostly, laughable)
Yes, because the average user wants their desktop to break when they update their OS because their nvidia driver didn't compile correctly because someone thought it was a good idea to rev the GCC version and they GCC folks thought it would be a good idea to enable some weird compiler check from 1997 that nobody in the C/C++ world knows about because this the first time it was implemented. Sigh, any little amount of customization on your desktop and you likely run into a bunch of weird problems that pop up because nobody tested this specific set of of hardware and software configurations. Standards help with those issues but nothing can fix everything and these are all just patched for the core problem. Most distros just don't have the (QA) resources to test and maintain a complex software stack in a modern OS. And when some dumb 25 yro kid decides the problem is in how packages are installed (clearly indicating that they know nothing about the core problems caused by complexity) all they do is increase the workload of the developers. The core problem is that there isn't enough developer time put into bug fixing and testing. Thus the solution only makes the problem worse.
Your comment illustrates the core problem here. You seem to think you have some sort of insight into the problem when there is no real reason for you to believe this. You so overestimate your understanding as to propose and implement "solutions" that do nothing to fix the problem (in this case even making it worse) but you got to put that you work on an opensource project on your CV so who cares. The fact that the world would be a better place without your efforts never enters your mind. Either help out (by learning about how hard it is to keep a distro working it the face of a shifting set software projects that are rarely working together) or fuck off. Linus has likely done more to help others in the last 24 hours than you will do in your entire life and your sad little attempt to tear him down says more about you than Linus.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
I usually don't find Linus to be a sage either, but I think he is right here. Too many applications fail in obvious ways that tech users overlook. Things like: does it install a shortcut for the user after installing? Too often basic things like this are missing. Of course, this comes up on Slashdot often, and there was excellent discussion quite recently on the limitations of desktop Linux.
There is not a single Linux "desktop". That is restricted, authoritarian Windows lore. For example, I use FVWM as "desktop" (properly called a "window manager") and that is not even tied to Linux, but available generally on UNIX and UNIX-like OSes. Hence the connection between a Linux "desktop" and a Linux distro the author is trying to make is pretty much meaningless.
In actual reality, Linux on servers and workstations will be around as long as there is hardware to run it. And that is not going away, especially as Linux is not limited to AMD64 in the first place and runs pretty well on slower hardware. And there will always be people that mistrust the cloud with good reason and that hence want their local, independent computing capabilities.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Despite being a regular user of Xubuntu, I agree with Linus about preferring Flatpak over Snap for this reason: Flatpak docs refer to repositories, plural. A publisher could run its own repository. Snap docs, by contrast, refer to "the Snap Store", singular, and it is considered --dangerous to install a snap from any source other than Canonical Ltd.
It's been a good 10 years since you explored Linux, right? I've had none of these troubles with Debian, Ubuntu, or their many flavors.
And I disagree with Linus. The strength of linux is the different flavors. If you want an easy to use disro, there are many out there. If you want one where you have more control, there are some out there as well.
It's been a good 10 years since you explored Linux, right? I've had none of these troubles with Debian, Ubuntu, or their many flavors.
And I disagree with Linus. The strength of linux is the different flavors. If you want an easy to use disro, there are many out there. If you want one where you have more control, there are some out there as well.
All the examples I gave were from the last year on an older but still maintained Ubuntu distro.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
Most people use Gnome / KDE, but I use XFCE / LXDE / Icewm. WHY STANDARDIZE? We already have several killer desktops. This "holy grail" of standardization of the desktop is not going to win converts. Why? Because people want Outlook and Quick(en|books). They buy the special app they need and the app (mostly) dictates the platform. The "killer app" is going to be .. the apps!
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
The OP was probably referring to the fact that Microsoft required any vendor who sold DOS/Windows to pay them for every PC sold no matter if it had Microsoft software on it or not. That makes it tough to enter the market.
IBM was able to get OS/2 pre-loaded on PCs in Germany without those restrictions and gained 25% marketshare in the few months the vendors were doing it. Even IBM had to give up trying to get an alternative OS on PC hardware and their OS also ran Windows applications...
I ran BeOS on a machine for a short period and was stunned at how well it handled tough tasks.Playing multiple videos on different side of a 3D cube for example and the system was still very responsive.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
The special sauce is Google Play Store. It gets, installs and updates apps for you, and updates automatically. Linux does have package managers but they work differently and independently depending on the distro, and Ubuntu variants have a dedicated update manager that does similar things but they're not consistent, just look at the list of package managers: dpkg apt pacman flatpak snappy rpm and they're not compatible or interchangeable except maybe flatpak and snappy, which usually works on most systems fine. Steam, snappy and flatpak work more like Google Play and Steam's ease of use would make it more like Google Play, and ease of use is the main issue here: if you have to go to the command line people will balk at it.
This thread perfectly illustrates the point by the OP. Everyone immediately turned on each other claiming that "THEIR WAY was the ONLY way" and "all other opinions were shit." Everyone immediately went to discussing the underlying technology of their preferences vs the point that THAT is the problem. Nobody gives a flying **** if you've been compiling your own desktop environment and workflow for the past 30 years. Nobody cares that YOU like x package manager over y. Its irrelevant. You aren't more or less linux than anyone else. The Linux community is virtually without equal in its ability to cannibalize itself with infighting and elitism. The major survivors, Ubuntu, RedHat among a few others quickly realized that trying to unify the rabid base into any cohesive strategy was pointless and worthless. Too much vitriol. I'm not the biggest fan of Linus at times but he is on point here. Of course the opposing point of view that Linux doesn't need a standard desktop is just as valid. There are plenty of "easy button" Linux desktop solutions in the marketplace and a little bit of research will show that basically everyone can get almost anything working on nearly any flavor. Rant over
Adapting it to YOUR needs is *the whole point*
For 99% of desktop users, their needs are for it to just work, and work consistently, and when they want to install something they just click on the installer.
And most importantly, when they want to use a piece of software, it's available and doesn't require a bunch of fucking around to make it work.
Linux is now everywhere. From people wanting to save money to corporations using it. It may never hit 70% desktop share, but it has hit a point where a Linux Desktop will always be a viable solution for those that want it and it fits their needs.
I finally spent the time to learn tiling window managers and get comments that my desktop (awesome) looks like something from the 90s, but it works for me. There are enough awesome-wm users that there's a FreeBSD port and it's available for every popular Linux. If I search google for how to add a widget there are enough online resources to figure out the solution. And I'm a very small fraction of a fraction of Linux users.
I recently switched to pop!OS. Which is pretty well put together by Systems76. It's built on Ubuntu and has a LTS (18.04) that will be supported for a good while. (So it's "binary compatible".
Most major companies release a .deb of their software, even if it's proprietary. Nvidia releases drivers for both FreeBSD AND Linux. (Although CUDA is Linux / Windows only).
Arguing over desktop share is pointless at this point.
It's almost to the point where the *BSD desktop is the same way. Project Trident (https://project-trident.org/) is about where Linux was ~15 years ago.
Yes, because the average user wants their desktop to break when they update their OS because their nvidia driver didn't compile correctly...
Ubuntu (and therefore everything based on it) has the http://ppa.launchpad.net/graph... repositories with the latest precompiled Nvidia drivers. Compiling an Nvidia driver hasn't been necessary in years. And Nvidia has really gotten its Linux act together recently, as their newer drivers integrate into the desktop seamlessly. This obviates all of the GCC stuff. There are legitimate problems, but having to manually compile anything isn't one of them.
My KDE desktop settings have mostly carried over for the last few rolling Kubuntu distribution upgrades. The sole exceptions have all been in the KDEPIN suite, which has gotten so bad that I stopped using every single application in the suite. It went from being a very respectable collection of integrated software to being an unpredictable, data-destroying nightmare that I can't stand anymore.
I have a small list of issues that I think would hold back the average person from being completely self-sufficient with Kubuntu, but none of them are show-stoppers.
Diversity in the Linux desktop world is a good thing, not a bad thing. I really don't get what these two are blathering on about.
Kind of disgusting that some idiot modded you troll for pointing out that Linus is wrong. It would be far from the first time, the Bitkeeper fiasco iss a marquee example. You are 100% right, Linus has not got much useful to say about the Linux desktop. Vaughan-Nichols has got it wrong too with this troll article: the more Microsoft pushes its users to do what they don't want, that is, rent PCs from Microsoft, the more Linux converts we will get. I do agree that Linux is likely to be the last usable desktop standing.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
And we have that, in spades. Gnome, MATE, KDE.
True, that is technically standardizing but I think the real point is there should be one standard. Linux's desktop adoption is a small fraction of that of Windows and it is further fragmented by multiple desktop standards. This is further complicated by the fact that apps will follow one of the standards so even if you use Gnome the chances are you will still run some apps that were designed for KDE or vice versa.
Having a singular standard would fix a lot of this. You would still have the version issue like Windows does but this is far less of an issue because then an old app is still using a standard that you were used to using even if it is not well suited for the current version.
Windows is far and away the OS of choice for consumers and businesses. Why? Because anybody whose uses Windows at home knows how to use it at work. Repeat after me. The Linux user interface blows because itâ(TM)s not consistent.
Windows dominates because of technological lock-in. At one point it managed to grab by far the largest slice of the desktop market when it was young. The Linux desktop wasn't that much of a thing back then, it was too young and undeveloped to offer serious competition. Now everybody is used to Windows, and often has software that works only under Windows, hardware that works only under Windows, etc. It's a positive feedback loop, the fact that Linux desktops exist and actually work quite well on a variety of hardware (typing from a Linux distro right now) is a testament to the platform's resilience and capability.
The only OS seriously taking on Windows and thriving is one whose roots go further back than Windows, and which is made by a hardware manufacturer. Even that is a niche market and tied to only one hardware platform.
Meanwhile Linux has, via Android, become the Windows of the smartphone world. Due to the consistency of the user interface? Well, no, look at the differences between stock Android and the various manufacturer's flavours (Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei LG, etc.), as well as the differences between Android versions (my phone recently upgraded to a new Android version and I flipped after realizing they moved around really important stuff, like where some settings I check and change often are, etc.). It's because Android grabbed the market while it was young. Windows too has changed its interface, Office at one point changed everything, yet Microsoft still dominates these markets...due to lock-in.
Windows is far and away the OS of choice for consumers and businesses. Why? Because anybody whose uses Windows at home knows how to use it at work. Repeat after me. The Linux user interface blows because itâ(TM)s not consistent.
Amen to that. In Windows CTRL-C and CTRL-P does Copy and Paste in everything. In Linux CTRL-C and CTRL-P does Copy and Paste in the desktop but switch to say CLI and you have to remember to use CTRL-SHIFT-C and CTRL-SHIFT-P and despite plenty of complaints about that over the years they still refuse to change it. Its little inconsistencies like that which get really annoying after a while.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Your problem is that you're switching to CLI and expecting the same interface. I'm more of a Ctrl-Insert to copy and Shift-Insert kind of guy, and that works most of the time in both Windows and Linux.
Also it's trivial to configure XTerm or whatever terminal you like to use whatever key combination you want for cut and paste. Not that the end user should have to have to do this themselves.
Standardized interfaces are overrated. As a lefty even everyday tools like scissors and chainsaws made bad design choices for user experience.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire