8 ms·

Linus Torvalds still wants Linux to take over the desktop

52 points by dsego 10y ago

ivoras 10y ago
> Despite the fact that I'm known for sometimes not being very polite to some of the desktop UI people, because I want to get my work done. Pretty is not my primary thing. I actually am very happy with the Linux desktop, and I started the project for my own needs, and my needs are very much fulfilled. Pretty much sums up why it won't happen until someone starts imitating Steve Jobs and DICTATING how The Desktop should look like. And that means more pretty than functional.
- vanderZwan 10y ago
  > Pretty much sums up why it won't happen until someone starts imitating Steve Jobs and DICTATING how The Desktop should look like. But we have plenty of distros where the people behind it do just that?
  - melling 10y ago
    They all suck. Maybe we need another distro? Wow, this is such a difficult problem. Let's just get back to bragging about how many file systems Linux supports. "And how many file systems do Windows and Mac OS support?" "Yuck, yuck, yuck"
    - detaro 10y ago
      You do realize that's something the author ("thought leader") wrote and not a quote?
      - melling 10y ago
        Yes, i do understand that was written by the author. That's why i used quotes.
        detaro 10y ago
        ok, I just found it strange that in the discussion about an article about Linus the most-quoted bit is something he didn't say.
- addicted 10y ago
  I'm not sure if that will help. But if the Linux world did want a Steve Jobs like individual, it has one in Mark Shuttleworth.
- lkiux 10y ago
  I started with amiga, windows (from 3.1 to 2000) and I've been using Linux as my main development and OS since more than 10 years now. I no longer use any other OS. I consider myself lucky I basically never interact with windows anymore. For the cross-os work that I have to do, python with qt covers me to the point that I just perform final testing. Amazing. I used OSX around 10.4 for about four years, because it seemed like the best of both worlds: nice UX with an unix backend. That is, indeed, why OSX appealed to most geeks, right? I became tired of OSX after a couple of years. What apple dictates might look good, but it's far from functional. It's eye candy with little substance. On the surface is pretty, but Finder under OSX was essentially a crapshot. Under Linux I could have virtual desktops, but not under OSX (that only arrived years later). Tweaking, even slightly, any default behavior is hard. That is also the reason why Gnome doesn't appeal to me. The basic OSX desktop doesn't offer anything beyond a current Gnome release. Things change if you need commercial programs, but the desktop itself is not inferior in both behavior, looks and general interaction. Gnome is, performance wise, slower, but the people that use gnome do not seem to notice. Not to mention that what every developer does on OSX is install an external package manager, and by and large replace every single userland utility and library with an up-to-date variant from Brew, MacPorts, etc. This was a massive burden. Any linux distribution is far superior in that regard. I don't think that Gnome today is far away from OSX. Sometimes OSX is smoother, sometimes Gnome actually is. But, my desktop today is nowhere even remotely comparable to what gnome offers. I'm using a tiling window manager with pretty much any program customized to the point of being unrecognizable. It's incredibly efficient compared to a pretty desktop. I'm aggressively disabling eye candy and animations everywhere. I'm often using CLI versions of GUI programs because the actual user interface is superior. Some TUI programs have no rivals in GUI form. The fact is, is that if you use your computer professionally and switch to linux, you start to understand what user interface efficiency is. At some point, eye candy becomes a second, third, fourth priority. This doesn't mean the program is any less usable though. I still value presentation. I'll take a nice UI any day over a crappy one, given the interaction is the same. I've witnessed the same happening to many people that I've suggested linux. Many of those still use windows or mac, but with completely different habits.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    I agree with your post. > Tweaking, even slightly, any default behavior is hard. I understand why they want to restrict tweaking - it makes support easier. Hide the tweaks in config files, make it clear that you're not going to support tweaked systems. But don't ban tweaks.
- afarrell 10y ago
  > that means more pretty than functional. Nope. I left the Linux desktop for OSX not because of aesthetics but because of the freedom from frustration that OS X gave me. Design isn't about making things more pretty, it is about improving the way a system works where the human part of it meets the machine part of it. Linux distros just haven't put in the man-hours to make it a functional desktop for many.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Shivetya 10y ago
    a while back, years ago, I looked at switching to Linux but too many times instead of implementing a consistent interface and action set they would ape another OS (usually Windows) but only partially which leads to frustration as it almost works... I am not sure the desktop needs conquering, we have more than one option and Linux won't make it unless it can get apps that people just have to have
    - afarrell 10y ago
      > unless it can get apps that people just have to have. Which is hard for it to get. Developing an app for desktop Linux means targeting a small group of people who are willing to endure frustration in order to run code whose source is available. Unless you are have some other revenue stream besides your customer, you can't make it more than a hobby.
  - ywecur 10y ago
    I don't think this is the problem at all. Ubuntu, for example, is perfectly usable and a very good alternative to Windows. The main problem, I'd say, is that there really isn't much of a reason to switch. People who buy a computer don't have any incentive to go through the with hassle. If computers came with Ubuntu pre-installed I'm sure people would use those without a second thought.
    - afarrell 10y ago
- rwallace 10y ago
  > And that means more pretty than functional. Not really. I mean if you think about it, the original Macintosh looked like shit even compared to its predecessors; what was it, something like a nine inch screen in black and white, even greyscale it could only do with migraine-inducing dithering. But it could do desktop publishing when pretty much nothing else could, and Macintosh programs mostly used a consistent interface so you could figure out how to use them, and these functional advantages got people to buy the computer. Linux Mint looks as pretty as Windows or Mac OS, and Ubuntu would if they'd change the weird purple color scheme, but what happens when a client sends you an Excel spreadsheet? What happens when you want to plug in a second monitor? What happens when you want to play a triple-A video game? What's the battery life like on a laptop? Those are functional issues that need to be solved.
  - Shorel 10y ago
    > but what happens when a client sends you an Excel spreadsheet? WPS Office covers me on that area. I use spreadsheets every week. > What happens when you want to plug in a second monitor? It works. Beautifully. In fact, I got a Powerpoint presentation, opened it with WPS, and the presentation was shown in the second display, while showing the notes and the rest of the 'WPS Presentation' in the laptop display. > What happens when you want to play a triple-A video game? Now this depends more on how many triple-A video games get sold in Steam for Linux than anything else. The technology is already there. The market is still small. > What's the battery life like on a laptop? This is a serious issue, and it needs to be solved.
- open-source-ux 10y ago
  "And that means more pretty than functional." You can have aesthetically pleasing and functional at the same time - they aren't mutually exclusive. Making the interface attractive doesn't mean 'dumbing down' the interface either. Ubuntu is arguably the most popular Linux Desktop distribution and their model of UX development is to have a dedicated UX team designing the Ubuntu desktop experience. Presumably they read feedback from the community of Ubuntu users but ultimately, they make the final call on UX decisions. The model for open source code contributions just doesn't work for visual and interaction design. (Or if it does, I've yet to see a successful example that wasn't an exception rather than the rule). When there are too many participants in the visual and interaction design of a program or OS, you end up with a project pulled in every direction and pleasing to no-one. But if you go the opposite route and limit design decisions to a dedicated UX team or sole designer, you end up generating resentment from contributors or users who feel their input is being ignored.
  - soulbadguy 10y ago
    This is a very good point which i think is not really discuss much in the community. UX/UI work is very different that base dev. work, and maybe should be approach differently. My other though would that maybe the talent pool of UX designer is just too small in the Open Source world, and that most OSS tend not to treat UX design as a first class requirement.
melling 10y ago
"bringing the number of supported file systems to 35. (Remind me, how many file systems do Mac OS X and Windows support?)" A bunch of fucking nerds who don't understand consumers are never going to take over the desktop. I've watched Linux for 25 years, basically since the beginning. Stop telling people you're going to take over the desktop and figure out how to get another 1%, then repeat. I'd recommend starting with "putting all your wood behind one arrow".
- meira 10y ago
  Your reasoning is flawed. GNU/Linux took over server and mobile. Nothing stops it to happen in desktop anytime soon. No need for a fucking stupid Steve Jobs (I agree with RMS, thanks god Jobs is gone). Edit: this place should not be named "hacker News"
  - tormeh 10y ago
    Android took over mobile. Google could switch out everything GNU or Linux in Android with BSD or whatever next year. There are no unique benefits to Linux outside server/HPC. Sure, it has a huge server ecosystem and is well-suited for HPC, but Google could probably make a replacement that is just as good for smartphone purposes from scratch in 2-3 years.
    - ywecur 10y ago
      > Google could switch out everything GNU or Linux in Android with BSD or whatever next year. What are you trying to say? You could make the same argument for any piece of software in existence.
      - dozzie 10y ago
        He's trying to say that Android is something totally different from Linux. Sure, it currently runs on Linux' kernel, but that's pretty much all. You don't write your program against Linux/unix API, you write it against Android. If Google was to replace Linux kernel in Android with, say, Windows CE kernel, virtually nobody would notice, including most of the Android programmers.
jomamaxx 10y ago
Linus has a serious problem understanding what products are, and what usability means. The commands for git are an example of that -> they don't make sense. They are very poorly designed and counterintuitive. Linus I think has this belief that 'technology & complexity = power' when really, it's 'products that do useful things' that matter. Making seamless experiences matters. Consumers really don't care how many techies think something is cool, they don't care about drivers, or open-source, they just want it to work. Linux could absolutely provide the foundation for the desktop, but whatever is on top of it will have to be equally innovative and provide a lot of value, so much so that I'd argue that the high level OS layer will be 'the hard part' not the kernel. Here's an example: "system, orangeFS, bringing the number of supported file systems to 35. (Remind me, how many file systems do Mac OS X and Windows support?)" Really? Who cares. You only need to support ONE, the right one, and support it well. Maybe there is an advantage in supporting a few others, but not really. This is a perfect example of 'engineering' that doesn't necessarily ad up to any end-user value. "Pretty is not my primary thing." and here it is. Linux conflates 'aesthetics' with 'design'. A very common failure. They are not the same thing, not remotely.
- meira 10y ago
  Do you know/use git? I'm really laughing of all these stupid HNers who think they are better product developer than Linus. Poor boys. Edit: this place should not be named "hacker News"
  - ajankovic 10y ago
    Topic is Desktop computers. Not Development computers. Users of Desktop computers have specific requirements not necessary related to the development. Ignoring their requirements would definitely not allow you to take over the desktop. > this place should not be named "hacker News" Well couldn't you be a "hacker" in terms of UX, product design and other things as well?
    - meira 10y ago
      What is "desktop" computers? In my vision, desktop computers are becoming "development" computers very fast. Day-to-day use with tablets and smartphones are already full of GNU/Linux. It's only a matter of time for it to take desktop too. But "hackers" from here have a little difficult to see it coming (and probably missed it happen in servers and mobile, and have NO IDEA how this impossible shit happened)
KasianFranks 10y ago
That's like expecting the Farmers Market to serve McDonalds hamburgers.
- ywecur 10y ago
  I don't see why you make that comparison. Many distros (Ubuntu comes to mind) certainly cater to the same market as Windows and OS X, and do it very well.
  - KasianFranks 10y ago
    You do not want to refine something, for the sake of simplicity, to the point where you can no longer easily understand what it's ingredients are. You need to be able to manipulate its ingredients (and the ingredients of others), at will, if you are true developer, inventor, creator. I've also been using the Linux on the desktop since 1994 when Yggdrasil and Slackware got started, everyday as a developer.
grobaru 10y ago
Tech people fail to understand that what they do is in some way always connected to "real people's problems and needs". Yes you might be paid to solve abstract compsci problems but they do not directly turn into $$$. You create a new filesystem,programming language or a new operating system but none of it is technically needed.. Most of the people do not buy products because of their technical qualities. Most of the people buy powerful computers because they want to play games. Managers and company owners buy powerful servers to be able to serve content faster. But these servers and useful software does not directly contribute to their revenue. It's the content and its quality. It does not matter how good is your software if it can't solve people's problems. Because most of the people are not programmers,scientists etc
Flow 10y ago
I wonder if Linus would consider a stable ABI for kernel drivers these days. Make it stable across one each major version. So much of the kernel source code is driver code. The old approach was always to release the source code for your driver and they'll incorporate it in the major source tree. WIFI- and GPU-drivers still are very much binary only and don't have source code released.
- hga 10y ago
  That would be the quickest way to allow Linux to be supplanted: being able to incorporate its drivers into your own operating system without constant maintenance would allow you to pass what's by far the highest hurdle in gaining acceptance, being able to run on "everyone's" hardware. ADDED: it might also indeed fix one of the biggest problems with Linux on the desk/laptop. For example, in moving through Debian starting with lenny, skipping jessie (systemd) and moving to Ubuntu LTS 14.04, I've had both sound devices and my Wacom tablet stop working and start working again. This was both severely annoying and expensive in the former case (had to buy a $$$ PCIe sound card to cover for inexpensive and utterly standard USB devices to use Skype (or any other VOIP system) and play music)). Still better than Windows, which I abandoned after XP, and still believe was the right move, but....
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Dunno about wacom, but when it comes to sound there are things like pulseaudio that add extra wrinkles to the issue.
    - hga 10y ago
      That was an USB 1.x issue, had nothing to do with the sound chip behind the USB interface. Yeah, that's right, the kernel crew broke something pretty fundamental in that primarily desktop device driver (servers are going do be doing heavy duty things with USB 2 and above), and nobody noticed and/or cared enough to not ship it with squeeze. That's also the version that broke the Wacom support as I recall, it came back with wheezy or maybe Ubuntu Vivid's kernel. Pulse Audio is pretty awful, but I've always been able to get it to do my bidding, modulo not being able to get the Ubuntu version I'm using to multiplex outputs (I can probably make that happen, it's not a Pulse Audio issue per se I'm pretty sure, but it's just easier to switch output from stereo system to headphones the few times I use Skype).
bhaak 10y ago
In my world, Linux has also taken over the desktop. For my personal needs, I would never consider OSX or Windows for that task. The desktop feels currently like a neglected area. OSX gets more iOSified with every release, whatever Microsoft does gets booed, regardless if it's good or bad. Much functionality that used to be on the desktop has wandered into the browser. What desktop you're using isn't as important as it used to be. I wonder if that pendulum ever swings back.
- ywecur 10y ago
  Who even uses features exclusive to desktops anymore? I do for development, I'm sure video editors and the like do, but which ordinary consumer does? The future of desktops I see is something like: Chrome OS: 70% of computers for ordinary use Windows: 20% of computers for gaming OS X: 5% of computers for video editing Linux: 5% of computers for development
  - EvgeniyZh 10y ago
    I can't imagine using computer that can't run without internet
qwani1 10y ago
steam OS looks promising as to get the gaming people to see that games run superior under open source Linux, specially when you need speed and accuracy in operating system functions , my hope that Linus and the linux foundation support valve breakthrough.
- ywecur 10y ago
  1. Do games even run better on Steam OS? Last I checked they ran quite noticeably slower. 2. Steam is still a proprietary platform, though I can see how their support would benefit all distros' gaming capabilities.
- lake99 10y ago
  SteamOS is holding back the Linux community. SteamOS is still based on Debian 8 (Jessie). Steam software often clashes with existing libraries of a current system. When I benchmarked Steam games, they delivered only 65% of the Windows performance figures when run on Linux. I am thankful that SteamOS is nothing more than a lab experiment. If that became popular, Valve will not pay any attention to us, regular Linux users.
88e282102ae2e5b 10y ago
In Ubuntu, the mouse pointer disappears after locking the screen or suspending [1], and the Fn button combo can take minutes to change screen brightness [2]. These bugs have been around for months and years, respectively. You simply cannot get non-power users to use an operating system with issues like this. Perhaps there's a more polished distro, but if the one that's touted as the beginner-friendly one has such obvious user-facing problems, it's just not feasible to get past 1% market share. [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1573454 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1573454 [2] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-power-manager/+bug/847001 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-power-manage...
- 0xmohit 10y ago
  Your point is perhaps valid, but we're talking about an OS where people can even contribute bug fixes (agree that the percentage might be 0.1% or much less). On the other hand, people get used to living with issues such as: 'High CPU use by taskhost.exe when Windows 8.1 user name contains "user"' [0]. Possibly because we've become so accustomed (slaves?) to a certain computing environment. Moreover, you can't even contribute a bug fix. Ubuntu on Windows hasn't arrived as a service to Windows users. This is an acknowledgement of a growing threat (at least in a limited developer community). -- That said, get rid of Unity and Ubuntu would suddenly so much better. Canonical might have damaged Linux lesser if it made Openbox the default WM. [0] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3053711 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3053711
  - eveningcoffee 10y ago
    That said, get rid of Unity and Ubuntu would suddenly so much better. Canonical might have damaged Linux lesser if it made Openbox the default WM. I do not understand from where comes all this constant Unity bashing. I think that this is actually what creates the real damage. I think that Unity is great user interface that takes the maximum out of the current distorted screens and I have used it for years as my main (and only) desktop.
    - 10y ago
WalterSear 10y ago
So does microsoft, if what they did to my parent's pc last month is any sign.
tormeh 10y ago
Linux won't succeed on the desktop until someone takes a commercial interest in doing so. In order to have a motivation and ability to make Linux work for the masses you need to earn money off of desktop users. It's extremely unclear to me why such a commercial actor should choose Linux over something newer and shinier like Redox. Sure, there's a bit more work to be done with Redox, but not that much (you only need one file system for desktop) and in return they'd get technology from this side of the millennium as opposed to 1970s tech. EDIT: What I mean is that without earning money off of the end-users, developers will develop a product for themselves, not normal users. That's fine. That's FOSS developers's prerogative. But it won't make Linux on the desktop take off.
- soulbadguy 10y ago
  This, 100 % this. Linux hasn't succeed on the desktop because the business case for it is weak. The success of ubuntu is in large part due to the financial input of Mark Shuttleworth/canonical. For linux on desktop to move to the next step we need a way to generate revenue out of it. I do think there is a market for it ( a small one), and but that the main hurdle to a commercial desktop linux distro are cultural as opposed to anything else. I am not sure if i agree that something like redox would make more sense than using linux. The most lucrative market for linux desktop right now would be dev/front-end and backend. Going to redox you would lose all that ecosystem. I think microsoft is realizing that which is why they are pushing the linux on windows thing. But definitly, an desktop os based on something more modern than unix would be awesome
- Shorel 10y ago
  There's Canonical (and their software store) and there are Steam machines. The commercial interest is there. I don't see what has Redox to do with your point, or if you are simply trying to leverage this thread to promote it, but I guess any downvote comes from that angle.
anta40 10y ago
I think this is a fine goal, and I wish Linus a good luck. As a software developer, I'm fine with Linux,I think I can I live with a non-Windows system. Of course the problem is I still play games on my laptop/PC :p
EvgeniyZh 10y ago
I believe the answer about why Linux isn't dominating on desktop is hidden in the answer about why it dominates for example, servers. And why that? Because many companies put much money into Linux and server software for it. This software is not direct source of income so their is no point to hide it from other, but it's better to develop it together. Of course, top companies can create great software. Desktop is a different story. It's pretty hard to make the same amount of money on desktop open-source software. So profit from it - and thus desktop software is developed by enthusiasts. Enthusiasm is good, but it results in worse quality of software, even though these are the best developers in the world developing it. As soon as there is way to get profit not from selling software - it can get good open-source implementation - e.g. browsers (incomes from ad) or game engines (UE4 for example is not FOSS, but source code is published because you just can't publish game and not pay). Yet no altherntive for Photoshop, or CAD, or Chessbase. That was a bit messy, but I hope you got my point. You want to promote Linux on desktops - just invent a method to earn on OSS same amount of money es from selling software - the wave of open sourcing will be enormous.
digi_owl 10y ago
The problem is not Linux, it is Windows. A: bulk discounts. B: bundling C: embrace extend extinguish All these combine to shore up the Windows presence on the desktop.

52 points by dsego 10y ago

> Despite the fact that I'm known for sometimes not being very polite to some of the desktop UI people, because I want to get my work done. Pretty is not my primary thing. I actually am very happy with the Linux desktop, and I started the project for my own needs, and my needs are very much fulfilled. Pretty much sums up why it won't happen until someone starts imitating Steve Jobs and DICTATING how The Desktop should look like. And that means more pretty than functional.

vanderZwan 10y ago
> Pretty much sums up why it won't happen until someone starts imitating Steve Jobs and DICTATING how The Desktop should look like. But we have plenty of distros where the people behind it do just that?
- melling 10y ago
  They all suck. Maybe we need another distro? Wow, this is such a difficult problem. Let's just get back to bragging about how many file systems Linux supports. "And how many file systems do Windows and Mac OS support?" "Yuck, yuck, yuck"
  - detaro 10y ago
    You do realize that's something the author ("thought leader") wrote and not a quote?
    - melling 10y ago
      Yes, i do understand that was written by the author. That's why i used quotes.
      - detaro 10y ago
        ok, I just found it strange that in the discussion about an article about Linus the most-quoted bit is something he didn't say.
addicted 10y ago
I'm not sure if that will help. But if the Linux world did want a Steve Jobs like individual, it has one in Mark Shuttleworth.
lkiux 10y ago
I started with amiga, windows (from 3.1 to 2000) and I've been using Linux as my main development and OS since more than 10 years now. I no longer use any other OS. I consider myself lucky I basically never interact with windows anymore. For the cross-os work that I have to do, python with qt covers me to the point that I just perform final testing. Amazing. I used OSX around 10.4 for about four years, because it seemed like the best of both worlds: nice UX with an unix backend. That is, indeed, why OSX appealed to most geeks, right? I became tired of OSX after a couple of years. What apple dictates might look good, but it's far from functional. It's eye candy with little substance. On the surface is pretty, but Finder under OSX was essentially a crapshot. Under Linux I could have virtual desktops, but not under OSX (that only arrived years later). Tweaking, even slightly, any default behavior is hard. That is also the reason why Gnome doesn't appeal to me. The basic OSX desktop doesn't offer anything beyond a current Gnome release. Things change if you need commercial programs, but the desktop itself is not inferior in both behavior, looks and general interaction. Gnome is, performance wise, slower, but the people that use gnome do not seem to notice. Not to mention that what every developer does on OSX is install an external package manager, and by and large replace every single userland utility and library with an up-to-date variant from Brew, MacPorts, etc. This was a massive burden. Any linux distribution is far superior in that regard. I don't think that Gnome today is far away from OSX. Sometimes OSX is smoother, sometimes Gnome actually is. But, my desktop today is nowhere even remotely comparable to what gnome offers. I'm using a tiling window manager with pretty much any program customized to the point of being unrecognizable. It's incredibly efficient compared to a pretty desktop. I'm aggressively disabling eye candy and animations everywhere. I'm often using CLI versions of GUI programs because the actual user interface is superior. Some TUI programs have no rivals in GUI form. The fact is, is that if you use your computer professionally and switch to linux, you start to understand what user interface efficiency is. At some point, eye candy becomes a second, third, fourth priority. This doesn't mean the program is any less usable though. I still value presentation. I'll take a nice UI any day over a crappy one, given the interaction is the same. I've witnessed the same happening to many people that I've suggested linux. Many of those still use windows or mac, but with completely different habits.
- DanBC 10y ago
  I agree with your post. > Tweaking, even slightly, any default behavior is hard. I understand why they want to restrict tweaking - it makes support easier. Hide the tweaks in config files, make it clear that you're not going to support tweaked systems. But don't ban tweaks.
afarrell 10y ago
> that means more pretty than functional. Nope. I left the Linux desktop for OSX not because of aesthetics but because of the freedom from frustration that OS X gave me. Design isn't about making things more pretty, it is about improving the way a system works where the human part of it meets the machine part of it. Linux distros just haven't put in the man-hours to make it a functional desktop for many.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Shivetya 10y ago
  a while back, years ago, I looked at switching to Linux but too many times instead of implementing a consistent interface and action set they would ape another OS (usually Windows) but only partially which leads to frustration as it almost works... I am not sure the desktop needs conquering, we have more than one option and Linux won't make it unless it can get apps that people just have to have
  - afarrell 10y ago
    > unless it can get apps that people just have to have. Which is hard for it to get. Developing an app for desktop Linux means targeting a small group of people who are willing to endure frustration in order to run code whose source is available. Unless you are have some other revenue stream besides your customer, you can't make it more than a hobby.
- ywecur 10y ago
  I don't think this is the problem at all. Ubuntu, for example, is perfectly usable and a very good alternative to Windows. The main problem, I'd say, is that there really isn't much of a reason to switch. People who buy a computer don't have any incentive to go through the with hassle. If computers came with Ubuntu pre-installed I'm sure people would use those without a second thought.
  - afarrell 10y ago
rwallace 10y ago
> And that means more pretty than functional. Not really. I mean if you think about it, the original Macintosh looked like shit even compared to its predecessors; what was it, something like a nine inch screen in black and white, even greyscale it could only do with migraine-inducing dithering. But it could do desktop publishing when pretty much nothing else could, and Macintosh programs mostly used a consistent interface so you could figure out how to use them, and these functional advantages got people to buy the computer. Linux Mint looks as pretty as Windows or Mac OS, and Ubuntu would if they'd change the weird purple color scheme, but what happens when a client sends you an Excel spreadsheet? What happens when you want to plug in a second monitor? What happens when you want to play a triple-A video game? What's the battery life like on a laptop? Those are functional issues that need to be solved.
- Shorel 10y ago
  > but what happens when a client sends you an Excel spreadsheet? WPS Office covers me on that area. I use spreadsheets every week. > What happens when you want to plug in a second monitor? It works. Beautifully. In fact, I got a Powerpoint presentation, opened it with WPS, and the presentation was shown in the second display, while showing the notes and the rest of the 'WPS Presentation' in the laptop display. > What happens when you want to play a triple-A video game? Now this depends more on how many triple-A video games get sold in Steam for Linux than anything else. The technology is already there. The market is still small. > What's the battery life like on a laptop? This is a serious issue, and it needs to be solved.
open-source-ux 10y ago
"And that means more pretty than functional." You can have aesthetically pleasing and functional at the same time - they aren't mutually exclusive. Making the interface attractive doesn't mean 'dumbing down' the interface either. Ubuntu is arguably the most popular Linux Desktop distribution and their model of UX development is to have a dedicated UX team designing the Ubuntu desktop experience. Presumably they read feedback from the community of Ubuntu users but ultimately, they make the final call on UX decisions. The model for open source code contributions just doesn't work for visual and interaction design. (Or if it does, I've yet to see a successful example that wasn't an exception rather than the rule). When there are too many participants in the visual and interaction design of a program or OS, you end up with a project pulled in every direction and pleasing to no-one. But if you go the opposite route and limit design decisions to a dedicated UX team or sole designer, you end up generating resentment from contributors or users who feel their input is being ignored.
- soulbadguy 10y ago
  This is a very good point which i think is not really discuss much in the community. UX/UI work is very different that base dev. work, and maybe should be approach differently. My other though would that maybe the talent pool of UX designer is just too small in the Open Source world, and that most OSS tend not to treat UX design as a first class requirement.

melling 10y ago

"bringing the number of supported file systems to 35. (Remind me, how many file systems do Mac OS X and Windows support?)" A bunch of fucking nerds who don't understand consumers are never going to take over the desktop. I've watched Linux for 25 years, basically since the beginning. Stop telling people you're going to take over the desktop and figure out how to get another 1%, then repeat. I'd recommend starting with "putting all your wood behind one arrow".

meira 10y ago
Your reasoning is flawed. GNU/Linux took over server and mobile. Nothing stops it to happen in desktop anytime soon. No need for a fucking stupid Steve Jobs (I agree with RMS, thanks god Jobs is gone). Edit: this place should not be named "hacker News"
- tormeh 10y ago
  Android took over mobile. Google could switch out everything GNU or Linux in Android with BSD or whatever next year. There are no unique benefits to Linux outside server/HPC. Sure, it has a huge server ecosystem and is well-suited for HPC, but Google could probably make a replacement that is just as good for smartphone purposes from scratch in 2-3 years.
  - ywecur 10y ago
    > Google could switch out everything GNU or Linux in Android with BSD or whatever next year. What are you trying to say? You could make the same argument for any piece of software in existence.
    - dozzie 10y ago
      He's trying to say that Android is something totally different from Linux. Sure, it currently runs on Linux' kernel, but that's pretty much all. You don't write your program against Linux/unix API, you write it against Android. If Google was to replace Linux kernel in Android with, say, Windows CE kernel, virtually nobody would notice, including most of the Android programmers.

jomamaxx 10y ago

Linus has a serious problem understanding what products are, and what usability means. The commands for git are an example of that -> they don't make sense. They are very poorly designed and counterintuitive. Linus I think has this belief that 'technology & complexity = power' when really, it's 'products that do useful things' that matter. Making seamless experiences matters. Consumers really don't care how many techies think something is cool, they don't care about drivers, or open-source, they just want it to work. Linux could absolutely provide the foundation for the desktop, but whatever is on top of it will have to be equally innovative and provide a lot of value, so much so that I'd argue that the high level OS layer will be 'the hard part' not the kernel. Here's an example: "system, orangeFS, bringing the number of supported file systems to 35. (Remind me, how many file systems do Mac OS X and Windows support?)" Really? Who cares. You only need to support ONE, the right one, and support it well. Maybe there is an advantage in supporting a few others, but not really. This is a perfect example of 'engineering' that doesn't necessarily ad up to any end-user value. "Pretty is not my primary thing." and here it is. Linux conflates 'aesthetics' with 'design'. A very common failure. They are not the same thing, not remotely.

meira 10y ago
Do you know/use git? I'm really laughing of all these stupid HNers who think they are better product developer than Linus. Poor boys. Edit: this place should not be named "hacker News"
- ajankovic 10y ago
  Topic is Desktop computers. Not Development computers. Users of Desktop computers have specific requirements not necessary related to the development. Ignoring their requirements would definitely not allow you to take over the desktop. > this place should not be named "hacker News" Well couldn't you be a "hacker" in terms of UX, product design and other things as well?
  - meira 10y ago
    What is "desktop" computers? In my vision, desktop computers are becoming "development" computers very fast. Day-to-day use with tablets and smartphones are already full of GNU/Linux. It's only a matter of time for it to take desktop too. But "hackers" from here have a little difficult to see it coming (and probably missed it happen in servers and mobile, and have NO IDEA how this impossible shit happened)

KasianFranks 10y ago

That's like expecting the Farmers Market to serve McDonalds hamburgers.

ywecur 10y ago
I don't see why you make that comparison. Many distros (Ubuntu comes to mind) certainly cater to the same market as Windows and OS X, and do it very well.
- KasianFranks 10y ago
  You do not want to refine something, for the sake of simplicity, to the point where you can no longer easily understand what it's ingredients are. You need to be able to manipulate its ingredients (and the ingredients of others), at will, if you are true developer, inventor, creator. I've also been using the Linux on the desktop since 1994 when Yggdrasil and Slackware got started, everyday as a developer.

grobaru 10y ago

Tech people fail to understand that what they do is in some way always connected to "real people's problems and needs". Yes you might be paid to solve abstract compsci problems but they do not directly turn into $$$. You create a new filesystem,programming language or a new operating system but none of it is technically needed.. Most of the people do not buy products because of their technical qualities. Most of the people buy powerful computers because they want to play games. Managers and company owners buy powerful servers to be able to serve content faster. But these servers and useful software does not directly contribute to their revenue. It's the content and its quality. It does not matter how good is your software if it can't solve people's problems. Because most of the people are not programmers,scientists etc

Flow 10y ago

I wonder if Linus would consider a stable ABI for kernel drivers these days. Make it stable across one each major version. So much of the kernel source code is driver code. The old approach was always to release the source code for your driver and they'll incorporate it in the major source tree. WIFI- and GPU-drivers still are very much binary only and don't have source code released.

hga 10y ago
That would be the quickest way to allow Linux to be supplanted: being able to incorporate its drivers into your own operating system without constant maintenance would allow you to pass what's by far the highest hurdle in gaining acceptance, being able to run on "everyone's" hardware. ADDED: it might also indeed fix one of the biggest problems with Linux on the desk/laptop. For example, in moving through Debian starting with lenny, skipping jessie (systemd) and moving to Ubuntu LTS 14.04, I've had both sound devices and my Wacom tablet stop working and start working again. This was both severely annoying and expensive in the former case (had to buy a $$$ PCIe sound card to cover for inexpensive and utterly standard USB devices to use Skype (or any other VOIP system) and play music)). Still better than Windows, which I abandoned after XP, and still believe was the right move, but....
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Dunno about wacom, but when it comes to sound there are things like pulseaudio that add extra wrinkles to the issue.
  - hga 10y ago
    That was an USB 1.x issue, had nothing to do with the sound chip behind the USB interface. Yeah, that's right, the kernel crew broke something pretty fundamental in that primarily desktop device driver (servers are going do be doing heavy duty things with USB 2 and above), and nobody noticed and/or cared enough to not ship it with squeeze. That's also the version that broke the Wacom support as I recall, it came back with wheezy or maybe Ubuntu Vivid's kernel. Pulse Audio is pretty awful, but I've always been able to get it to do my bidding, modulo not being able to get the Ubuntu version I'm using to multiplex outputs (I can probably make that happen, it's not a Pulse Audio issue per se I'm pretty sure, but it's just easier to switch output from stereo system to headphones the few times I use Skype).

bhaak 10y ago

In my world, Linux has also taken over the desktop. For my personal needs, I would never consider OSX or Windows for that task. The desktop feels currently like a neglected area. OSX gets more iOSified with every release, whatever Microsoft does gets booed, regardless if it's good or bad. Much functionality that used to be on the desktop has wandered into the browser. What desktop you're using isn't as important as it used to be. I wonder if that pendulum ever swings back.

ywecur 10y ago
Who even uses features exclusive to desktops anymore? I do for development, I'm sure video editors and the like do, but which ordinary consumer does? The future of desktops I see is something like: Chrome OS: 70% of computers for ordinary use Windows: 20% of computers for gaming OS X: 5% of computers for video editing Linux: 5% of computers for development
- EvgeniyZh 10y ago
  I can't imagine using computer that can't run without internet

qwani1 10y ago

steam OS looks promising as to get the gaming people to see that games run superior under open source Linux, specially when you need speed and accuracy in operating system functions , my hope that Linus and the linux foundation support valve breakthrough.

ywecur 10y ago
1. Do games even run better on Steam OS? Last I checked they ran quite noticeably slower. 2. Steam is still a proprietary platform, though I can see how their support would benefit all distros' gaming capabilities.
lake99 10y ago
SteamOS is holding back the Linux community. SteamOS is still based on Debian 8 (Jessie). Steam software often clashes with existing libraries of a current system. When I benchmarked Steam games, they delivered only 65% of the Windows performance figures when run on Linux. I am thankful that SteamOS is nothing more than a lab experiment. If that became popular, Valve will not pay any attention to us, regular Linux users.

88e282102ae2e5b 10y ago

In Ubuntu, the mouse pointer disappears after locking the screen or suspending [1], and the Fn button combo can take minutes to change screen brightness [2]. These bugs have been around for months and years, respectively. You simply cannot get non-power users to use an operating system with issues like this. Perhaps there's a more polished distro, but if the one that's touted as the beginner-friendly one has such obvious user-facing problems, it's just not feasible to get past 1% market share. [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1573454 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1573454 [2] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-power-manager/+bug/847001 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-power-manage...

0xmohit 10y ago
Your point is perhaps valid, but we're talking about an OS where people can even contribute bug fixes (agree that the percentage might be 0.1% or much less). On the other hand, people get used to living with issues such as: 'High CPU use by taskhost.exe when Windows 8.1 user name contains "user"' [0]. Possibly because we've become so accustomed (slaves?) to a certain computing environment. Moreover, you can't even contribute a bug fix. Ubuntu on Windows hasn't arrived as a service to Windows users. This is an acknowledgement of a growing threat (at least in a limited developer community). -- That said, get rid of Unity and Ubuntu would suddenly so much better. Canonical might have damaged Linux lesser if it made Openbox the default WM. [0] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3053711 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3053711
- eveningcoffee 10y ago
  That said, get rid of Unity and Ubuntu would suddenly so much better. Canonical might have damaged Linux lesser if it made Openbox the default WM. I do not understand from where comes all this constant Unity bashing. I think that this is actually what creates the real damage. I think that Unity is great user interface that takes the maximum out of the current distorted screens and I have used it for years as my main (and only) desktop.
  - 10y ago

WalterSear 10y ago

So does microsoft, if what they did to my parent's pc last month is any sign.

tormeh 10y ago

Linux won't succeed on the desktop until someone takes a commercial interest in doing so. In order to have a motivation and ability to make Linux work for the masses you need to earn money off of desktop users. It's extremely unclear to me why such a commercial actor should choose Linux over something newer and shinier like Redox. Sure, there's a bit more work to be done with Redox, but not that much (you only need one file system for desktop) and in return they'd get technology from this side of the millennium as opposed to 1970s tech. EDIT: What I mean is that without earning money off of the end-users, developers will develop a product for themselves, not normal users. That's fine. That's FOSS developers's prerogative. But it won't make Linux on the desktop take off.

soulbadguy 10y ago
This, 100 % this. Linux hasn't succeed on the desktop because the business case for it is weak. The success of ubuntu is in large part due to the financial input of Mark Shuttleworth/canonical. For linux on desktop to move to the next step we need a way to generate revenue out of it. I do think there is a market for it ( a small one), and but that the main hurdle to a commercial desktop linux distro are cultural as opposed to anything else. I am not sure if i agree that something like redox would make more sense than using linux. The most lucrative market for linux desktop right now would be dev/front-end and backend. Going to redox you would lose all that ecosystem. I think microsoft is realizing that which is why they are pushing the linux on windows thing. But definitly, an desktop os based on something more modern than unix would be awesome
Shorel 10y ago
There's Canonical (and their software store) and there are Steam machines. The commercial interest is there. I don't see what has Redox to do with your point, or if you are simply trying to leverage this thread to promote it, but I guess any downvote comes from that angle.

anta40 10y ago

I think this is a fine goal, and I wish Linus a good luck. As a software developer, I'm fine with Linux,I think I can I live with a non-Windows system. Of course the problem is I still play games on my laptop/PC :p

EvgeniyZh 10y ago

I believe the answer about why Linux isn't dominating on desktop is hidden in the answer about why it dominates for example, servers. And why that? Because many companies put much money into Linux and server software for it. This software is not direct source of income so their is no point to hide it from other, but it's better to develop it together. Of course, top companies can create great software. Desktop is a different story. It's pretty hard to make the same amount of money on desktop open-source software. So profit from it - and thus desktop software is developed by enthusiasts. Enthusiasm is good, but it results in worse quality of software, even though these are the best developers in the world developing it. As soon as there is way to get profit not from selling software - it can get good open-source implementation - e.g. browsers (incomes from ad) or game engines (UE4 for example is not FOSS, but source code is published because you just can't publish game and not pay). Yet no altherntive for Photoshop, or CAD, or Chessbase. That was a bit messy, but I hope you got my point. You want to promote Linux on desktops - just invent a method to earn on OSS same amount of money es from selling software - the wave of open sourcing will be enormous.

digi_owl 10y ago

The problem is not Linux, it is Windows. A: bulk discounts. B: bundling C: embrace extend extinguish All these combine to shore up the Windows presence on the desktop.