On the server Linux was basically carried in by LAMP, as it allowed people to spin up websites at only the cost of the hardware (or rent on server space). Never

On the server Linux was basically carried in by LAMP, as it allowed people to spin up websites at only the cost of the hardware (or rent on server space). Never mind that this as the dot-com bust, and thus there was a whole lot of cheap capacity to be had (kinda reminds one of the microcomputer getting a boost from excess capacity of CPUs thanks to the moon race). On the desktop Linux have a twofold problem. No prominent presence in stores (observe that Android, being a Linux derivative, have a massive presence, and the rise of ChromeOS) and a lack of commitment to API stability from the major lib devs (again contrast Android, where you have versioned APIs going back to the early days).