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Nothing killed the Linux Desktop. Windows already won that war and it was good enough. Heck, even Apple and its billions couldn't get more than 5% market share

Nothing killed the Linux Desktop. Windows already won that war and it was good enough. Heck, even Apple and its billions couldn't get more than 5% market share worldwide. The next "war" moved to mobile and there linux is not doing that bad.

Kenji 10y ago
Windows solved many of the GUI problems 20 years ago that Linux still struggles with today. Windows was and is ahead and this is why it was and is more successful. It is that simple. I would take Windows 95's window manager over Ubuntu's Unity every day of the week.
- patrickaljord 10y ago
  I think Unity (and KDE) were good enough to replace Windows but Windows won 10 years before Gnome and KDE became a thing. And yes Windows95 was not only good enough but great as you pointed. The lack of hardware support was because it made no sense for hardware companies to support an OS with less than 1% market share and same for the gigantic ecosystem of software that ran on windows which had a very long tail. My point is that Linux didn't lose the desktop because of any mistakes the community made (and god knows there were many), it lost because Windows had already won this platform for a loooong time and the incentives to switch weren't great (OS are boring, most people don't even know what an OS is).
  - hp 10y ago
    I agree. Many mistakes would have been fine if there was a compelling reason for users to switch. Linux has been successful when it found a greenfield space: Android, Chromebook, x86 servers. The open source aspect isn't magic, it won't make "clone knockoff in an existing space" into an interesting product. This was the root cause, "a new desktop" presupposes the existing product category "desktop" which was a solved problem and a mature market. Runaway marketshare required NEW categories. ABI compat and hardware support are hygiene features; they can slow adoption, but solving them doesn't motivate adoption. Linux needed the motivator; that would have then funded solving the hygiene stuff - just as it has, at least well enough, for x86 servers, Android, and Chromebook. I don't say this with 20/20 hindsight either. I made this point loudly both inside GNOME and inside Red Hat back in the day. We even had chromebook-type proposals. But the Linux companies at that time were too small and server-focused to undertake such things, and once ipad/chromebook/android were out, there wasn't an obvious opportunity anymore for "Linux" proper. Still, "Linux desktop" continues to work well for me and millions of other developers daily and I think it's very good for a dev workstation, as long as you buy hardware with OEM-developed open drivers (which mostly means Intel parts). A lot of people who find it doesn't work for them are doing the equivalent of running OS X on non-Apple hardware with hacks to modify the finder, and surprise it's buggy. Granted, in the Linux world it isn't so clear what the "supported configuration" is. But think boring: default config of a major distribution with all open source drivers...
  - wolfgke 10y ago
    > I think Unity (and KDE) were good enough to replace Windows Also in terms of long-term backwards compatibility? I doubt...
- youdontknowtho 10y ago
  even if the windows api's are kind of painful to use, you can always use them...even if there is a new hotness, the old stuff you wrote will still build or run without modification.
- jlgaddis 10y ago
  fvwm95 is still around.
- wtbob 10y ago
  > I would take Windows 95's window manager over Ubuntu's Unity every day of the week. And I'd take StumpWM over Windows 10. Honestly, I'd take Windows 95's UI over Windows 10. I don't actually mind what the Unity guys are trying to do — it's definitely not for me, and is part of why I left Ubuntu for Debian, but I can see that they are trying to do something good.
ufo 10y ago
The Linux kernel is doing well on mobile but GNU/Linux and open source in general is doing terrible. The status quo right now is that mobile operating systems are super locked down and almost all the software you install on it is proprietary stuff you get from an app store.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  Agreed. I'm currently looking for a new phone, and everything looks like a locked-down POS. I'd love an open, hackable, "actually linux" phone, but I don't know if one is available.
  - flukus 10y ago
    I'm hoping the fairphone (https://shop.fairphone.com/en/ https://shop.fairphone.com/en/) works out well myself, and that I'll be able to install something like ubuntu or sailfish on it.
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      Is that one of the goals? On their homepage they say android. Do they have an ETA for a release?
      - flukus 10y ago
        No, but I think it's meant to be open enough that other people can provide alternative OS's. At least I hope it is, I don't care for the ethical side of things much. ETA is late may. The biggest problem I have with the current alternative OS's is that they only seem to support nexus devices that I'm not interested in. It would be ice if this or something like it became the PC of smart phones.
- flukus 10y ago
  > The status quo right now is that mobile operating systems are super locked down and almost all the software you install on it is proprietary stuff you get from an app store. I think there's been a shift from developers. As a collective we used to value open source a lot more, now the focus seems to be on getting venture capital for private services and the great mobile land grab.
pjmlp 10y ago
> The next "war" moved to mobile and there linux is not doing that bad. Apparently the majority that express this feeling never coded with the Android NDK. What is exposed from Linux there, means Google can easily replace it by something else and most app developers will never notice. This is what is "Linux" for C and C++ code: https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis.html https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis.html They just need to provide this libraries, and if you try to link to some private library, like many used to do, starting with Android 7, the app will get terminated. https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-7.0-changes.html#ndk https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-... Mobile is all about Cocoa Touch, Android Frameworks, .NET/UWP and Web Browsers, the kernels are pretty much irrelevant.

Kenji 10y ago

Windows solved many of the GUI problems 20 years ago that Linux still struggles with today. Windows was and is ahead and this is why it was and is more successful. It is that simple. I would take Windows 95's window manager over Ubuntu's Unity every day of the week.

patrickaljord 10y ago
I think Unity (and KDE) were good enough to replace Windows but Windows won 10 years before Gnome and KDE became a thing. And yes Windows95 was not only good enough but great as you pointed. The lack of hardware support was because it made no sense for hardware companies to support an OS with less than 1% market share and same for the gigantic ecosystem of software that ran on windows which had a very long tail. My point is that Linux didn't lose the desktop because of any mistakes the community made (and god knows there were many), it lost because Windows had already won this platform for a loooong time and the incentives to switch weren't great (OS are boring, most people don't even know what an OS is).
- hp 10y ago
  I agree. Many mistakes would have been fine if there was a compelling reason for users to switch. Linux has been successful when it found a greenfield space: Android, Chromebook, x86 servers. The open source aspect isn't magic, it won't make "clone knockoff in an existing space" into an interesting product. This was the root cause, "a new desktop" presupposes the existing product category "desktop" which was a solved problem and a mature market. Runaway marketshare required NEW categories. ABI compat and hardware support are hygiene features; they can slow adoption, but solving them doesn't motivate adoption. Linux needed the motivator; that would have then funded solving the hygiene stuff - just as it has, at least well enough, for x86 servers, Android, and Chromebook. I don't say this with 20/20 hindsight either. I made this point loudly both inside GNOME and inside Red Hat back in the day. We even had chromebook-type proposals. But the Linux companies at that time were too small and server-focused to undertake such things, and once ipad/chromebook/android were out, there wasn't an obvious opportunity anymore for "Linux" proper. Still, "Linux desktop" continues to work well for me and millions of other developers daily and I think it's very good for a dev workstation, as long as you buy hardware with OEM-developed open drivers (which mostly means Intel parts). A lot of people who find it doesn't work for them are doing the equivalent of running OS X on non-Apple hardware with hacks to modify the finder, and surprise it's buggy. Granted, in the Linux world it isn't so clear what the "supported configuration" is. But think boring: default config of a major distribution with all open source drivers...
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > I think Unity (and KDE) were good enough to replace Windows Also in terms of long-term backwards compatibility? I doubt...
youdontknowtho 10y ago
even if the windows api's are kind of painful to use, you can always use them...even if there is a new hotness, the old stuff you wrote will still build or run without modification.
jlgaddis 10y ago
fvwm95 is still around.
wtbob 10y ago
> I would take Windows 95's window manager over Ubuntu's Unity every day of the week. And I'd take StumpWM over Windows 10. Honestly, I'd take Windows 95's UI over Windows 10. I don't actually mind what the Unity guys are trying to do — it's definitely not for me, and is part of why I left Ubuntu for Debian, but I can see that they are trying to do something good.

ufo 10y ago

The Linux kernel is doing well on mobile but GNU/Linux and open source in general is doing terrible. The status quo right now is that mobile operating systems are super locked down and almost all the software you install on it is proprietary stuff you get from an app store.

CaptSpify 10y ago
Agreed. I'm currently looking for a new phone, and everything looks like a locked-down POS. I'd love an open, hackable, "actually linux" phone, but I don't know if one is available.
- flukus 10y ago
  I'm hoping the fairphone (https://shop.fairphone.com/en/ https://shop.fairphone.com/en/) works out well myself, and that I'll be able to install something like ubuntu or sailfish on it.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    Is that one of the goals? On their homepage they say android. Do they have an ETA for a release?
    - flukus 10y ago
      No, but I think it's meant to be open enough that other people can provide alternative OS's. At least I hope it is, I don't care for the ethical side of things much. ETA is late may. The biggest problem I have with the current alternative OS's is that they only seem to support nexus devices that I'm not interested in. It would be ice if this or something like it became the PC of smart phones.
flukus 10y ago
> The status quo right now is that mobile operating systems are super locked down and almost all the software you install on it is proprietary stuff you get from an app store. I think there's been a shift from developers. As a collective we used to value open source a lot more, now the focus seems to be on getting venture capital for private services and the great mobile land grab.

pjmlp 10y ago

> The next "war" moved to mobile and there linux is not doing that bad. Apparently the majority that express this feeling never coded with the Android NDK. What is exposed from Linux there, means Google can easily replace it by something else and most app developers will never notice. This is what is "Linux" for C and C++ code: https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis.html https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis.html They just need to provide this libraries, and if you try to link to some private library, like many used to do, starting with Android 7, the app will get terminated. https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-7.0-changes.html#ndk https://developer.android.com/about/versions/nougat/android-... Mobile is all about Cocoa Touch, Android Frameworks, .NET/UWP and Web Browsers, the kernels are pretty much irrelevant.