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> Since its release 26 years ago, Linux has not only persisted–it has come to dominate every market it enters. Except the mainstream desktop. Linux has not dom
by jdblair 9y ago
> Since its release 26 years ago, Linux has not only persisted–it has come to dominate every market it enters.
Except the mainstream desktop. Linux has not dominated the desktop, nor do I expect it ever will, at least not the desktop in its current form.
(I remember back in 1999 I would tell people that Linux would eventually rule the desktop, we just had to take a long view of at least 10 years. I can now say empirically that 10 years is not a long enough view.)
- pimeys 9y agoWhile desktop market is dead and Linux will not be mainstream in that market, it is an excellent choice as a developer desktop. Fast, super easy to install everywhere and has the best possible packaging systems to get all the software you need. If choosing the right distro, you don't need yearly updates that break your tools or a credit card to use the proprietary app store for certain libraries needed for your open source pipeline. I'm not saying it's perfect, but in 2017 and being a developer, I'd take a serious look how nice of an OS it actually is.
- digi_owl 9y agoI wonder how much of that is technical, and how much of that is dirty play from the gorilla of the market.
- jdblair 9y agoI used to blame monopolistic tactics by Microsoft. There's no doubt that shrewd business moves a big reason for the success of Windows. However, the high quality of Windows developer tools as well as the fragmentation of the Linux desktop (just like the Unix world before it) also both played a huge part.
- digi_owl 9y agoThe fragmentation is overhyped. I worry more about constant willfull breakage with legacy within said desktop, compared how MS still supports Win32 (not so dissimilar from Torvalds "do not break userspace" kernel policy). That said, whenever Linux have appeared to gain a toehold (like with netbooks), MS have dropped lisencing prices and employed rebate programs to make Windows productes the "cheap" option.