6 ms·

Is the Linux Desktop Dream Dead?

5 points by macco 16y ago

joubert 16y ago
In the meantime mobile phones will probably (if not already) be most people's interaction with "computing" and there Linux is a compelling story.
InclinedPlane 16y ago
Yes. And no. Linux was never a very good desktop OS. Though it was a fair to perhaps good workstation OS. However, the future of the desktop may well be in mobile-heritage OSes such as iOS and Android. Just as the PC grew to fill its mini-computer and mainframe big brothers' shoes so mobile OSes are likely to mature into robust desktop platforms (though founded on different paradigms). And if that's the case, then the linux desktop dream may yet live indirectly, through android and related offerings (chrome OS, etc.)
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > Linux was never a very good desktop OS Have you ever seriously tried to use it? Because, lacking a proper official definition of what a good desktop OS is, I am very satisfied with the one running in front of me and can only say it's really good. Good as in "solid and predictable". I understand there are Linux distros for every taste, from the heavy-duty-server guy to the most curious hacker that wants to compile the kernel for every upstream release, but I find - and that's first-hand experience - Ubuntu makes for a very nice destkop OS.
  - StavrosK 16y ago
    I agree with you on everything, except the fact that it's solid. In my experience, it crashes a bit more than Windows (Gnome/the GUI does, the rest of the system runs great). E.g. gwibber-service keeps taking up 100% of my CPU at random times, network-manager-applet keeps disappearing, disconnecting me from the net, etc. Other than that, I love it, it's my main OS. I just wish they debugged it a bit more. Ubuntu is known for using bleeding-edge packages rather much...
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      I have experienced some Gwibber weirdness, but in 10.04. It's been behaving very well on 10.10 and I haven't seen Gnome crashes in a long time except one during the upgrade from 10.04 to 10.10 (since no non-linux desktop OS can do such a feat - imagine upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7 while you work on the machine being upgraded... - I consider that a moot point) It's hard to debug with the vast amounts of undocumented hardware people run it on. The developers have access to only a tiny fraction of all the hardware combinations their users have and an even smaller fraction of those have some documentation or specs developers can write for. Graphic accelerators and wireless interfaces are just two very visible categories where far too many hardware manufacturers want to make sure open-source developers fail. There used to be a hardware popularity/test app with Ubuntu. I can't find it on 10.10 but, if it might be useful for you to run it or whatever came to replace it. Also, it's entirely possible very few people run it on the exact hardware you have and filing a bug report may help others with similar problems.
      - StavrosK 16y ago
        Ah, it's good to know Gwibber is fixed in 10.10 (I'm running 10.04). I'm waiting a month or so after each release, because upgrading right after release has given me problems in the past. Gnome doesn't crash completely, just a few applets disappearing or other weirdness. I agree that it's hard to debug wireless adapters or graphics, but gwibber, for example, shouldn't really take up all your CPU like that. It's generally fine, everything works fine on all my computers, except nm-applet, which does crash on three separate computers quite frequently. I hope it's fixed on 10.10, thank you for the info!
        rbanffy 16y ago
        There is no way to escape the fact that Ubuntu has less users than Windows has beta users. It takes a lot of luck to expose more rare bugs during the beta stage, specially in short cycles like Ubuntu's But I kind of like having a new desktop rolled out every 6 months, even if the price is having to troubleshoot stuff or filing bug reports. If I wanted a boring, stable, rock-solid OS, I would run Solaris 10 on my PC ;-) On your nm-applet thing, are the three computers using the same wireless interface?
- flawawa2 16y ago
  Linux is the best desktop OS I ever used. Sure, it required me to learn a bit about its innards and consider what I need and why, but once configured it is a flawless and relaxing experience for me.
nailer 16y ago
I think the desktop itself is dying. The Linux desktop, however, did give birth to KHTML, which became one of the major browser platforms. You can now access your apps without a proprietary software requirement on most devices. A win, but not in the way anyone expected.
forgottenpaswrd 16y ago
Please, don't send FUD here. PCWorld is a magazine witch primary Ad buyer is Microsoft, this kind of magazines live from their ads(I have worked on printing presses), not for their customers paying the magazine. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html No, Linux is not dead, and you make the numbers totally up(1% market share). Linus is not going to be professional in the areas that commercial software makers only support Windows or Mac(games, CAD, CAE, publishing...) until they support Linux, but is the only OS in witch you have total control.
- DisposaBoy 16y ago
  I don't think this has anything to do with Microsoft, they're simply almost 2 weeks late hopping on that band-wagon. Note: the argument is about Linux on the desktop, not Linux as a whole. Linux as a whole does well with adoption elsewhere(mobile, servers, super computing, routers?). I don't really know much about Linux on the desktop as it was never a dream for many of us who have better things to do and I don't think it was ever alive so I don't know how it can now be dead :)
- bad_user 16y ago
  If you would have read the first sentence in that article, you would've seen the author argues the contrary ... that Linux on the desktops is not dead. On the other hand your point is totally useless. Linus is not going to be professional in the areas that commercial software makers only support Windows or Mac NO SHIT ... unfortunately it is not going to happen soon. You know why? Because Linux users don't pay for software, and proprietary software has some kind of stench attached (RMS says so). E.g. Adobe tried to ship Flex Builder for Linux: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/flexbuilder_linux/ http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/flexbuilder_linux/ And I've been to one internal meeting in Adobe that discussed the viability of Linux. Users not paying for software was problem #1, but they still considered it viable because of recent trends (e.g. Dell / Walmart starting to sell Ubuntu / gOS computers). Guess they backtracked on that decision based on consumer feedback.
  - mgkimsal 16y ago
erikstarck 16y ago
Android will be bigger than Windows ever was.
jarin 16y ago
Linux is a passable desktop OS if you're a developer or most of the things you need live in the browser. I have an Ubuntu box loaded up and sitting in the garage just in case my Macbook gets stolen or dies on me, and I know that I'd be able to clone my projects and be up and running and billing clients again in a couple of hours. That being said, desktop Linux is lacking a lot of the other things that I use on a daily basis (no, Gimp and OpenOffice.org are NOT "just as good"), and I just don't enjoy using it as much as OS X. However, I in no way look down on the people who love their Linux desktop machines more than life itself, because without them we wouldn't have things like Webkit, TrueCrypt, VNC, Wine, Eclipse, and Cedega (and its cousin Cider, for running Windows games on Linux and the Mac, respectively). So keep hacking away on your Linux desktop machines!
- StavrosK 16y ago
  I'm the opposite, I used OS X for a few months and found it abysmal for development, really unfit for power-user usage (keyboard accessibility was horrid) and completely uncustomisable. I switched to Linux and never used it again. I used to use Windows before that, but now I've switched all my computers to Linux. Windows is a close favorite (7 is great), but installing the dev tools I need isn't easy (or possible, sometimes). OS X is a distant third.
  - jarin 16y ago
    I can understand that point of view, but I notice that a lot of desktop Linux users bring up UI customization as one of the big arguments for using Linux. I've always seen extensive UI customization as just one more distraction between me and real work. I'd rather just set a flat black or very minimalist wallpaper and get cracking instead of spending hours finding the right interface theme, tweaking the colors and fonts, and designing the perfect wallpaper to highlight my CPU/RAM/weather/calendar desktop widgets (I have done all this before). I'm actually really glad that the only UI customization that's easy to do in OS X is choosing between color or greyscale title bar close buttons.
    - StavrosK 16y ago
fbcocq 16y ago
The 21st-century desktop isn't based on the fat-client desktop of the last 25-years. It exists on the Web in Web-based applications and software as a service (SaaS) and what I call "Content as a Service." If the content providers have their way, you'll view content from the Web instead of downloading it. So I just took a break and played a round of SC2 and now I'm back to do some work in Photoshop/Excel. Just thought you'd like to know.
nightlifelover 16y ago
Yes it is.
rue 16y ago
Daddy, what's a desktop?
bryanlarsen 16y ago
Linux got a lot of momentum from the "Microsoft is evil" camp. However, OS X sucked off most of that momentum, and now I would guess the primary users of Linux are developers who deploy onto Linux servers or embedded devices who realize that it's easier to develop on the same platform you deploy on. (And who have a lot of knowledge about the platform because they deploy on it). But there is a growing "Apple is evil" movement, and I expect Linux to get some momentum from that. I wish that more people would try Linux for it's positive features -- for example, Virtual Desktops is my killer feature, but Linux still gets most of its users because its "not Windows" and "not Apple". One huge advantage that Linux does have is that it's really the only Desktop platform that's seeing rapid advancement. KDE 4 is maturing into a very nice platform, Gnome 3 is coming out soon, all with significant changes and enhancements, for good or bad. OTOH, OS X 10.7 is coming out with what, an app store? Of course, neither Microsoft nor Apple are putting a lot of effort into desktop environments because of their decreasing relevance...
- rbanffy 16y ago
  > for good or bad. OTOH, OS X 10.7 is coming out with what, an app store? ... that could be described as a credit-card-aware half-brained package manager...
drallison 16y ago
I use Ubuntu out of the box for desktop machines and Centos for servers. The Gnome/Ubuntu desktop is OK and way better than XP for me. (Yes, I do know my tastes are 3 sigma away from the norm, but I am not sure which direction.) I am irritated by the tendency of the Linux Desktop designers to clone the Windows and/or the MAC Desktop features and problems, good and bad. I would prefer a Linux Desktop that provides a better interface than the competition, one without the warts of the other products. I do not see the need all the graphical configuration themes and options, which just seem to add complexity. Few of the people I know use anything other than the "standard" configuration simply because a private configuration needs to be maintained and provides almost no marginal advantage. I find Desktop GUI tools are frequently cumbersome and using them causes a lot of busy hand work. Shell command lines, BASH scripts, and Python programs work better for me than the Desktop GUI. I am frustrated when Desktop Tools are not easily usable from scripts as sometimes is the case with Gnome. None the less, I think the Linux Desktop is alive and well.
robwgibbons 16y ago
Linux desktops will never die.

5 points by macco 16y ago

In the meantime mobile phones will probably (if not already) be most people's interaction with "computing" and there Linux is a compelling story.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

Yes. And no. Linux was never a very good desktop OS. Though it was a fair to perhaps good workstation OS. However, the future of the desktop may well be in mobile-heritage OSes such as iOS and Android. Just as the PC grew to fill its mini-computer and mainframe big brothers' shoes so mobile OSes are likely to mature into robust desktop platforms (though founded on different paradigms). And if that's the case, then the linux desktop dream may yet live indirectly, through android and related offerings (chrome OS, etc.)

rbanffy 16y ago
> Linux was never a very good desktop OS Have you ever seriously tried to use it? Because, lacking a proper official definition of what a good desktop OS is, I am very satisfied with the one running in front of me and can only say it's really good. Good as in "solid and predictable". I understand there are Linux distros for every taste, from the heavy-duty-server guy to the most curious hacker that wants to compile the kernel for every upstream release, but I find - and that's first-hand experience - Ubuntu makes for a very nice destkop OS.
- StavrosK 16y ago
  I agree with you on everything, except the fact that it's solid. In my experience, it crashes a bit more than Windows (Gnome/the GUI does, the rest of the system runs great). E.g. gwibber-service keeps taking up 100% of my CPU at random times, network-manager-applet keeps disappearing, disconnecting me from the net, etc. Other than that, I love it, it's my main OS. I just wish they debugged it a bit more. Ubuntu is known for using bleeding-edge packages rather much...
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    I have experienced some Gwibber weirdness, but in 10.04. It's been behaving very well on 10.10 and I haven't seen Gnome crashes in a long time except one during the upgrade from 10.04 to 10.10 (since no non-linux desktop OS can do such a feat - imagine upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7 while you work on the machine being upgraded... - I consider that a moot point) It's hard to debug with the vast amounts of undocumented hardware people run it on. The developers have access to only a tiny fraction of all the hardware combinations their users have and an even smaller fraction of those have some documentation or specs developers can write for. Graphic accelerators and wireless interfaces are just two very visible categories where far too many hardware manufacturers want to make sure open-source developers fail. There used to be a hardware popularity/test app with Ubuntu. I can't find it on 10.10 but, if it might be useful for you to run it or whatever came to replace it. Also, it's entirely possible very few people run it on the exact hardware you have and filing a bug report may help others with similar problems.
    - StavrosK 16y ago
      Ah, it's good to know Gwibber is fixed in 10.10 (I'm running 10.04). I'm waiting a month or so after each release, because upgrading right after release has given me problems in the past. Gnome doesn't crash completely, just a few applets disappearing or other weirdness. I agree that it's hard to debug wireless adapters or graphics, but gwibber, for example, shouldn't really take up all your CPU like that. It's generally fine, everything works fine on all my computers, except nm-applet, which does crash on three separate computers quite frequently. I hope it's fixed on 10.10, thank you for the info!
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        There is no way to escape the fact that Ubuntu has less users than Windows has beta users. It takes a lot of luck to expose more rare bugs during the beta stage, specially in short cycles like Ubuntu's But I kind of like having a new desktop rolled out every 6 months, even if the price is having to troubleshoot stuff or filing bug reports. If I wanted a boring, stable, rock-solid OS, I would run Solaris 10 on my PC ;-) On your nm-applet thing, are the three computers using the same wireless interface?
flawawa2 16y ago
Linux is the best desktop OS I ever used. Sure, it required me to learn a bit about its innards and consider what I need and why, but once configured it is a flawless and relaxing experience for me.

nailer 16y ago

I think the desktop itself is dying. The Linux desktop, however, did give birth to KHTML, which became one of the major browser platforms. You can now access your apps without a proprietary software requirement on most devices. A win, but not in the way anyone expected.

forgottenpaswrd 16y ago

Please, don't send FUD here. PCWorld is a magazine witch primary Ad buyer is Microsoft, this kind of magazines live from their ads(I have worked on printing presses), not for their customers paying the magazine. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html No, Linux is not dead, and you make the numbers totally up(1% market share). Linus is not going to be professional in the areas that commercial software makers only support Windows or Mac(games, CAD, CAE, publishing...) until they support Linux, but is the only OS in witch you have total control.

DisposaBoy 16y ago
I don't think this has anything to do with Microsoft, they're simply almost 2 weeks late hopping on that band-wagon. Note: the argument is about Linux on the desktop, not Linux as a whole. Linux as a whole does well with adoption elsewhere(mobile, servers, super computing, routers?). I don't really know much about Linux on the desktop as it was never a dream for many of us who have better things to do and I don't think it was ever alive so I don't know how it can now be dead :)
bad_user 16y ago
If you would have read the first sentence in that article, you would've seen the author argues the contrary ... that Linux on the desktops is not dead. On the other hand your point is totally useless. Linus is not going to be professional in the areas that commercial software makers only support Windows or Mac NO SHIT ... unfortunately it is not going to happen soon. You know why? Because Linux users don't pay for software, and proprietary software has some kind of stench attached (RMS says so). E.g. Adobe tried to ship Flex Builder for Linux: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/flexbuilder_linux/ http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/flexbuilder_linux/ And I've been to one internal meeting in Adobe that discussed the viability of Linux. Users not paying for software was problem #1, but they still considered it viable because of recent trends (e.g. Dell / Walmart starting to sell Ubuntu / gOS computers). Guess they backtracked on that decision based on consumer feedback.
- mgkimsal 16y ago

erikstarck 16y ago

Android will be bigger than Windows ever was.

jarin 16y ago

Linux is a passable desktop OS if you're a developer or most of the things you need live in the browser. I have an Ubuntu box loaded up and sitting in the garage just in case my Macbook gets stolen or dies on me, and I know that I'd be able to clone my projects and be up and running and billing clients again in a couple of hours. That being said, desktop Linux is lacking a lot of the other things that I use on a daily basis (no, Gimp and OpenOffice.org are NOT "just as good"), and I just don't enjoy using it as much as OS X. However, I in no way look down on the people who love their Linux desktop machines more than life itself, because without them we wouldn't have things like Webkit, TrueCrypt, VNC, Wine, Eclipse, and Cedega (and its cousin Cider, for running Windows games on Linux and the Mac, respectively). So keep hacking away on your Linux desktop machines!

StavrosK 16y ago
I'm the opposite, I used OS X for a few months and found it abysmal for development, really unfit for power-user usage (keyboard accessibility was horrid) and completely uncustomisable. I switched to Linux and never used it again. I used to use Windows before that, but now I've switched all my computers to Linux. Windows is a close favorite (7 is great), but installing the dev tools I need isn't easy (or possible, sometimes). OS X is a distant third.
- jarin 16y ago
  I can understand that point of view, but I notice that a lot of desktop Linux users bring up UI customization as one of the big arguments for using Linux. I've always seen extensive UI customization as just one more distraction between me and real work. I'd rather just set a flat black or very minimalist wallpaper and get cracking instead of spending hours finding the right interface theme, tweaking the colors and fonts, and designing the perfect wallpaper to highlight my CPU/RAM/weather/calendar desktop widgets (I have done all this before). I'm actually really glad that the only UI customization that's easy to do in OS X is choosing between color or greyscale title bar close buttons.
  - StavrosK 16y ago

fbcocq 16y ago

The 21st-century desktop isn't based on the fat-client desktop of the last 25-years. It exists on the Web in Web-based applications and software as a service (SaaS) and what I call "Content as a Service." If the content providers have their way, you'll view content from the Web instead of downloading it. So I just took a break and played a round of SC2 and now I'm back to do some work in Photoshop/Excel. Just thought you'd like to know.

nightlifelover 16y ago

Yes it is.

rue 16y ago

Daddy, what's a desktop?

bryanlarsen 16y ago

Linux got a lot of momentum from the "Microsoft is evil" camp. However, OS X sucked off most of that momentum, and now I would guess the primary users of Linux are developers who deploy onto Linux servers or embedded devices who realize that it's easier to develop on the same platform you deploy on. (And who have a lot of knowledge about the platform because they deploy on it). But there is a growing "Apple is evil" movement, and I expect Linux to get some momentum from that. I wish that more people would try Linux for it's positive features -- for example, Virtual Desktops is my killer feature, but Linux still gets most of its users because its "not Windows" and "not Apple". One huge advantage that Linux does have is that it's really the only Desktop platform that's seeing rapid advancement. KDE 4 is maturing into a very nice platform, Gnome 3 is coming out soon, all with significant changes and enhancements, for good or bad. OTOH, OS X 10.7 is coming out with what, an app store? Of course, neither Microsoft nor Apple are putting a lot of effort into desktop environments because of their decreasing relevance...

rbanffy 16y ago
> for good or bad. OTOH, OS X 10.7 is coming out with what, an app store? ... that could be described as a credit-card-aware half-brained package manager...

drallison 16y ago

I use Ubuntu out of the box for desktop machines and Centos for servers. The Gnome/Ubuntu desktop is OK and way better than XP for me. (Yes, I do know my tastes are 3 sigma away from the norm, but I am not sure which direction.) I am irritated by the tendency of the Linux Desktop designers to clone the Windows and/or the MAC Desktop features and problems, good and bad. I would prefer a Linux Desktop that provides a better interface than the competition, one without the warts of the other products. I do not see the need all the graphical configuration themes and options, which just seem to add complexity. Few of the people I know use anything other than the "standard" configuration simply because a private configuration needs to be maintained and provides almost no marginal advantage. I find Desktop GUI tools are frequently cumbersome and using them causes a lot of busy hand work. Shell command lines, BASH scripts, and Python programs work better for me than the Desktop GUI. I am frustrated when Desktop Tools are not easily usable from scripts as sometimes is the case with Gnome. None the less, I think the Linux Desktop is alive and well.

robwgibbons 16y ago

Linux desktops will never die.