7 ms·

For Linux to conquer the desktop you'd need for it to beat out Windows or Mac for market share. For it to do that you'd need it to be have competitive usability

by willbw 5y ago

For Linux to conquer the desktop you'd need for it to beat out Windows or Mac for market share. For it to do that you'd need it to be have competitive usability for everyday people, and this is still far off. When I use my linux box at work I have to google for things like, "how do I enable this resolution for my monitor which isn't showing up" and then punch in a bunch of commands into the terminal. The advantages of windows and mac these days are that a lot of stuff 'just works' and secondly that due to their 20-30 year history their desktop application ecosystem is much richer and also much more widely used. User interfaces are also more friendly in general. There's no technical reason why these faults cannot be overcome, but there are significant hurdles in getting a third OS to gain major market share from the incumbents MS and Apple. The reason they have market share in servers is because the experience is better to develop on and it is free. The reason they have market share in mobile is that it was free and Google could build on top of it, and secondly that mobile was a brand new market so there were no incumbents with decades of history. I don't see those conditions replicated for desktop, especially when you consider that desktop is in decline and therefore less attractive to spend capital on. If you want to make Ubuntu as nice as MacOS I think you need a private company willing to spend money and time in a concerted effort to get it to that point, which IMO won't happen.

AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
> If you want to make Ubuntu as nice as MacOS I think you need a private company willing to spend money and time in a concerted effort to get it to that point, which IMO won't happen. Canonical employees would like a word with you.
- willbw 5y ago
  Maybe they can do it if they 10x their revenue.
- nix23 5y ago
  Really and what would the say? Sorry for the blocking "App Store"? The bs we started with mir and never finished ubuntu touch? That all our "home made" code is proprietary?
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  You mean because they "failed" with Unity? (which was technically not a failure I'd say, just a political/funding failure) It seems to underline the necessary financial backing. Canonical barely pulls in 100 million in earnings. Why there isnt't billions of dollars available for Linux alone from governments worldwide for securing and improving Linux since it is currently becoming the backbone of the worldwide data processing and security infrastructure is mystifying. Why NVidia, Nintendo, AMD, Intel, Sony, Samsung, all the Chinese handset makers, Compaq, Dell, and all of them don't provide a billion a year to linux desktop so they can have market leverage against Microsoft and/or enable them to push their hardware out to the OS for utilization by the public at large within months (as opposed to decades for Microsoft) is beyond me. The funny thing with the M1 architecture and OSX: it highlights how the entire PC stack tying themselves to the Microsoft behemoth has them cornered. How do you move to a competitive PC ARM architecture without waiting for MS (even if it has an arm-compatible windows, let's face it it doesn't have the software support or organization behind it) to move it's bloated carcass in about 5 years to support it properly at the OS level. Meanwhile, Linux can support an Arm arch right now with practically all the necessary software. If someone smart was with Linux, they'd have long ago been coordinating a desktop alliance, secret or not, and selling it actively to the major powers who could fund it with chump change. Intel makes 20 billion a quarter. AMD 4 billion. NVidia 7 billion. And then there's the US military. And then there's google compute, AWS, and all the other cloud wannabes besides Azure. Linux is the reason your platforms mint money. Wouldn't you like companies and people to move to cloud-based desktops? Why the EU doesn't fund this for economic competition with american software mystifies me. Why Africa, Asia, and South America don't fund it for language support and an affordable computing ecosystem for their countries is beyond me. I'm not a Torvalds hater, but a super-technical person leading Linux was fantastic for the first 10 years, but really the last 15 needed a different skillset.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    Essentially none of the organizations you've mentioned care about desktop Linux. They may care about the kernel, and many of them do help fund aspects of kernel development. But desktops? It's not relevant to them, or their plans.
B1FF_PSUVM 5y ago
> then punch in a bunch of commands into the terminal. Microsoft are learning - try uninstalling the "Your Phone" application in Windows. (Google it, paste the command into an Admin Powershell ...)
chasil 5y ago
If Microsoft actually follows through with their plan to desupport Windows 10 in 2024, then (guessing) over half of their installed base will be orphaned. Linux now bundles NTFS. What if a rescue distro, that erased \Windows, and ran all the applications under Wine or appropriate emulation, existed at that desupport date? Microsoft's desktop dominance would be over on that date. They would cling to corporate desktops, but the general consumer market would be lost. ReactOS is another wildcard for 2024.
- Shadonototra 5y ago
  microsoft desktop dominance is a myth microsoft lost the application war, everything is web based nowadays developpers moved on linux to deploy their web apps / servers what's left? people moved to smartphones, even for games, smartphone generates more revenue than both console / desktop combined WASM even more showcase it, the present and future is web based interfaces
  - chasil 5y ago
    There are a lot of .EXE's out there. Some of them require Active Directory. In the core of this, Windows is not going anywhere. Linux could do it a LOT of damage, if this 2024 plan is executed.
    - nix23 5y ago
      >Linux could do it a LOT of damage, if this 2024 plan is executed. Haha we said the same with Vista and some even for WindowsME...and nothing has and will happen.
      - Shadonototra 5y ago
        well things happened, windows server went extinct ;)
        nix23 5y ago

by willbw 5y ago

AstroDogCatcher 5y ago

> If you want to make Ubuntu as nice as MacOS I think you need a private company willing to spend money and time in a concerted effort to get it to that point, which IMO won't happen. Canonical employees would like a word with you.

willbw 5y ago
Maybe they can do it if they 10x their revenue.
nix23 5y ago
Really and what would the say? Sorry for the blocking "App Store"? The bs we started with mir and never finished ubuntu touch? That all our "home made" code is proprietary?
AtlasBarfed 5y ago
You mean because they "failed" with Unity? (which was technically not a failure I'd say, just a political/funding failure) It seems to underline the necessary financial backing. Canonical barely pulls in 100 million in earnings. Why there isnt't billions of dollars available for Linux alone from governments worldwide for securing and improving Linux since it is currently becoming the backbone of the worldwide data processing and security infrastructure is mystifying. Why NVidia, Nintendo, AMD, Intel, Sony, Samsung, all the Chinese handset makers, Compaq, Dell, and all of them don't provide a billion a year to linux desktop so they can have market leverage against Microsoft and/or enable them to push their hardware out to the OS for utilization by the public at large within months (as opposed to decades for Microsoft) is beyond me. The funny thing with the M1 architecture and OSX: it highlights how the entire PC stack tying themselves to the Microsoft behemoth has them cornered. How do you move to a competitive PC ARM architecture without waiting for MS (even if it has an arm-compatible windows, let's face it it doesn't have the software support or organization behind it) to move it's bloated carcass in about 5 years to support it properly at the OS level. Meanwhile, Linux can support an Arm arch right now with practically all the necessary software. If someone smart was with Linux, they'd have long ago been coordinating a desktop alliance, secret or not, and selling it actively to the major powers who could fund it with chump change. Intel makes 20 billion a quarter. AMD 4 billion. NVidia 7 billion. And then there's the US military. And then there's google compute, AWS, and all the other cloud wannabes besides Azure. Linux is the reason your platforms mint money. Wouldn't you like companies and people to move to cloud-based desktops? Why the EU doesn't fund this for economic competition with american software mystifies me. Why Africa, Asia, and South America don't fund it for language support and an affordable computing ecosystem for their countries is beyond me. I'm not a Torvalds hater, but a super-technical person leading Linux was fantastic for the first 10 years, but really the last 15 needed a different skillset.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  Essentially none of the organizations you've mentioned care about desktop Linux. They may care about the kernel, and many of them do help fund aspects of kernel development. But desktops? It's not relevant to them, or their plans.

B1FF_PSUVM 5y ago

> then punch in a bunch of commands into the terminal. Microsoft are learning - try uninstalling the "Your Phone" application in Windows. (Google it, paste the command into an Admin Powershell ...)

chasil 5y ago

If Microsoft actually follows through with their plan to desupport Windows 10 in 2024, then (guessing) over half of their installed base will be orphaned. Linux now bundles NTFS. What if a rescue distro, that erased \Windows, and ran all the applications under Wine or appropriate emulation, existed at that desupport date? Microsoft's desktop dominance would be over on that date. They would cling to corporate desktops, but the general consumer market would be lost. ReactOS is another wildcard for 2024.

Shadonototra 5y ago
microsoft desktop dominance is a myth microsoft lost the application war, everything is web based nowadays developpers moved on linux to deploy their web apps / servers what's left? people moved to smartphones, even for games, smartphone generates more revenue than both console / desktop combined WASM even more showcase it, the present and future is web based interfaces
- chasil 5y ago
  There are a lot of .EXE's out there. Some of them require Active Directory. In the core of this, Windows is not going anywhere. Linux could do it a LOT of damage, if this 2024 plan is executed.
  - nix23 5y ago
    >Linux could do it a LOT of damage, if this 2024 plan is executed. Haha we said the same with Vista and some even for WindowsME...and nothing has and will happen.
    - Shadonototra 5y ago
      well things happened, windows server went extinct ;)
      - nix23 5y ago