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Rant: Year of Linux on the desktop

• qroolen 4y ago
  let them discover the joy of xmonad
• lnxg33k1 4y ago
  To me it never made sense, people point out issues that makes linux not suitable for desktop use by quoting how it should follow Windows or OSX approach... to me someone wanted to use linux but without using linux, at that point why don't they use windows or OSX? I also use linux on the desktop and the way it behaves matches my thinking process, If I wanted it to be used as Windows or OSX I would be using Windows or OSX
  • Aaargh20318 4y ago
    > at that point why don't they use windows or OSX? Because for a lot of people the point is to use a free (as in speech) OS. They are fine with how OSX or Windows works, and they want Linux to work the same. They simply want a good, user-friendly free desktop OS.
    • lnxg33k1 4y ago
      That's a fair point, I don't have an answer for that case but fair
  • kitsunesoba 4y ago
    > to me someone wanted to use linux but without using linux, at that point why don't they use windows or OSX? I also use linux on the desktop and the way it behaves matches my thinking process, If I wanted it to be used as Windows or OSX I would be using Windows or OSX People want Linux to act like other operating systems because: 1. They want an easy alternative that doesn’t require extensive relearning should their original OS of choice become unpalatable for some reason 2. Advocates of desktop Linux have endlessly sung praises about how customizable it is and how that flexibility is a core tenet, so why shouldn’t it be able to act identically to Windows or macOS, at least as far as UI goes? The first is particularly big, because remember that at this point a lot of people have decades of usage of Windows/macOS under their belt, and even if switching to Linux is a practical consideration for them, such users probably aren’t keen on tossing out all their little bits of power user knowledge and productivity boosting tricks and having to start out from almost scratch.
    • EamonnMR 4y ago
      Part of this is about distro selection. I have a decade plus of windows9x, XP, and 7 experience, so I use Lubuntu which works pretty much exactly like they did, and is honestly less surprising/confusing than Windows 10 (I skipped 8.) My understanding is that there are also distros that closely match the mac experience. If you pick up a distro like mainline Ubuntu you might be confronted with potentially confusing new opinions about how desktops should work. I lucked out and tried it back in the Gnome 2 days when it felt like XP.
      • kitsunesoba 4y ago
        There are distros/DEs that get within shooting distance of the Windows experience but don’t quite achieve it. The devil is in the details. There’s nothing that replicates macOS unfortunately. Many point to GNOME, but it’s much more like iPadOS than macOS, or to elementaryOS but it only shares some aesthetics with core features like the global menubar or super-based (as opposed to control-based) key shortcuts being entirely absent. For the latter there’s hacks like Kinto[0] but this is the sort of thing that really needs to be part of the DE. [0]: https://kinto.sh/ https://kinto.sh/
        • lnxg33k1 4y ago
          >>> There are distros/DEs that get within shooting distance of the Windows experience but don’t quite achieve it. The devil is in the details. Well, a while ago Ubuntu implemented amazon ads in the start menu
    • MrPowerGamerBR 4y ago
      > Advocates of desktop Linux have endlessly sung praises about how customizable it is and how that flexibility is a core tenet, so why shouldn’t it be able to act identically to Windows or macOS, at least as far as UI goes? This is something that I always bothered me. I love using middle click to scroll (you middle click, then move your mouse up and down) in Windows, but there isn't any way to do this in Linux. You can enable it in Firefox for Linux but not on the entire OS, and trying to ask people about this just makes people reply with "why would you want to do this if the default is middle click to copy??". There are ways to sort of mimic this behavior, but none 100% matches how Windows work.
  • safety1st 4y ago
    People who say linux should follow a Windows or OSX approach 1) don't use linux and 2) don't understand what makes a good product or brand. I don't really care how many people use Linux, it's been my daily driver for a decade and I don't need other people to use it - I just need them to use compatible file formats or sometimes the same web apps as me which is increasingly a solved problem, for people who really need Adobe CS or something they are not going to be using Linux this decade. Linux can enjoy great success if it finds a suitable OS market segment -- hello Steam deck and Steam OS? After a few tries Gabe may be on to something. If it happens it will have nothing to do with competing with Microsoft or Apple on their terms. In the meantime I don't really give a shit because it's great for me and I use it. I do think the GPL world in general is missing some kind of amazing positioning opportunity - don't know what exactly or how to fix it but basically most of Big Tech are not liked because they're abusers, and GPLed software is the antidote.
  • TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    Does Linux finally have something like a Device Manager on Windows? Because last time I tried, there is just no BFU suitable way to figure out what is status of this or that peripheral.
• josteink 4y ago
  I don’t get this obsession everyone outside the Linux-space has with desktop Linux being viable or not. To me, as a developer who likes to form the tools to fit my needs (as opposed to doing the opposite), Linux is great. It’s not for everyone. It’s not perfect in all ways, but for me it represents a pretty decent local maxima, and that’s all that matters for me. I could probably rant on about how desktop Windows can never be a true developer OS, because it definitely doesn’t work out for me. But you know what? I’m not going to do that. Clearly it works for some people as I see some people using Windows for development tasks. Maybe that’s their local maxima? Who am I to judge? Why obsess over what OS can and can not be used on the desktop (or server)? Why focus on negatives? Why can’t we all just get along? ;)
  • bee_rider 4y ago
    It is quite a weird assumption I think, that the open source community should want a year of Linux on the desktop. It is a nice project and I’m sure everyone would like it the world to get as much use out of it as possible. But it is a community developed effort. Adding a bunch of new non-technical users to the community who don’t do development wouldn’t be a win, it would be a big new tech support problem with not much upside. I think it must just be a wrong assumption based on accidentally applying the motivations of for-profit operating systems or something.
  • gsich 4y ago
    I think this obsession is mainly from inside the Linux-space.
  • ownagefool 4y ago
    It's not just people outside the community. I've used linux professionally for a long time. I've also used it as my desktop / laptop OS on and off for about the same amount of time. From a purely selfish point of view, I'd like to stop dual booting. 60% of my CS:GO time is in windows because of faceit anti-cheat. Beyond that, I almost need another OS. Now I have a bunch of reasons why I think open platforms are better, but they don't matter. Pragmatism tells me that if enough people use linux to game, the anti-cheat problem will go away. There's other software, but wine mostly works now. Ergo, I don't actually want a steam deck, but I really hope it does well. :)
• tetek 4y ago
  reminds me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSeImqbV30s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSeImqbV30s
• pfoof 4y ago
  I don't even know what is that concept of "year of linux desktop", I use Ubuntu then Mint since 2011 as the daily driver and have never had any more problems than on Windows (maybe because I'm not a gamer or play only niche games) and I don't give a ff about anyone using anything else
  • Agingcoder 4y ago
    I'm not sure it's relevant anymore actually. In the 90s there was some ongoing fight between 'good' Linux and 'evil' Microsoft Windows. Since this was the beginning of the internet (by which I mean the web) for the general public, and there was virtually no mobile computing (phones, etc), the territory to win was perceived to be the regular pc desktop. Every year, Linux advocates would claim that this year was the year of the Linux desktop (and that Linux would topple Windows and become the dominant OS on personal computers), and every year, well, it didn't happen. These days, the market is just different : computers are not only desktop computers, but also phones, blu ray player, tvs, smart speakers, and software running on a server is reachable through a browser. In many ways, Linux is dominant, but simply because it took the new, much bigger,non desktop markets, and the desktop doesn't matter that much these days.
    • fsflover 4y ago
      So it's time to declare the year of (GNU/)Linux on mobile. 2022 year was such year for me. Now I'm using Librem 5 as a daily driver.
• hpaavola 4y ago
  At least for me "year of Linux on the desktop" is not about "can Linux be used on desktop" because of course it is possible. For me it means Linux being a popular choice on the desktop. That it is not.
  • hajile 4y ago
    Go to any Walmart or BestBuy here in the US and you'll see an entire row of Chromebooks for sale. They don't do this because these devices don't sell. Steamdeck has now sold tons of desktop-class devices running Linux. I'd also note that Windows is ubiquitous, but hardly popular. People who know about computers tend to have not-so-great opinions of both MS and Windows while people who don't know about computers are only using Windows because it's what comes bundled with their machine. For the rest, MS has directly or indirectly paid to keep the software they need stuck in the Wintel duopoly (though that is also slowly changing).
    • hpaavola 4y ago
      SteamDeck is not desktop device, it's pretty much single usecase machine. It is for gaming and that's how most use it. And there is no need to take bad samples and anecdotes on how widely used Linux is. There are multiple longstanding companies tracking the usage numbers of various operating systems. Linux on non-mobile devices is really rare exception.
      • Zhyl 4y ago
        You can dock the Deck and use it as a desktop with a monitor, mouse and keyboard. It runs a KDE desktop and many people have said they're using it as their daily driver now.
      • capableweb 4y ago
        > Linux on non-mobile devices is really rare exception. Linux is widespread on basically every single type platform out there, if not dominant in most of them. The only where it's currently lagging is laptops, and of course not as popular as other OSes on desktop. But on the rest of the platforms out in the world, Linux and various derivations is very popular.
• lawn 4y ago
  And with Proton and the Steam Deck, Valve is also removing the argument that you can't game on Linux. For those who don't know, it's basically a PC in the form of a Switch, with access to a large part of the Steam library (even a lot of unsupported games play well if you're willing to tweak things). It has very good specs for a handheld, and you can emulate most games up to the Switch, and some Switch games run even better on the deck than on the Switch. As it's open, you can even install Windows or replace parts if you want. It has surpassed all my expectations and it feels like the deck together with Proton is solving the last big obstacle with Linux on desktop.
  • Zhyl 4y ago
    I still see people arguing against it in very much the same manner as the article outlines. "Linux won't be viable for gaming until it has Anti-cheat" EAC and Battleye announce Proton support "Linux won't be viable for gaming until there are AAA titles working" Apex Legends, Fall guys and a bunch of other titles get support "Linux won't be viable for gaming until the Steam Deck can meet demand" Valve increase production "Linux won't be viable for gaming until I can run Fortnite, Destiny 2 and Xbox Game pass" Well you have me there..
    • posix86 4y ago
      You're putting up a scarecrow... you're saying people said that linux was perfect for gaming, except for the fact that it doesn't have anti cheat? No way. If anything, people said: If Linux wants to take off, it needs to have anticheat, but a whole lot more too.
      • Zhyl 4y ago
        Friend, I've had each of the arguments stated above as absolute statements. The format of the arguments aren't coherent or well thought through. It uses the quoted argument as a jumping off point before going into an anti-Linux rant, often citing the perception that the year of the Linux desktop has been "coming for 20 years" (or pick whatever number you want) or that the Linux community are toxic (which is ironic since most of the attacks are incredibly toxic). I think it's laudable that you're giving these people the benefit of the doubt, but they absolutely do exist and their positions are always thin or in bad faith.
• tomComb 4y ago
  This sentiment is not popular with most Linux advocates, but I think that cross-platform toolkits are great for the less popular platforms, so they should be more accepted. If you write a flutter app for Linux then it will also work everywhere else. If you write a flutter app for iOS/android - which is the most common scenario - then let's get you to tweak it for desktop Linux.
  • eduction 4y ago
    Fully agree. I think this was also key to the macOS/OS X comeback but with web apps instead of the electron/flutter type stacks we have now. All those little specialized win32 apps for, like, dentists and accountants and navigation and filing expenses and so on moved to the web, which really eroded Windows’ lock in (obligatory citation of https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost-the-api-war/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost...). Electron and flutter type stacks have extended this trend I predict along the same lines a comeback for Java on the client. Java desktop apps used to feel heavy and awkward but these days they look downright svelte. No good mobile story - yet.
  • bitexploder 4y ago
    I use many electron apps. i don’t like that they are electron, and they are more bloated than native. However, my laptop and desktop never come close to needing more RAM. Each app is basically just a heavy browser tab. The UX is acceptable. That is about it really.
    • cultofmetatron 4y ago
      I have a ton of ram. the biggest issue I have with electron is that it sucks battery down. As cto of a startup, I fully understand the case for it. one codebase, less to maintain and easier to focus on pumping out features. That said, I wish slack would consider going all native for their desktop apps. Its a memory hog and for something that runs on my desktop all day, I would prefer if it sipped power and ran fast
      • 4y ago
• rvz 4y ago
  > Next year, 2023, will be my thirtieth year of Linux on the desktop, and the thirtieth year of being told it’s not possible to use Linux on the desktop, or to only use Linux on the desktop. Some of the people telling me this weren’t born when I started using Linux on the desktop. Says a hardcore Linux user. This is what happens when you shove the Linux Desktop to people like artists and the distro 'support' becomes EOL. [0] Thousands of complaints, headaches in updating the system software and if all else fails, migration hell. Now in 2023, we are still telling users to "choose a distro for Desktop" and companies to 'define Linux Desktop support' for their GUI apps which they still cannot do and support all distros like many can with the latest supported versions of Windows or macOS. This is an eternal issue for the Linux Desktop. At this point the best Linux Desktop is Windows with WSL2 and requires no reformatting, partitioning, migrating and reconfiguring dotfiles in window managers. [0] https://drive.google.com/file/d/15b-4GMTSEE9tyqeQdBfy_LZnxQIdp38Y/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/15b-4GMTSEE9tyqeQdBfy_LZnxQI...
  • josteink 4y ago
    > At this point the best Linux Desktop is Windows with WSL2 I tried this once to see if I could run the Linux-version of Emacs, on Windows, because the native Windows-version has terrible performance. After an hour or so if fiddling I still couldn’t get X-forwarding working and concluded that WSL2 is a console-only toy. It’s not near being a complete enough Linux-environment.
    • raghavkukreti 4y ago
      That seems like bad metric to define the state of WSL since X-forwarding is very easy to do. You just install https://sourceforge.net/projects/vcxsrv/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/vcxsrv/, run it, then `export DISPLAY="$(grep nameserver /etc/resolv.conf | sed 's/nameserver //'):0"` in WSL and you're good to go.
    • echeese 4y ago
      It may be worth trying again. On the latest version of WSL2 I've had success in running stuff like Firefox right out of the box.
• scrlk 4y ago
  GTK recently added thumbnails to the file picker, so maybe 2023 will be the Year of the Linux desktop? /s
  • Ennea 4y ago
    You added an /s to the end, but I think this is one of many valid arguments/pain points for a lot of people. It was for me, too: I've been using Linux at work and on my servers for years, but up until recently (September), I was running Windows on my Desktop PC. Now I'm dual booting Windows and Arch Linux, usually using the latter. Windows exists for a handful of games that rely on anti-cheat solutions that do not run on Linux. The reason it took me this long to use Linux at home were my so-so experiences with Gnome and its derivatives and other DEs I had used: the devil is in the detail. Linux _worked_, but there were always small things that made using it as a daily driver unnecessarily painful. The Gnome save file dialog highlights the file name as being selected, which suggests it is in focus. But when I start typing, a search in the current folder is started instead. Likewise, when typing anything in the file browser, a search in that folder is being started (as opposed to jumping to files and/or folders matching what I'm typing). This and many other small bothersome things kept me away from Linux as my daily desktop driver for a long time. Microsoft's decision to require a Microsoft account for even the professional version of Windows 11 made me finally decide to switch, and the first DE I had tried (because I had heard so many good things) was KDE. And what a surprise that was, because as it turns out: KDE got all of those little details absolutely right. The file dialogs are heaps better than Gnome's/GTK's, Dolphin (its file browser) is an absolute bliss to use, and so much more. So, looking back, all it took (at least for me) was just KDE. Better late than never ;)
    • scrlk 4y ago
      Your experience sounds a lot like mine - I first cut my teeth on the Linux desktop when I was a kid, using Ubuntu 7.10. As I had an Athlon 64 at the time I thought it'd be cool to run the amd64 build, only to find out that there were no amd64 drivers for my NIC! Played around with various distros and DEs, but ended up switching back to Windows due to various sharp corners in the desktop UX. Always kept a toe in the water by occasionally booting in to a live DVD or a VM over the years. The progress has been incremental, sometimes a step back (e.g. early GNOME 3.x), but when you look at the bigger picture, it's definitely noticeable and going in the right direction. I've tried Windows 11 and can't get along with the UI, not to mention the forced online account and data mining. I'll keep running Windows 10 until it goes out of support in 2025 and evaluate my options then. I can see three possible paths: * Switch to Windows 10 IoT Enterprise, which buys me another 5 years of support * Switch to Windows 11 (or whatever they call the next version), if they roll back some of the annoying changes * Switch to Linux - increasingly looking like the path for me, given the improvements in UI/UX
• alerighi 4y ago
  To me the year of Linux on a desktop arrived years ago. I'm waiting for the year of Linux on a laptop, because unfortunately, and I'm a free software supporter, I've to say that a Macbook works objectively better than a laptop with Linux on it (and there is small to blame to Linux to be fair, but to hardware manufacturers that doesn't provide a good support, and to be fair even Windows on the same hardware doesn't work that great in most laptop that I see...).
  • thecrumb 4y ago
    What issues do you run into? I run PopOS on an ancient ThinkPad T420 and a new Lenovo P15 - no issues on either one. Wifi works. Decent battery life.
    • hutzlibu 4y ago
      The classic problems are suspend and hibernation issues, along with worse performance and battery life compared to windows (with manufactur optimised drivers).
    • wildrhythms 4y ago
      I can't get Linux to not drain my laptop battery when the lid is closed. On my M1 Air I can close the lid and come back a week later with maybe a couple percent less battery; on my Framework with PopOS it drains after just a day (default settings).
      • fullstop 4y ago
        Same experience here. Also, getting Pop!_OS configured to hibernate looked quite daunting and not worth the effort if you have an existing install.
      • hatch_q 4y ago
        Probably goes to S2 instead of S3 deep sleep. Had the same issue on microsoft surface (running Linux on it) - i needed to tweak few kernel flags to force it into deep sleep.
    • 4y ago
• ianai 4y ago
  “Next year, 2023, will be my thirtieth year of Linux on the desktop, and the thirtieth year of being told it’s not possible to use Linux on the desktop, (…) Despite everything, it’s been fun. I’ve been lucky to have been able to take part of this journey.” My HS gaming days were capped off with me running my games under linux. This was 2000-2002. (Ultimately i went to college, attempted a double math/physics major, and had no time for gaming.) Don’t let others tell you what you can do or what will make you happy. For linux, definitely be a ray of inspiration for adoption by showing off your desktop and how easy it is achieve-advocacy. Or don’t, of course. Edit-I get the feeling linux/foss has made a huge difference to the developing or low income world getting online and even industry. That, to me, is at least as important than what Windows did for the desktop.
• mkl95 4y ago
  I have been dual booting Windows / Linux on the desktop for ages. Each of them allow me to be very productive on some specific tasks, and I'm OK with it. Also Windows has progressively lost relevance for me, because Linux keeps letting you do more and more things that used to require Windows.
• luma 4y ago
  This bit struck me interesting > I’ve been part of the Linux community since before Linux was called Linux Was Linux not called Linux until some time after release?
  • delusional 4y ago
    Yep, it was originally named "Freax" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#Naming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux#Naming
  • bluepizza 4y ago
    It was called Freax for a small period of time.
  • deadbunny 4y ago
    From Wikipedia: > Linus Torvalds had wanted to call his invention Freax, a portmanteau of "free", "freak", and "x" (as an allusion to Unix). During the start of his work on the system, he stored the files under the name "Freax" for about half of a year. Torvalds had already considered the name "Linux", but initially dismissed it as too egotistical. > In order to facilitate development, the files were uploaded to the FTP server (ftp.funet.fi) of FUNET in September 1991. Ari Lemmke at Helsinki University of Technology (HUT), who was one of the volunteer administrators for the FTP server at the time, did not think that "Freax" was a good name. So, he named the project "Linux" on the server without consulting Torvalds. Later, however, Torvalds consented to "Linux". > To demonstrate how the word "Linux" should be pronounced ([ˈliːnɵks]), Torvalds included an audio guide (listen (help·info)) with the kernel source code. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux
    • dredmorbius 4y ago
      Or if you prefer primary sources: <https://liw.fi/linux20/ https://liw.fi/linux20/>
• oblak 4y ago
  For me, as a gamer, Linux was not viable until about a decade ago when MS, in their infinite wisdom, pushed Valve to make it viable for gaming. This has always been my major problem with it. Sure, I could - and did - play Quake 3 on Linux 20 years ago. My god, it used to start immediately whereas it used to take 2 seconds on Windows. Not sure if that was on ttimo, who I believe did the port for id, or just ext being faster. But what else was out there? Pretty much nothing besides Tux Racing and similar toy projects. Almost no one else bothered until MS tried a little bit too hard. And Linux is the superior platform in terms of gaming, except that my Valve Index doesn't fucking work properly anymore. For your stupid compositor, Valve. I pad 1080 euro for this thing.
  • fragmede 4y ago
    Ugh. I've heard good things about the Steam deck though.
    • oblak 4y ago
      The Deck looks fantastic. Would've totally gotten one if I had any use for it but I have two modern desktops for desk and TV gaming so yeah. It doesn't look like they'll abandon it like they did with the Index. In fact, this little device may in fact play a major role in Linux desktop adoption beyond the couple of percent that get attributed to it
• guerrilla 4y ago
  I think this whole meme died as soon as Steam/Proton started being okay. None of the other criticisms were ever in good faith. Linux has been great for everything else for a very long time. Some people do have legitimate criticisms but they are mostly nitpicking and making mountains out of molehills. When gaming becomes great on Linux it's game over for the entire industry of these arguments.
  • Ygg2 4y ago
    Pretty sure meme died, because desktop is dying, due to hardware slowing down and mobile boom. Linux has the problem of no commercially successful distro, wasted duplication of effort (which DE, which sound manager, which compositor) and no backwards compatibility (user facing software). Add onto that reliance on CLI, and lagging behind Windows features for 10+ years, and in-kernel nature of drivers and you have a recipe for lagging.
• fragmede 4y ago
  Imo the year of the Linux Desktop has passed us by. There was peak Linux Desktop in like 2007 before the X11/Wayland mess and before Gnome imploded where it was this totally usable thing. So in a lot of ways, the Linux Desktop is here in the form of ChromeOS.
• jmclnx 4y ago
  Nice little article, and funny these 'memes' still get heard. Linux is now has a lot of polish now, for the last 5 years I have been saying to all the young developers, if you are not on Linux (or BSD), move to it. For Development, Linux is the place to be. FWIW, I have been exclusively using Linux at work (RHEL) as a desktop for over 10 years. It is a fortune 500 company and I moved as soon as it was allowed. But the other developers in my group still stick to Windows even though I have told them you really need to learn Linux.
• ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  > Despite everything, it’s been fun. I’ve been lucky to have been able to take part of this journey. Yup. I'm not a Linux person, but I have been an Apple developer for 36 years, so I have had much shade thrown my way (sometimes, by Apple).
• ergonaught 4y ago
  I've used Linux since 1993 or 1994 (Slackware 1.0), including "Linux on the desktop" for most of that, and typically only use anything else when "forced" to do so. This resonated.
• juusto 4y ago
  For my usage I am still heavily dependent on Macs since Adobe suite isn't available for Linux and the alternatives just do not compare. Neither in performance or interoperability. Davinci is a nice alternative to Premiere but Lightroom and Photoshop still reign supreme. For the rest I am 100% on Linux as well. I used to game on Windows but MS made it such a hassle I just went Linux instead.
• lp4vn 4y ago
  Ubuntu has already accomplished the year of linux on the desktop many years ago. Ubuntu is a good platform for development, for doing office work and even for gaming it's ok now with steam. Unless you're really dependent of a small fraction of things you can't really do on linux, it's been a pretty for many years already. The second point is about popularity. Who still uses a desktop? Normal people now do most of their stuff on smartphones, tablets or consoles, desktop is that boring thing used only for work in your office. The desktop died before linux becoming popular, that's the reality.
  • timbit42 4y ago
    Ubuntu was a good desktop but they've let that go. Now Linux Mint has taken the crown.
• frou_dh 4y ago
  In general, most OS vs OS debates are pointless because so many people go at it with the unconscious bias "I have extensive experience of X. When I try Y then all the parts that work differently from X are obviously wrong and stupid". I guess it's a lot easier to believe that something works in wrong and stupid ways, than admitting that unfamiliarity feels uncomfortable when you're used to feeling like an expert.
• Mikeb85 4y ago
  I've been using Linux on laptops for the last decade or so with no issues. Dunno why the naysayers are so adamant, I haven't had a single hardware feature/piece of hardware not work in a very, very long time (a Wifi card in 2008 or so on my desktop which I just replaced).
• O1111OOO 4y ago
  From OP: "the thirtieth year of being told it’s not possible to use Linux on the desktop, or to only use Linux on the desktop." Except for a percentage of users with special needs (corporate office software, gaming), I honestly don't think anyone is saying this. Also, the numbers have been looking great for a while[0]. I may be of the minority opinion that does _not_ want "The Year of the Linux Desktop"(TM). In every instance that I've seen software usage cross a certain threshold, I've seen it dumbed down and abused. Decades ago, I remember trying to get people excited about computing. When they finally got on board, my email address was circulating the globe via chain letters. Spam began to rule. Blogspam took over 'teh internets'. Operating Systems lost their ability to tweak and nearly all decisions were made by a corporate overlord. Now these same OSes are filled with advertising, tracking and surveillance. I could go on with so many examples. I think Linux is doing just fine positioned where it is. You can keep the newbies (who more often fight you against positive change) and the vultures they attract. Linux doesn't have to convince or persuade or become anyone's idea of popular. It will, however, be here when you _need_ it. ----------- [0] https://findly.in/how-many-linux-users-are-there/ https://findly.in/how-many-linux-users-are-there/
• javajosh 4y ago
  Linux must run well on ALL laptops because every distro tells you to just burn a USB stick, install on your rando laptop, and it will work great! Which is, if course, a lie. You end up with a lot of disappointed users who have "done the experiment" and have determined that the Linux desktop doesn't work! Which is true, for their hardware. Distros aren't doing anyone any favors by not warning potential users that their hardware may not be compatible.
  • nerdchum 4y ago
    How bad is it? Is it just the occasional peripheral that doesn't work? Or will systems fail to run entirely?
    • maccard 4y ago
      "occasional peripheral" is usually WiFi, trackpad, Bluetooth or GPU. Bluetooth may be manageable from that list, but if one of those 4 doesn't work pretty much out of the box, it's a non starter for most people
      • doix 4y ago
        In my very small sample size, those things "work" well enough. What doesn't work is sleep state and power management. Just my personal experience, but that's what I'm always fiddling with. My laptop still drains much faster in Linux with the lid shut and "sleeping" despite my fiddling. Hopefully this will be sorted in the next few years and the technology doesn't change again.
        • noirbot 4y ago
          Yea, power management is absolutely terrible. I've been messing with it for a year, but I can't really get my Linux laptop on any distro to have better than about 2 hours of battery life while running, and 5-6 while in "standby". That said, the wifi and mouse issues are often by far the worst. It's probably somehow related to the standby stuff, but sometimes I'll just log in and it'll decide my trackpad didn't reinitialize correctly, so rebooting is the only option to easily fix it. There's also a persistent issue with Gnome where the modal for asking for a password for a wifi connection just crashes consistently until you restart. It's happened to me on 4 different distros.
• deleted 4y ago
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• abacadaba 4y ago
  Na still not the year until proton has hdr support, so close though.
• phant0mas 4y ago
  I am using Linux exclusively for the last 8 years as my main os. Nowadays all the games I want run on Linux, even AAA ones. All the applications I need run on Linux. This is the best time to be a linux user. :)
• pipeline_peak 4y ago
  > I’ve been part of the Linux community since before Linux was called Linux What was it called?
  • dredmorbius 4y ago
    Freax. You might find this of interest for the longer story: <https://liw.fi/linux20/ https://liw.fi/linux20/>
• jrm4 4y ago
  This guy gets it. I think the most interesting idea in this space would be the following. Try to consider how locked down and garbage both Windows and Apple desktops would be if it weren't for the pressure and innovation of the Linux desktop(s). This is where I realized the Linux Desktop is "winning" -- or at least doing exactly what it should be doing and is doing an exemplary job of it; being the free example that's coming to eat your lunch and keeping everyone else honest and quality. True competition. It's roughly similar to the difference between email and Twitter. It's not great that email is very centrally controlled by gmail et al, but a hell of a lot better than the Twitter trashfire.
  • forgotpwd16 4y ago
    >keeping everyone else honest and quality If public opinion is to be considered, Windows gets worse by the time. Ads, forced updates, questionable UI decisions, ...
  • alkonaut 4y ago
    > Try to consider how locked down and garbage both Windows and Apple desktops would be if it weren't for the pressure and innovation of the Linux desktop(s). I tried but I can't say I can imagine anything on the Windows or MacOS desktops that are influenced by pressure from Linux desktop tbh. What are the things you are thinking about?
    • nequo 4y ago
      The one thing that I experienced on Linux for the first time was multiple workspaces. Does that come from MacOS or Windows? I haven’t used anything other than Linux in over a decade.
      • liketochill 4y ago
        That comes from old Unix workstations with CDE et al
    • rhaway84773 4y ago
      Virtual Desktops have come straight from Linux. CLIs, which are becoming increasingly more supported and important on both Windows and MacOS are thanks to Linux. Windows is a really straightforward example of this where Powershell has aliased a bunch of Linux commands to the powershell command (e.g. grep is an Alias for Select-String in powershell). Window management features are being driven by Linux. The most successful example of this is tiling window functionality driven largely by tiling window managers from the Linux world. Developers on both Windows and MacOS depend on package management software picked up straight from Linux, such as chocolatey/scoop in the former and brew with the latter. Almost every Windows and Mac software is developed using git. Git was literally invented for writing Linux. The list goes on, but Windows and MacOS have a lot to thank Linux for. Linux has also been a major pillar of open source in general. Much of the open source software ecosystem depends on Linux and the development and philosophy around it to sustain it.
• danr4 4y ago
  Until last summer, I was 8 years deep into Linux Laptop / Desktop use only. We bought MacBook Pro M1 when our startup was funded. I "got used to it", but I still stumble on the "this isn't working the way I want" rabbit holes, which depending on the issue can be far easier to solve on linux for the someone savvy. Best example is frickin trackball drag scroll which is near impossible to achieve smoothly on a mac. Obviously sometimes there were really tough issues on linux (mostly hardware compatibility), which was frustrating, but overall I miss it and often think to myself "things used to be faster/smoother with linux". Also, gaming on Linux is in a much better state.
  • factorialboy 4y ago
    I'm forced to use an M1 MBP at work for "reasons". I have loved Linux (specifically Fedora/Gnome or XFCEs) on desktops and laptops. M1 MBPs are an improvement over Intel MBPs but are a degradation from Fedora on a flagship laptop with Linux support (Dell XPS, Thinkpad etc.) The productivity gains alone from all the simplicity, control and customisations is more than enough to make up for small battery life compromises.
• EamonnMR 4y ago
  I don't think Linux will ever be the dominant desktop OS, but that no longer matters because Desktop is no longer the dominant method of interacting with a computer. You could argue that linux 'won' with Android (and unix 'won' with Android and iOS) but really those OSs are even more locked down than Windows ever was. We won, but also we lost big. MacOS and Windows keep getting worse, though, and Lxqt keeps not surprising me. That's all I need, but I fear for the next generation.
  • Zhyl 4y ago
    >We won, but also we lost big. This is why the Steam Deck is important. It's a reminder that computers work for us and that games are supposed to be fun. It's a shame that the mobile equivalents (Pine Phone, Librem 5) aren't competitive yet.
    • EamonnMR 4y ago
      Termux used to be around to make Android feel like I was carrying linux around, but eventually Google (afaik) killed it by breaking everything so now I have JuiceSSH and a raspberry pi. I'm weighing the price of keeping a cloud instance around just to play on when I'm not at home like I used to...
      • Zhyl 4y ago
        Termux is still live and kicking on FDroid. I don't know if there are particular features that you're thinking of that have been nerfed, but I use termux all the time and love it.
      • thesuperbigfrog 4y ago
        Termux is still around and mostly works the same: https://github.com/termux/termux-app https://github.com/termux/termux-app You just have to install it directly from the APK or via f-Droid. I use it on Android 13 for simple mobile development and it works great. For me, Termux is a killer app that makes my Android phone a general purpose pocket computer.
  • 4y ago
• maverick74 4y ago
  I've been on the IT world for 30 years now and with Linux for about 20... Most people won't ever admit Linux won. No matter what!!! A counter post with some valid points: https://www.justingarrison.com/blog/year-of-linux-desktop/ https://www.justingarrison.com/blog/year-of-linux-desktop/
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• Gordonjcp 4y ago
  It's been the year of Linux on the Desktop for 25 years for me, because that's how long my primary desktop and laptop machines have been running it. It might not suit your needs. It suits mine perfectly.
• Zhyl 4y ago
  The main sentiment in the article which I don't think I've seen addressed in other comments is the fervency of the people attacking the mere notion that Linux is a viable option. I can understand Ballmer's "Linux is cancer" (it was in his commercial interest to say so), but I'm often surprised with the confidence and sheer malice of people who will attack any notion of Linux being used as a desktop or for gaming. I've seen it on HN, I've seen it in Gaming subreddits, I've had it in non-technical subreddits and I've had it in real life. People just have no qualms with shitting on it and it confuses me that people care so much and have so little consideration for the opposing point of view.
  • nordsieck 4y ago
    > it confuses me that people care so much and have so little consideration for the opposing point of view. It's extremely easy for people to absorb what they do into their identity.
  • goodoldneon 4y ago
    Maybe Windows fans holding onto one of its last remaining advantages? I have a Windows desktop solely for games. I’d be 100% done with Windows if all the games I play worked flawlessly on Linux
    • chapium 4y ago
      All of the games on my Switch run on linux flawlessly :)
    • zamalek 4y ago
      90% of games work flawlessly on Linux. 10% of that 90% work better.
    • mikrl 4y ago
      I’m working on running windows in a VM with near native performance and then running that under gentoo. Not technically divesting myself of windows, but having it abstracted from my bare metal will give me a certain peace of mind and smugness. I think anticheat freaks out on one or two games I don’t play doing it like that.
• iso1631 4y ago
  Just starting the 24th year in a row of linux on the desktop (and/or laptop) for me.
• mrmckizzle 4y ago
  My main desktop's primary OS is Arch Linux with KDE as the desktop environment. Before it used to be difficult to setup Arch, but these days I only had to install it with the `archinstall` script. Most of the additional setup that I needed to do is thoroughly documented on their website. The majority of the packages I need are either available via pacman or the AUR. The only issues I have to deal with at the moment is the random system instability due to the Nvidia drivers (about once a week). But things are appearing to stabize with each update. Not too bothered by that since I can play a lot of my Steam games with Proton. I've been using derivatives of Linux since 2007. It just gets better each year.
• alexb_ 4y ago
  For me it's not that the "average user experience" on Linux is bad. It's great. But everyone will eventually run into that one program that they really want to work that just doesn't. Or it's a part of a niche interest and will never be ported to Linux. Or it's 20 years old, and you can't run it through Wine. If Linux has 99% compatibility, it's the 1% that kills it.
  • nicce 4y ago
    Actually, 20 years old Windows software is more likely to run on Wine than brand new software. If Windows does something well, it is backwards compatibility. It will work and won’t use new API:s which are not implemented on Wine yet.
    • alexb_ 4y ago
      Well personally I couldn't get TouHou to run with the audio working. Again, old + niche = windows never
• geocrasher 4y ago
  The year of the Linux desktop arrived long ago, and nobody seemed to take note. It's called ChromeOS. Is it a Windows replacement? No. It's not intended to be. Is it useful? Absolutely, in its context. As a daily driver desktop OS, I need Windows because of my workflow requirements. There's some software that I just love that's Windows-only. Does that mean Linux sucks? No. Do I like Linux? At the CLI, on servers YES. On desktops, not as much- but I know how to use it and can survive. I did it for almost a decade in the 2000's. The author has good points of course. But anybody who is being objective will look at MacOS and Windows as a more polished OS that's got a more consistent UI, better software support (although the gap is much narrower than it used to be) and better hardware support (also a narrowing gap). But isn't that the point of Linux? You can't really have UI consistency when even the developers of the UI's have competing standards. I used to see it as a weakness (and in some cases, it definitely is) but as I get older I'm starting to see the fragmented UI as a sign of its roots rather than as a design flaw. That's not to say I like it (I don't) but it just works for a lot of people.
• booleandilemma 4y ago
  It's here. It's been here for a few years now and it's on laptops too. Microsoft knew it was coming and that's why .NET runs on Linux. Expect Microsoft Office for Linux soon. The first Google result for "linux laptop" is this: https://www.zdnet.com/article/best-linux-laptop/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/best-linux-laptop/ Take your pick. I'm going to be making the switch from Windows to Linux (Ubuntu probably) this year.
  • timbit42 4y ago
    I recommend Linux Mint over Ubuntu. Ubuntu isn't focused on the desktop anymore.
• lebaux 4y ago
  this is the year of linux desktop, 2023
• lproven 4y ago
  Without disagreeing in any way, because I don't, the thing is this: the year of Linux on the desktop came in 2020, and the world didn't notice, which is good and right and proper. Here is the evidence and the reasoning: How can we define when Linux was ready for the desktop? When people chose it. When can we say they chose it in significant numbers? When more people chose Linux than a competing product. OK, then, what competing products are there? Well there are really only two: Windows and macOS. That's it. Those are the mainstream desktop OSes. There are other mainstream end-user OSes, such as Android, iOS and iPadOS, but they're not desktop/laptop OSes. They run on dedicated purpose-built hardware. Outselling Windows is a high bar. But outselling macOS is easy to measure. It's the #2, and Linux outsold Macs in 2020: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/17/chromebooks-outsold-macs-2020/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/17/chromebooks-outsold-mac... It outsold them in the USA only 4 years earlier: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/23/chromebook-mac-google-pc-sales https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/23/chromeboo... ChromeOS is a Linux. More so even than Android, which has a strange custom userland, libc and so on. ChromeOS doesn't. It's based on Gentoo, it has its own display server and things but it's a Linux and it runs desktop Linux apps. ChromeOS, Windows and macOS are fungible. You can interchange one for the other. You can install ChromeOS (in its Flex edition) on PCs and on x86 Macs. You can install x86 macOS on x86 PCs: I've done it. You can install Windows and Linux on x86 Macs, and Arm Linux on Arm Macs is getting there. You can install Linux and Windows on Chromebooks. They are interchangeable. Argue all you like about openness, third-party apps and stuff, it's here and it works. I run Firefox on my Chromebook, because I am awkward like that. It works great. ChromeOS is a Linux, and ChromeOS outsold Macs 3 years ago. The 2nd best-selling desktop/laptop OS is a Linux and macOS was relegated to 3rd place. It is here, it happened, there are some 200 to 300 million happy ChromeOS users out there. No mainstream Linux vendor noticed. Fans of mainstream Linux didn't notice. It's not their kind of Linux. That's exactly what you'd expect Linux fans to think and say and indeed do. But the year of Linux on the desktop was 2020. It happened, it came, and the FOSS world was too busy squabbling to notice.
  • davidw 4y ago
    Recently, my Dell started having some troubles after many years of hard use - the wifi chip seems to have some problems. Since I need to be able to at least do email and web things, I went out and got a $130 Chromebook at OfficeMax. I was actually quite impressed with it! But the screen was a bit too small, so I took it back and upgraded to a $250 computer. I'm very impressed at what it can do for that price. The user experience is very good, all smooth sailing, and in addition, the Linux subsystem is quite usable. I got my Elixir/Phoenix hobby project running on it without much trouble. My original plan was to just hang on to this computer while I ordered a new Dell, but I'm considering whether I need to do that... $1800-ish for a new XPS 13 is a lot more than $250. The keybindings and window manager do bug me a bit on ChromeOS compared to the custom stuff I've had set up on Linux that dates back to fvwm2 days, but it looks like if you dig around, you can tweak things. Seems there's even a focus follows mouse option!
• liveoneggs 4y ago
  The "Linux Desktop" meme is a completely outdated reference to the old days when Microsoft had a 97+% desktop market share (1995 - 2003) and desktop computers were still novel. OS X, through some kind of market miracle, managed to drop that number to less than 90% and continues a fragile chipping-away. Now Linux completely dominates in the market to destroy "desktop" "computing" via android devices and Chromebooks. I have a few relatives who don't even own a normal computer and use their phone or tablet for all tasks. Asking normal people to use GNOME continues to be a bad idea and linux developers continue to mess up linux servers by attempting to (selfishly) make them more desktop-friendly. :)
• vehemenz 4y ago
  Why shouldn't the goalposts move? One's decision to use GNU/Linux does not occur in a vacuum. Windows and macOS continually improve and add features, and our expectations shift accordingly.
• deleted 4y ago
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• alkonaut 4y ago
  The whole desktop computing idea for "most people" isn't really going to have a revival. There are specific niches within desktop computing (business people running excel, software developers running shells/IDEs/editors, gamers, home users, graphics designers, scientists, etc etc) and these niches seem to have very little in common. The "non-gamer home user" is all but dead. That's not a niche that will go anywhere, and if they use a linux-y OS it's not going to be anything other than ChromeOS. Linux has made strides recently in several of these niches, most notably perhaps software developers are using Linux more, and in graphics/video we see people doing more Blender and perhaps not waiting for the next workstation Macs. The biggest one in the bunch by far is regular business users doing word processing, spread sheets, SharePoint, video calls, emails. I no longer think desktop linux (in the traditional sense, i.e. Gnome/KDE) will take any chunk of this, within coming decades. If anything, the whole concept of desktop will be abstracted away into a thin client in some cloud where your same programs and documents are available no matter your device. But one thing is 100% clear: for 99% of business users, that client will connect to a Microsoft service, nothing else.
• egypturnash 4y ago
  I have always taken "the year of Linux on the Desktop" to mean the year when a non-technical person can easily acquire a computer that does everything they need or desire a computer to do, and runs an entirely open-source OS with Linux at its core. The literal reading of "Linux runs on a desktop computer" is one that has been fulfilled since Torvalds first released it. It is one that has been fulfilled since before the phrase "The Year Of Linux On The Desktop" became a thing. There have been people making a Linux machine running one "friendly" distro or another their daily driver for most of Linux' existence. But if your non-technical relative goes out to buy a new computer, they're gonna either buy a Windows machine or a Mac. They're probably never heard of Linux unless you've talked to them about it. Where's the ads on their favorite shows and sites telling them about Linux? Where's the prominent computer manufacturer without an exclusivity deal with Microsoft trumpeting how their free OS makes for a better product? Given how many people's computing needs now seem to be served entirely by an Android phone, then perhaps we have passed the Year of Linux on the Palmtop without anyone noticing because they are still focused on computers with multitasking, windowed OSs, designed for large screens. Is the proprietary part of Android small enough for it to count as "Linux" to you? When your non-technical relative can go into Office Depot, browse the shelves, find an assortment of computers all proudly declaring they run Linux, and take it home and run everything they are buying a computer to run, then it is TYOTLD. Linux runs in a lot of places now, and that's great! But if you walk into a random house that owns a computer, you're probably not gonna find Linux on it, and thus it is not TYOTLD, despite you having run it as your daily driver desktop for the past ten years.
  • egypturnash 4y ago
    TYOTLD means that when you say "how do I run the standard tools that anyone doing what I am doing uses", you are just pointed to where to install them. If you are pointed to a free, open-source tool, it is because that is what everyone uses now because it beat out any paid, closed-source alternatives. TYOTLD means that Microsoft's office suite runs on Linux, or that MS Office has been replaced by something that does across the entire world of office work. TYOTLD means that all of Adobe's tools runs on Linux, or have been replaced by something that does across the entire creative industry. TYOTLD means Linux won and Microsoft and Apple are both bit players.
• ksec 4y ago
  There has to be a term for it, if you waited long enough it will bound to happen assuming the possibility of it happening is not zero. You can say the same about next year will be the year of Nuclear Fusion or curing cancer. And it is funny 20 years later there are people who still dont understand why Linux failed to takeover desktop. I will quote Benedict Evans [1] who seems to be the only few with a decent understanding of Tech and Business. >"the ideology of (one extremely narrow concept of) freedom works very well for small groups of true believers, but people didn’t move servers to Linux because of freedom - they adopted it because it was a better product." [1] https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1425904537727086594 https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1425904537727086594
  • varjag 4y ago
    …and how did it become a better product?
  • BrickStoneWall 4y ago
    Why did Linux fail to take over the desktop 20 years ago? I'm guessing you have something specific in mind?
  • Conan_Kudo 4y ago
    That is definitely revisionism. I was there when it started happening. It started happening because of two things: 1. Unix vendors were tearing each other apart in the Unix Wars. 2. Linux was cheaper than Windows NT. The second point is critical: many industries had Unix-based software and even the source code of said software, they just needed a platform to run it on. Linux on x86 servers was orders of magnitude cheaper than Solaris on SPARC, HP-UX on PA-RISC, or AIX on POWER. And for the existing SPARC/PA-RISC/POWER servers running these UNIX OSes, the investment wasn't entirely lost because they could put Linux on those too. That is what made Linux on servers win. It wasn't better. It was cheaper. We have spent most of the 2000s catching up to Solaris, AIX, and other server Unix systems. The 2010s was all about catching up to desktop Unix systems like IRIX, Solaris (again!), and NeXT. Now? We're at the tail end of that effort. Who knows what's next. :)
    • 4y ago
• sys_64738 4y ago
  Why bother about what other people think? I never got this need to take other people's views into consideration when forming your own needs or wants. Do what you want to do for yourself, not for others. As you get older you quickly discover that outside your own direct family that others are pretty much irrelevant and not worth listening to. Trust your own intuition when making decisions and live by them.
• INeedMoreRam 4y ago
  [dead]
• causality0 4y ago
  it’s not possible to use Linux on the desktop, or to only use Linux on the desktop Does anybody say this? I've always interpreted the phrase "year of Linux on the desktop" to mean a year when people who wouldn't list "computers" among their personal interests were noticeably using it on their desktops. That still hasn't happened. There are a lot of "year of the -" things I've seen come, when things that were used by professionals and nerds entered common usage and parlance, like burning a CD or installing Firefox (granted those have come and now gone). You ask a normie "what's your opinion of Windows 10?" and they'll have one, good or bad. You ask a normie what their opinion of Linux is and most of them won't even know the word, let alone have one. That's why it isn't and may never be "the year of Linux on the desktop".
  • goodpoint 4y ago
    > people who wouldn't list "computers" among their personal interests were noticeably using it on their desktops I know a number of "normies" with no interest in computing that use Ubuntu because they trust it more than Microsoft. (Rightfully so)
    • microtonal 4y ago
      Such anecdotal evidence is cherry picked and completely useless. Ask a random person on the street. If they still even have a laptop or desktop, 80-90 percent will run Windows and macOS as a distant second. In some domains (e.g. education) you'll find some Chromebooks, they run Linux, but it's largely irrelevant, because for most users it's just proprietary Chrome (and if they didn't have a ChromeBook, they'd be running Chrome on Windows).
      • mistrial9 4y ago
        without context, spoken language group and some simple demographics, these "percent" declarations are worse than completely useless.. they mislead
      • goodpoint 4y ago
        > Such anecdotal evidence is cherry picked Citation needed. Desperately.
• mark_l_watson 4y ago
  I am also an early adopter, having downloaded Slack Linux via 2400baud dialup modem. To get work done, I have largely spent time on macOS in the last 10 years, but I do have Linux on 4 laptops. Recently I have been experimenting with running Ubuntu using Parallels on my M1 iMac and the experience mostly being in Linux but being able to switch screens to macOS as needed is so far pretty good. Ubuntu has excellent support for ARM64.
• clnq 4y ago
  The article argues with two strawman claims and (unsurprisingly) wins. The first one is that the "year of the Linux desktop" jokes mean that the Linux desktop (or something else in computing) is impossible with open source, and the second one is that they mean no one uses Linux on the desktop. In reality, the "year of the Linux desktop" is a joke because it illustrates how far Linux is from mainstream adoption for desktop computing - a fact. A "year of the Linux machine" (servers, Android, Chromebooks) perhaps would not be a joke anymore as it was in Ballmer's Microsoft days. The "year of the Linux desktop" still is.
• akerl_ 4y ago
  Holy strawman, Batman! I’ve never seen anybody say “year of the Linux desktop” to mean “is it possible to run Linux on a desktop”. Of course it’s possible. The term refers to Linux having a surge in popularity, whereas right now it’s a niche choice. The closest we’ve gotten here is chromebooks.
• asah 4y ago
  For laptops, I have a more basic problem: Mac hardware continues to win (M1 air): - screen resolution: Retina display vs PC laptops offering half the resolution. - price: Macs are running USD$1000-1500 while comparable PCs are $2K+ - the rest just works: speed, battery life, USB-C, reliability, brightness, etc. For development, I run Docker for environmental isolation & portability anyway so there isn't a lot of benefit to switching. For daily driving, various browsers all work fine (I don't use Safari). Airplay and Chrome Cast both work fine. I don't play desktop games.
  • smoldesu 4y ago
    Eh, a recent Ryzen laptop with a 2K display will run you less than $500 on Ebay. You won't get Macbook Air battery life, but you're also not spending Macbook Air money. Plus, you could run Docker without bumping your ambient temps up by 5-10c. Mac hardware is certainly competitive again, but you couldn't pay me a living wage to daily-drive MacOS for development. Given the circumstances, I think the appeal of Mac hardware will depend on the appeal of Mac software for most users.
    • andrewaylett 4y ago
      Intel Macbooks, absolutely: the fan will be on, make sure your room has adequate ventilation. But I've been developing on an M1 Macbook Pro for a few months now. Heavy Docker use, all still AMD64 images so heavily relying on qemu. I'm looking forward to all the pieces lining up to let me use Rosetta inside Docker. I always have what many would consider "too much" running, between Firefox, Docker, JetBrains IDEs, Office, Slack. I've yet to hear the fan.
      • smoldesu 4y ago
        How does it compare to a Ryzen laptop?
        • dagmx 4y ago
          How does it compare to WHICH Ryzen laptop? It’s a meaningless question without that. There’s so many options. Each with their own manufacturer characteristics. Comparing an M1 to an Intel Mac is easier because there were so few SKUs of each. Comparing against a sea of alternatives requires more precision.
• spratzt 4y ago
  Does anybody anybody really care anymore? As more production work moves to the cloud, so does the corresponding development. The only thing that’s needed is a modern browser and the underlying operating system becomes irrelevant.
• quelsolaar 4y ago
  Linux can be used on the desktop, but its almost impossible to release commersial applications for it, since there is no stable ABI. The Kernel maintains a stable ABI, but until the ditributions take this seriously Linux will remain behind Windows on the Desktop. There is nothing inherently wrong with Linux that prevents this, its just that the people who maintain distributions, seems to think that software that isnt open source doesnt bring value to Linux, so the answer to this major problem keeps beeing "just recompile!". The problem isnt that Linux cant be on the desktop, its that the Linux comunity keeps sabotaging it by breaking the ABIs.
• college_physics 4y ago
  I think what we conventionally mean by "year of the linux desktop" will never come. The universe has changed in fundamental ways since the time the slogan was adopted. But what will come in its place might be much more important and, dare i say, more beautiful. Cataclysmic Event 1: As people pointed out already, the vast number of users have switched to a mobile device (or more likely adopted one for the first time). Its a bit silly to argue thats a linux win. The community was as surprised as anybody, witness the still preliminary (true) linux on mobile. Cataclysmic Event 2: Adtech becomes the primary business model driving tech developments. Linux becomes both an enabler of that shift (the rise of the "cloud") and the last bastion of self-sovereign computing - though that is currently not truly appreciated by the masses Cataclysmic Effect 3: Machine learning matures to the point of actual use at scale. This is totaly disruptive in ways not yet discernible Where does this leave a thirty year old dream? Maybe at its best ever chance to change the world (for the better). The linux desktop is the natural home for augmentation of human intelligence the way pioneers envisaged. Its the natural place to run decentalized social networks and who knows what else. How can we get there? First, its absolutely essential to integrate mobile. I like to think KDE connect as the birth of that convergence. Second its important to develop intelligent desktop applications that preserve privacy and control over algorithms. We have come a long way. The promised land might be in sight soon. Best wishes to all
• daneel_w 4y ago
  It reminds me about people's never-ending discrediting of and disbelief in mankind's unstoppable progress. "We will never reach the depths of the oceans." "We will never reach all surfaces on the Earth." "We will never conquer the skies." "We will never reach space." "We will never colonize space, the Moon or Mars." (Yeah? Just wait...) etc.
• 1970-01-01 4y ago
  "Year of Linux on the Desktop" is very different from "Year of the Linux Desktop" I completely agree Linux successfully runs on a desktop (x86 "PC"). I completely disagree Linux is better as a GUI OS (desktop OS) when compared to Mac and Windows.
• throwaway67743 4y ago
  The problem isn't that it doesn't work, it's that it doesn't work well enough (even as an experienced user, my desire to debug silly desktop environment issues while trying to get stuff done is very little to non existent) - there are many niggles as a daily driver, which are fine if your desire to use it outweighs the aversion to fixing stuff all the time, I can't imagine how a beginner would feel these days as it's so much more complicated and has so many more dependencies than days past. Downvote edit: nerds aren't counted in adoption statistics, sorry
  • timbit42 4y ago
    Throwaway accounts aren't counted either.
    • throwaway67743 4y ago
      If you looked you'd notice it isn't a throwaway account, but as I'm not an anti social nerd I used the commonly used 'throwaway' prefix to highlight that it is not an identifying account. But nice try, back in your basement!
• thanatos519 4y ago
  When civilization collapses to the point where we cannot manufacture new computers, megacorps like Microsoft and Apple simply cannot exist, and the Internet includes sneakernet links again (somebody is maintaining UUCP, right?), but malware still spreads ... Linux will still work and make progress. I've been using Linux exclusively since 1994 and when I watch people trip over their Windows and Mac systems I don't regret it at all.
• sylware 4y ago
  Chicken and egg issue. The only way to make a desktop OS popular is by default mass installation on PCs. Only aggressive anti-trust regulation can do that now. Look at android/linux with the smart phones.
• siphr 4y ago
  I've been hearing this phrase for such a long time but i do not get it. I think Linux by nature is a personal affair, the way i've setup everything is going to be drastically different than somebody else. Which leads me to believe that even the year of linux desktop is a personal matter. My year was about a decade ago, the authors might be 2023, some people from the audience would've seen their year last year perhaps etc. So not really sure about the point of the rant anyway... when something is so good you do not bother about these self-imposed stupid conditions, you just relish, send your blessings to contributors and the creator and hopefully even contribute yourself- chill out & happy tuxing!
• hnbear 4y ago
  I keep a Windows machine around purely for games, mostly Ubisoft, COD, and miscellaneous Steam titles. But that's it - everything else is on a remote Linux machine via putty, or in the browser. I have a Mac for the rest of my life. I'd be very happy moving the desktop to Linux, and I've dual-booted it before, but always come back to Windows to play games. What's the best current resource on gaming from Linux and how to convert?
• marvinblum 4y ago
  I think the impression that Linux doesn't work on the desktop mostly comes from Windows being pre-installed on most devices and software only being available for Windows or Mac. Also, some hardware vendors are actively sabotaging Linux. I regret buying a notebook that has an AMD processor and a Nvidia card in it. With a 4K monitor connected to the graphics card, Gnome is barely performant enough to work on X. Wayland's performance is unbearable. And it didn't work at all for quite a while, because of some passthrough issues with the built-in graphics card. Consider someone not used to tinkering spending more than $3k on a notebook and having this experience. The next time, I'll make sure to buy well-supported hardware (AMD all the way), but you cannot expect that from the average Joe.
• hcks 4y ago
  What a weird rant. Most people don’t even use a desktop anymore but somehow it counts that Linux runs on servers and supercomputers (and Android which apparently is the same kind of things as Fedora or Gentoo). Linux “on the desktop” is unusable for anyone who is not 1) a computer hobbyist 2) a person with needs limited to a browser
• ScottStevenson 4y ago
  Desktop?
  • dredmorbius 4y ago
    An early, primitive, non-touch-enabled, hardware-keyboard equipped, non-mobile, smartphone. Often without WiFi access.
• yaantc 4y ago
  The elephant in the room with Linux on the desktop is: if you install Linux on a machine, you are de facto the integrator. If you don't want, or can't, do the job of a system integrator for your PC, you can now buy PC with Linux pre-installed. Or use another pre-installed OS. You may think installing Linux on a machine is not a big deal (and I'd agree as far as I'm concerned ;) but it's clear it causes a lot of grief and frustration for some. If you're new to Linux, please get a pre-installed PC. If you want to install Linux on a PC, be aware that the integration is on you. So start easy: well supported models (Thinkpad, Latitude), stick with integrated graphics, be careful about new models particularly with big changes (e.g.: the recent new "soft" webcams), and in general do a bit of research before so you can get confident you can deal with it.
• JSavageOne 4y ago
  I recently bought a new laptop and initially installed Linux (Ubuntu) on it, but then uninstalled it for the following reasons: - No 2-finger swipe for back/forward navigation in internet browsers. This is impossible on Linux since Linux doesn't support customizing 2-finger swipe. Sure I could set it on 3-finger swipe, but I wanted 2-finger swipe. - Couldn't connect my Airpod Pro wireless headphones. Searching around it seemed to not be possible to connect the headphones with microphone. There were a lot of annoying things I had to fix that work out of the box in Windows/Mac like the scroll speed in Chrome being way too slow (had to install a Chrome extension to fix). Googling solutions leads you somewhere like askubuntu.com which I found extremely unreliable - with often the highest upvoted answer not even answering the question, so you need to go through a bunch of different questions where people tell you to download some random dude's package that hasn't been updated in 5-10 years and doesn't even work. Ultimately the dealbreakers combined with the general difficulty and hassle of doing basic things led me to uninstall it and go back to Windows (with Windows Subsystem for Linux). I really wanted to use a free open source operating system, but I didn't want to sacrifice on the above functionality and have to waste a lot of time fiddling with my computer just to get basic things working. Shame because there are a lot of things I don't like about Windows and it's not very customizable (eg. can't reduce size of taskbar on Windows 11 without hacky regedit update that cuts off the bottom of the toolbar, no way to alt-tab among same application windows in reverse order where it immediately switches to application. I have an AutoHotKey script that only partially works)
  • NayamAmarshe 4y ago
    > - No 2-finger swipe for back/forward navigation in internet browsers. This is impossible on Linux since Linux doesn't support customizing 2-finger swipe. Sure I could set it on 3-finger swipe, but I wanted 2-finger swipe. I have a great replacement for this. I use ZorinOS with this: https://forum.zorin.com/t/how-to-better-touchpad-gestures-on-zorinos/13440 https://forum.zorin.com/t/how-to-better-touchpad-gestures-on... > - couldn't connect my airpod pro wireless headphones. searching around it seemed to not be possible to connect the headphones with microphone. Not sure about this tbh. I use Bluetooth earphones and they work great on Zorin. Zorin really makes things easier with all those pre-installed drivers and layouts and all the great UI enhancements. You can give it a try, Ubuntu was a massive disappointment for me as well. https://zorin.com/os https://zorin.com/os
• 2b3a51 4y ago
  The OP's two entries for 2022 struck a chord. Well done. "Despite everything, it’s been fun. I’ve been lucky to have been able to take part of this journey." I am in full agreement from the depths of my 7th decade. I can imagine just using a Chromebook with a chroot of Linux in a few years for convenience. I'd imagine it all depends on the applications you need to run.
• pnf 4y ago
  After a dozen years as a dedicated Linux desktop/laptop user, I now see that trying to keep a Linux desktop functional over time is one of the charms and benefits of linux desktops. Having your wifi randomly go in and out after an update and digging into a fix is one a dozens of reminders of what your computer actually is and how it works (and doesn't). Like having a fussy classic car you have to mess with all the time to keep it running, you come to have a relationship with your computer that would otherwise be masked by abstraction. This relationship and deeper understanding of the machine carries over into other areas of programming and demystifies many things about computers that would be otherwise remain obscure. Yes, it is inconvenient. Yes, it can be frustrating. But how else can you really learn these lessons? How else can you gain the confidence to roll up your sleeves and do for yourself? The linux desktop may never be perfect but I wouldn't have it any other way.
  • sweezyjeezy 4y ago
    I can see where you are coming from - but what you say is pretty much exactly why I don't use Linux outside of work. If I want to stream a movie or play a new game in my free time, I want a system that is going to deliver that to me with the least friction possible. I don't have the patience to be getting a lesson in hardware drivers when I am off the clock - I'm quite happy to be mollycoddled by Microsoft / Apple at that point.
  • TchoBeer 4y ago
    I can't tell if this is sarcasm but I found it funny either way.
• pwinnski 4y ago
  Rants against straw arguments that don't exist outside of the rants are always fun. Nobody is saying it is impossible to use Linux on the desktop. We're saying that it will never overtake things like Windows and MacOS in popularity. That's what we've always been saying, it has never changed.
• boomskats 4y ago
  I've run Linux as my primary desktop from 2003 to 2006, and from 2011 until today. I've run it on all my laptops, all my desktops and my media PCs. Additionally, single person I hired over the last 10 years has used Linux as their primary desktop OS. I think the best thing to happen to 'Linux on the Desktop' is that I finally don't give a shit about this argument any more. I'm ok with the fact that there are people who will never get on with Linux on the desktop, that there are those who will try it every few years and have a bad time. I'm even ok with the ones who seem to actively and gleefully seek out reasons why it's not for them just so they can tell me all about it, apparently trying to convince me to stop using it. However, it comfortably feels like the critical mass of users like myself has been there for a while now, and I know many other people who consider the experience excellent, better than any of the alternatives available. It also feels like some of the most active distros nowadays assume a certain level of knowledge and interest, and I think that's also great - Linux has found its middle ground. The recent SO survey on OS use vs MacOS kinda confirms it. I will continue to support the development of desktop Linux in any way I can. However, I no longer consider mainstream adoption to be critical to its success. In fact, I think chasing mainstream adoption at this point would be detrimental to its success as an OS that works for people like me.
• hahamrfunnyguy 4y ago
  In some ways, the Year of the Linux Desktop has come many times over. We've got phablets, tablets and other Android devices. Alot of the things people would use a desktop computer for are now handled by the aforementioned devices (browsing the web, checking email, personal finance, etc). I just paid $170 for my new Android phone (unlocked). It has 8GB of ram, 128GB of solid state storage, Wifi, a 5G radio, Bluetooth, a 50 megapixel camera and a nice large screen. It's really incredible the computing power you can get on a phone so inexpensively. For me this device would handle all of the personal computing needs if there was a good way to dock it into a large display with a keyboard and have more of "Desktop" UI mode. Desktops/laptops for personal computing are dead.
• amalgamated_inc 4y ago
  Just here to say it's been Linux on my Desktop for years and I like it a lot. Not perfect, but certainly better than the alternatives.
• sandGorgon 4y ago
  after close to 20 yrs on the Linux desktop, i have spent the last 6 months on a windows laptop with WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux). Im beginning to think that the Linux Desktop is already here...and it is Windows 11
• 20after4 4y ago
  I've been using Linux exclusively since 2013. It's obviously possible. Screw the naysayers. Also, hi Lars!! Hope you are well.
• NayamAmarshe 4y ago
  I can't believe how hostile some of the comments here are towards Linux. We get it! You guys like big tech overlords and you're too comfortable with using whatever spyware they have these days but Linux has been working great for many of us for years and we have no complaints. Those of us who use Linux appreciate it for what it is, not for what it can be.
  • IshKebab 4y ago
    People aren't hostile to the idea of mainstream Linux desktops. They're just fed up with people claiming that Linux is mainstream and ready for "ordinary users" when it clearly still isn't (and may never be).
    • NayamAmarshe 4y ago
      > ready for "ordinary users" when it clearly still If my family is not made up of 'ordinary users' then I guess we live in different worlds. I installed ZorinOS on my father's computer more than a year ago. He works with Libre Office, uses internet browser, edits photos with photopea.com and watches videos. So far, not a single time has anything crashed or caused issues for him which was a common occurrence in windows. So yeah, Linux desktop may never be ready for you but I can literally see Linux desktop being more than ready for ordinary users.
      • willeum 4y ago
        Linux works great for the highly technical and the tech-ignorant. However, the "ordinary users" among today's young people grew up with tech, and expect more advanced functionality. Advanced functionality that, on Linux, requires advanced knowledge because of how fragmented and rough it is.
        • NayamAmarshe 4y ago
          If the term 'ordinary users' implies users who use specialized commercial software, then yes, Linux does not have it all yet. It's a reality we all know but it's changing gradually, fortunately. One doesn't have to switch to Linux to know that it's disruptive tech. It's gaining traction each year and only becoming a better product, whether one likes it or not.
• chrsw 4y ago
  The best treatment I've read that explains what separates the Linux desktop from others is still here: https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2019/12/04/there-is-no-linux-platform-1/ https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2019/12/04/there-is-no-linu... In a nutshell, and in my words, the Linux ecosystem consists of a loose collection of related, but fragmented, software, devices, documents and practices. This is fine, as long as you understand what you're dealing with. Much longer version (I don't have a blog where I can post this): Consumer devices are more than that though. They are finished, supported products engineered and designed for specific use cases or demographics of users. Consumer devices like these sound great for most people but for some people, it's not what they want. If a consumer device on the market doesn't meet the needs of their application, for example, they need to go elsewhere like commission a custom design or build it themselves. Again, you have to understand what your needs are and what offerings are out there. You have to be honest about what you're looking at. I have a MacBook and an iPhone. I have certain expectations from these devices, in terms of features and limitations. And a lot of what I expect from these devices is inspired by where they come from: Do they come from a company? What type of company is it? What are the company's values and goals? What does the company think of me, the customer? From the answers to these types of questions I use the devices accordingly. You don't even need to get into the megahertz and gigabytes to form fundamental ideas about what to expect out of a device or computer. You consider the context in which the device orginated. I also have a ThinkPad running Ubuntu. This is not a consumer device. This does not come from one organization building systems for people like me. It's a collection of tools and I'm responsible for taking those tools and making them work for the application I want and the problems I'm trying to solve. I have to take these kernel versions, drivers, utilities, libraries, layers of software, scripts, configuration files, desktop environments and GUI frameworks to create the system I need for the work I have to do. And even after all that I know the end result is not going to be some slick polished product I'd find on a shelf. But I understand this and I'm prepared to take on the role of part time sys admin, SW dev and researcher and whatever else to get the job done. I also know this wont work for the vast majority of users out there, so I wouldn't bother recommending it. Maybe one day there will be a company that makes a Linux-based workstation as finished and as much of a "platform" as the Sun Ultra 10 or SGI Indigo2 I used 20 years ago in college. But I'm not holding my breath. Notice I didn't mention Solaris or Irix, fine systems and worthy of mention, but also redundant like saying "my Iphone 11 Pro running iOS". In any case, if such a system did exist, it would likely be a distinct offshoot of the larger Linux ecosystema and only semi-open which would turn off many Linux enthusiats or purists. IMO, for a proper "platform", the hardware, software, design philosophy, interface, store and support are all integrated by the same company, organization or team with the same objectives and values. If that's what you want, tossing a free Linux distribution on a random laptop made for Windows isn't going to cut it. If that's not what you need and you're willing and able to do some of the work yourself, Linux is great.
• lrvick 4y ago
  The sad truth is normies outside rich bubbles do not even buy laptops or desktops anymore. They exclusively use phones and/or tablets and they go for the cheap ones which mean Android. If they get a laptop they get a cheap one, and that means a Chromebook. Linux already won at being the primary end user computing device for most people. The only people that do not realize this are on macbooks surrounded by people who can afford the same.
• Draiken 4y ago
  If you've ever worked with non-technical people it becomes clear that the issue is not really about Windows, Mac or Linux. They all have issues and they just delegate it to the "geeks" to figure it out. The non-technical people I know that use Windows have it re-formatted every other month after something stops working. They're just used to having to call the technician constantly. As someone else pointed out here, they don't even know if it's an OS issue, hardware issue or whatever else. It's just how tech works (or not, hehe). Windows is in my experience utter garbage to deal with. We've always had jokes about how it "expires" after a few months and you have to re-install or live with how slow and brittle it gets. It's a black box. BSOD are a common thing we've all had to deal with. Not to mention viruses and the crapware that is oh so common on Windows when people don't know any better. But it really seems like when it comes to Linux people get all critical but for other OSes, they downplay it. All the crashes, issues, quirks, etc are simply not worth mentioning if it's on my favorite non-Linux OS. If it's Linux, oh damn this mess. It's impossible to use! Look! The reality is that Linux desktop will probably never see the light of day because it's a commercial issue and not a technical one. We keep pretending this is a technical discussion when it's really not. Windows won early by letting people pirate it and won the majority of the market share. They can then use that power to force everyone to build drivers to work better with their OS. They can make huge deals getting almost every computer in the world to have it pre-installed. They pay for it. Mac has their cult following and hardware that locks people into their OS. People don't choose OSX. It's their only choice. Only hackers and the more curious will ever venture out of the default choices. But once again, they are there because they pay for it. It's not about quality, it's just money.
  • NayamAmarshe 4y ago
    At least someone gets it! Even if there are technical issues with LD they're not going to be solved unless we fix the commercial side of it.
• nutate 4y ago
  The desktop linuxes I've used would be my daily OS if it weren't for the edges. Not necessarily as sharp now as when you could break a CRT with the wrong modeline, but still bad relative to the alternative (for me macOS). I mean things like fonts, copy/paste, screen resolution, kerning, cursor acceleration, bounding boxes, full screen support, sound (and I primarily know what I'm doing with Linux Sound since the OSS days.). It's the churn that keeps the GUI tantalizing close but distant. There are happy kde and gnome users out there, heck I'm on KDE right now typing this, but all those other victories had a unity of involved 'stakeholders' (AWS, millions of ISPs, Android, etc) and the focus in desktop OSes is famously nebulous (or at a minimum splintered along multiple axes). Still things like PopOS give me hope for the future. Also I'm a 2 spaces after a period ghost from the late 1900s whose opinion isn't worth much.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• michael9k 4y ago
  Ubuntu is truly awesome as a completely free product, and a huge number of people would be perfectly fine running this, as they basically just do browsing, Facebook, write and few documents etc., however the majority of these people still use Windows as it's pre-installed on their sub $700 laptops (clever move by Microsoft). Having said that, Windows just have SO much more software, making that OS a preferred choice for most people who use their computer for more "advanced" tasks. Linux, still, offers only a tiny fraction of the software available for Windows. Generally the quality of software for Windows is MUCH higher (an often comparison by Linux fans when I mention Photoshop is Gimp, which makes me wonder if these people simply just are used to low quality software, or just don't know better?). It's not a choice between Linux and Microsoft, who cares about the OS (the point of a OS is to be invisible anyway), it's a choice between the software which can solve your problem / work / task.. And in that light, Linux is still lightyears behind Microsoft.
  • timbit42 4y ago
    Ubuntu isn't peak Linux desktop anymore. Linux Mint has taken that crown. There is a reason it's 4 spots below Mint and one spot below Fedora on Distrowatch.com.
• waffletower 4y ago
  The Linux desktop is simply insufficient. I use Linux extensively at work, entirely in a container context. I have a custom PC in the basement with 2 GPUs that runs and boots Linux exclusively. In my studio I have a RasPI and an Intel skull canyon machine running Linux as servers. I have another dual boot custom PC in my studio which can run windows, but almost always is running Linux as it is right now. While this machine can be used as a desktop at a standing desk I use daily for work, rarely do I ever switch the monitor to use the desktop. The computer I am using to type now is at another desk, certainly has its own host of issues as it is an Intel Apple machine, is more expensive than it ought to be, but realistically I am much happier and productive with Mac OS, despite having some workflows that could easily be ported to Linux. Further, the UI intensive applications that I rely on, simply have no credible peer in the Linux ecosystem. I will leave out a rant about the pervasiveness of the antiquated X window system which is at the core of most Linux desktop environments.
• cykros 4y ago
  Can't say I care what most people use -- I considered the fight for Linux won years ago when I first encountered driver difficulties on Windows Vista. Equal opportunity for incompatible hardware was the real turning point, and since that parity seems mostly maintained, I'm happy enough. Frankly I'm more annoyed with systemd swallowing up perfectly good projects these days far more than I am with the Windows ecosystem.
• pella 4y ago
  > Also 2022: Linux will always be a hobbyist toy, > unless solves all these new problems we’ve just thought about. StackOverflow 2022 Developer Survey: "Windows is the most popular operating system for developers, across both personal and professional use. A Linux-based OS is more popular than macOS - speaking to the appeal of using open source software." https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#section-most-popular-technologies-operating-system https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#section-most-popular-t...
• blooalien 4y ago
  For me and a lot of folks I know, "the year of the Linux desktop" has already been a reality for ages now … and before anyone tries to feed me some bullshit line about "normies can't handle Linux", I've had many "normal" folks ask me to help them get started with Linux over the years, and every single one of them has been perfectly happy with it once they got used to the few little differences they noticed. The trick is to help them find and focus on the similarities so they're not totally lost and confused, and to help them avoid the stumbling blocks by introducing them early on to the important differences that really matter, so they aren't bringing Windows or Mac mistakes and methods to their new operating system. (The package manager / app store is one good example of that.) Truth is that with each passing year of improvement, Linux becomes ever more "desktop ready" for a growing number of potential users.
• wereallterrrist 4y ago
  Oh look, another Linux thread. It's a fucking cliche, sure enough the top N comments bagging on Linux are handwavey citing "tried a main distro years ago" which usually means "Six years ago, I tried an Ubuntu USB stick that I'd made 7 years ago, and now I'm acting that experience is indicative of Linux today". I mean, I played Halo Infinite on NixOS the other night, and literally the only problem was one projectile from one gun appearing slightly odd when firing. I kind of find these discussions hilarious anymore.
• g42gregory 4y ago
  My challenge is that Linux (Ubuntu) simply does not provide the level of nice, saturated color rendering on any of the browsers (Chrome, Firefox) that MacOS provides. Same problem with Windows, but I am only looking to switch to Linux. I hope this could be fixed one of these days. I tinkered with video card color profile and it gets better, but I couldn’t get it to the level of MacOS “pleasure to look at”.
• rmrf100 4y ago
  I have stick with ubuntu for around 10 years on my personal compuster, well, always Thinkpad, and I'm glad to use it.
• ThinkBeat 4y ago
  As a fellow traveler that adopted Linux a bit later in 1995 I used it as my main desktop at the university. For my needs back then it was a foot fit and it was damn fast compared to the undergrad Sun terminals at the labs. (They had nice servers, there were just far too many people using them) (People scheduled a lot of things for the middle of the night as well). (no dialup) So, my firat year of Linux on the desktop was 1995. I have never been an OS fanboy. I use what is most convenient. UNIX on the desktop has been done already with macOS. It is great. Linux on the desktop is done with Chromebooks at least originally. Not so great. Linux inside Windows fits somewhere in there but I dont know where. I wish Microsoft had kept the WinNT 4 architecture to implement a Linux sub system. However, the "Year of the desktop Linux" is not a question of "being able to" but of mass adaptation. IMHO Linux is stil not ready for that. I still have significant hassles getting Linux to work well with all parts / systems of a laptop. Yes, I can buy a laptop specifically made for Linux and it will be much easier. But bow we have reached the point where "Linux on the desktop" means getting normies to buy a very specific new laptops to run Linux well out of the box. I use Windows1 + macOS my laptops and desktops. (Often with a few Linux and FreeBSD virtual machines) I run Linux and OpenBSD on servers. I would like to have Windows Server on a couple but $$$$$ I think that >""Linux runs all top 500 super computers, billions of personal devices, most >servers on the Internet, on all continents, on all oceans, in the air, in orbit, >and on Mars. Oh, and in the air on Mars. All big corporations use open source in >some form."" Is a detractor for Linux on the desktop. Nearly all huge financing of Linux comes from giant corporate entities that deal with 100.000s (millions?) of computer server farm in data centers. Their priorities are extremely and even conflicting with the needs of a a desktop Linux for normies. There is also investment in Linux on smartphones, routers etc. The priorities here are also conflicting with what a regular desktop user wants. Ubuntu and some others are investing in Linux on the desktop but its tiny sums and efforts if you compare them to the efforts above. Let us just be happy with macOS for regular desktop users. Why should a single OS dominante all markets at the same time? I think that is frightening more than anything else. I want many more operating systems to choose from. (Not yet another Linux distro)
• dredmorbius 4y ago
  In a Fediverse thread some time back I asked Lars how many other Linux users there were when he installed it (well, some other guy did it for him) on his computer. He replied that there was one other user at the time. (The thread's buried under one of my several Mastodon profiles. I do swear it actually happened, however.) 2023 will mark my own 26th year of Linux on the Desktop.