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> 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

> 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.
- sbuk 4y ago
  > Virtual Desktops have come straight from Linux. Pretty sure I was using virtual desktops in CDE in 1995. At the time GNU/Linux had extremely limited, if any, desktops. > CLIs, which are becoming increasingly more supported and important on both Windows and MacOS are thanks to Linux. CLI's predate Linux by quite some time! DOS, heck Windows 1.0, was essentially a CLI application! Those 'Linux' commands are part of the GNU suite, named for various UNIX programs that they emulate. > 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. Can't speak for Windows, but Mac package managers have been around for longer than brew has existed and certainly as long as OS X/macOS has been in existence. Fink (2000) and Macports (2002) spring to mind. The two oldest package managers are dpkg, closely followed by FreeBSD ports in 1994. Everything else is post 2000, barring perhaps RPM and APT. > Almost every Windows and Mac software is developed using git. Git was literally invented for writing Linux. Git was invented not for writing Linux, but to maintain the source because BitKeeper screwed the community over. It won mindshare off the back of that because it wasn't CVS or SVN. This comment is what is bad for Linux. A lot of us old-timers were around for all of this, and before GNU/Linux was a twinkling in the eyes of their founders. Yes, there has been a lot of positive contributions from Linux and the community, but can we please stop presenting it as some sort of panacea? It very definitely isn't.
  - dagmx 4y ago
    To add to your points, since macOS is BSD derived, certainly the BSD package manager inspired it more (hence also why MacPorts is popular too from 2002 onwards) Also, I agree with your last point. Comments like theirs are endemic of having too much of a hyper focus on what one is passionate about, and causing folks to miss seeing the bigger picture. There’s also a heavy recency bias involved.
  - jrm4 4y ago
    No. Stop being old and grumpy and join in instead. No one outside of here much cares about the fine grained differences between GNU/Linux and Unix and they mostly shouldn't have to. The more important part is that the general spirit (strongly buttressed by the GPL and Stallman, I'd argue, more than anything else but we can debate) represents a better and smarter way of looking at computing than letting everything we do get taken over overly greedy companies. There's some need for "capitalism" for sure, but this was the more important part.
jrm4 4y ago
This is one of those things that's so prevalent that it's kind of hard to even say. One quick example: Look at every version of Windows from Vista to 10, and then look at what KDE was already looking like at the time. Hard to not see major influence.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  Vista is 2006. In 2006 KDE was version 3.5 and hopelessly cosplaying a WinXP theme. KDE 4 from 2008 was hopelessly cosplaying MacOS. So yeah. Influences are very apparent.

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.

sbuk 4y ago
> Virtual Desktops have come straight from Linux. Pretty sure I was using virtual desktops in CDE in 1995. At the time GNU/Linux had extremely limited, if any, desktops. > CLIs, which are becoming increasingly more supported and important on both Windows and MacOS are thanks to Linux. CLI's predate Linux by quite some time! DOS, heck Windows 1.0, was essentially a CLI application! Those 'Linux' commands are part of the GNU suite, named for various UNIX programs that they emulate. > 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. Can't speak for Windows, but Mac package managers have been around for longer than brew has existed and certainly as long as OS X/macOS has been in existence. Fink (2000) and Macports (2002) spring to mind. The two oldest package managers are dpkg, closely followed by FreeBSD ports in 1994. Everything else is post 2000, barring perhaps RPM and APT. > Almost every Windows and Mac software is developed using git. Git was literally invented for writing Linux. Git was invented not for writing Linux, but to maintain the source because BitKeeper screwed the community over. It won mindshare off the back of that because it wasn't CVS or SVN. This comment is what is bad for Linux. A lot of us old-timers were around for all of this, and before GNU/Linux was a twinkling in the eyes of their founders. Yes, there has been a lot of positive contributions from Linux and the community, but can we please stop presenting it as some sort of panacea? It very definitely isn't.
- dagmx 4y ago
  To add to your points, since macOS is BSD derived, certainly the BSD package manager inspired it more (hence also why MacPorts is popular too from 2002 onwards) Also, I agree with your last point. Comments like theirs are endemic of having too much of a hyper focus on what one is passionate about, and causing folks to miss seeing the bigger picture. There’s also a heavy recency bias involved.
- jrm4 4y ago
  No. Stop being old and grumpy and join in instead. No one outside of here much cares about the fine grained differences between GNU/Linux and Unix and they mostly shouldn't have to. The more important part is that the general spirit (strongly buttressed by the GPL and Stallman, I'd argue, more than anything else but we can debate) represents a better and smarter way of looking at computing than letting everything we do get taken over overly greedy companies. There's some need for "capitalism" for sure, but this was the more important part.

jrm4 4y ago

This is one of those things that's so prevalent that it's kind of hard to even say. One quick example: Look at every version of Windows from Vista to 10, and then look at what KDE was already looking like at the time. Hard to not see major influence.

dmitriid 4y ago
Vista is 2006. In 2006 KDE was version 3.5 and hopelessly cosplaying a WinXP theme. KDE 4 from 2008 was hopelessly cosplaying MacOS. So yeah. Influences are very apparent.