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> just buy Canonical or something Canonical doesn't really make any things that are considered part of a desktop OS. Ubuntu is just a package (and some argue a

> just buy Canonical or something Canonical doesn't really make any things that are considered part of a desktop OS. Ubuntu is just a package (and some argue a bad one) of things made by other people. There's very little value in the Linux desktop and I don't see that changing anytime soon. You're probably best re-inventing the wheel if you want a Windows competitor, like Google did with ChromeOS.

pjmlp 4y ago
They surely do, its reason to fame is being the best distribution supporting OEM devices without religion regarding open source drivers.
- lillecarl 4y ago
  They're using a package manager that a lot of people are comfortable with, they give away their packages without subscriptions and they work with some OEMs. But in reality, the hardware support is in the kernel, so any distro with a more up2date kernel would fare at least as good. As for the software Canonical produces, I'm not great friends with anything. Snap is crap, Netplan is just a renderer to systemd-networkd or networkmanager, MAAS is a pile of garbage, Juju never caught on, upstart failed, Unity failed etc... We're running a lot of Canonical at work and I'm not particularly impressed.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Nope in what concerns proprietary drivers and FOSS drama. There is a reason why Canonical was the first option when Microsoft introduced WSL.
asddubs 4y ago
A canonical engineer did fix a kernel bug that prevented my laptop from booting on newer kernel versions. And they do develop their own software, too. Saying that they are "just a package" is not giving them enough credit.
sho_hn 4y ago
> There's very little value in the Linux desktop There's a tremendous amount of value in the Linux desktop. It's used to do amazing things every day. What you mean is that it's very hard to turn it into a business model, which I'd agree with. But these are not the same in the world.
- eldaisfish 4y ago
  To you and me, sure, there is value in a linux desktop. To the average user, linux is not in any state to be a useable, daily driver desktop. Where it works, it is the exception, not the norm. Taking linux and turning it into a business model can be done - see valve and the steam deck. Granted, that is gaming-only but it can be done. The #1 problem with the linux desktop is that there is no single linux desktop and things break far too often.
  - sho_hn 4y ago
    > To you and me, sure, there is value in a linux desktop. "You and me" is actually not a small or meaningless demographic. It includes my thousands of colleagues at Mercedes-Benz who use Linux desktops to do engineering work, and millions of other developers. It means a lot of scientists, for example at NASA and CERN. It means a lot of school students and government employees in educational and other municipal deployments. A lot of the places where Linux is used is for roles that act as multiplicators, e.g. in the development and production of end-user products, or research/science/RD that will lead to new ones, or in educating the people who will one day make new ones. All of this is a lot of value if you sum it up. There may be no single shining CEO and his shareholders getting rich off of the Linux desktop in the way we're used to fawning over in the tech hustle news cycle. But the world at large almost certainly is. I submit that's a fine success metric. > To the average user, linux is not in any state to be a useable, daily driver desktop. For many users it's today more reliable than contemporary Windows. Ten years ago, the Linux desktop experience for a non-technical user was death by a thousand papercuts. Today there are still some gaps in HW support that can create unsolvables, but if your machine is well-supported, things work just fine. What's mainly keeping it back is many other factors, from channel availability to software availability. > see valve and the steam deck :-) I worked on the Steam Deck as CTO of one of Valve's contractors on the project. Glad you like it.
eastbound 4y ago
> There's very little value in the Linux desktop and I don't see that changing anytime soon Only because no-one has disrupted the market. Typical case of “Who would pay for a Mantis open-source bugtracker”, then Jira appear and companies purchase it. What you mean is, who would pay for Ubuntu. But I’d pay for an open-source macOS, with online backups, video editing and SSO for my IT fleet, anything that doesn’t look like Ubuntu.
murdoze 4y ago
I see no value in the Windows desktop. For my tasks.

pjmlp 4y ago

They surely do, its reason to fame is being the best distribution supporting OEM devices without religion regarding open source drivers.

lillecarl 4y ago
They're using a package manager that a lot of people are comfortable with, they give away their packages without subscriptions and they work with some OEMs. But in reality, the hardware support is in the kernel, so any distro with a more up2date kernel would fare at least as good. As for the software Canonical produces, I'm not great friends with anything. Snap is crap, Netplan is just a renderer to systemd-networkd or networkmanager, MAAS is a pile of garbage, Juju never caught on, upstart failed, Unity failed etc... We're running a lot of Canonical at work and I'm not particularly impressed.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Nope in what concerns proprietary drivers and FOSS drama. There is a reason why Canonical was the first option when Microsoft introduced WSL.

asddubs 4y ago

A canonical engineer did fix a kernel bug that prevented my laptop from booting on newer kernel versions. And they do develop their own software, too. Saying that they are "just a package" is not giving them enough credit.

sho_hn 4y ago

> There's very little value in the Linux desktop There's a tremendous amount of value in the Linux desktop. It's used to do amazing things every day. What you mean is that it's very hard to turn it into a business model, which I'd agree with. But these are not the same in the world.

eldaisfish 4y ago
To you and me, sure, there is value in a linux desktop. To the average user, linux is not in any state to be a useable, daily driver desktop. Where it works, it is the exception, not the norm. Taking linux and turning it into a business model can be done - see valve and the steam deck. Granted, that is gaming-only but it can be done. The #1 problem with the linux desktop is that there is no single linux desktop and things break far too often.
- sho_hn 4y ago
  > To you and me, sure, there is value in a linux desktop. "You and me" is actually not a small or meaningless demographic. It includes my thousands of colleagues at Mercedes-Benz who use Linux desktops to do engineering work, and millions of other developers. It means a lot of scientists, for example at NASA and CERN. It means a lot of school students and government employees in educational and other municipal deployments. A lot of the places where Linux is used is for roles that act as multiplicators, e.g. in the development and production of end-user products, or research/science/RD that will lead to new ones, or in educating the people who will one day make new ones. All of this is a lot of value if you sum it up. There may be no single shining CEO and his shareholders getting rich off of the Linux desktop in the way we're used to fawning over in the tech hustle news cycle. But the world at large almost certainly is. I submit that's a fine success metric. > To the average user, linux is not in any state to be a useable, daily driver desktop. For many users it's today more reliable than contemporary Windows. Ten years ago, the Linux desktop experience for a non-technical user was death by a thousand papercuts. Today there are still some gaps in HW support that can create unsolvables, but if your machine is well-supported, things work just fine. What's mainly keeping it back is many other factors, from channel availability to software availability. > see valve and the steam deck :-) I worked on the Steam Deck as CTO of one of Valve's contractors on the project. Glad you like it.

eastbound 4y ago

> There's very little value in the Linux desktop and I don't see that changing anytime soon Only because no-one has disrupted the market. Typical case of “Who would pay for a Mantis open-source bugtracker”, then Jira appear and companies purchase it. What you mean is, who would pay for Ubuntu. But I’d pay for an open-source macOS, with online backups, video editing and SSO for my IT fleet, anything that doesn’t look like Ubuntu.

murdoze 4y ago

I see no value in the Windows desktop. For my tasks.