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When IBM acquired Red Hat, it was supposed to super-charge Red Hat, IBM was going to let them grow. They had an opportunity to really make desktop linux a thin

When IBM acquired Red Hat, it was supposed to super-charge Red Hat, IBM was going to let them grow. They had an opportunity to really make desktop linux a thing. Now, they're conceding defeat.

jkaplowitz 2y ago
This is no more a sign of defeat than Debian or Ubuntu supporting WSL, which they both do. (Including Ubuntu's paid offering Ubuntu Pro.)
zokier 2y ago
I'm sorry, but ever thinking that IBM acquisition of RH was going to help Linux desktop sounds incredibly naive take. Its not a defeat if they weren't even in the race.
pessimizer 2y ago
Why would IBM care about linux on the desktop? And why would anyone else care if that linux desktop had to be redhat? "IBM’s Red Hat Acquisition Will Pay For Itself By Early Next Year" https://www.nextplatform.com/2024/10/24/ibms-red-hat-acquisition-will-pay-for-itself-by-early-next-year/ https://www.nextplatform.com/2024/10/24/ibms-red-hat-acquisi...
dismalaf 2y ago
Conceding defeat? The use case for this is: corporation has RHEL servers but Windows workstations. Developer wants RHEL on their workstation to develop tools for said server. Support for server infrastructure is where RH and IBM make all their money anyway, why do they care if an individual dev is running RHEL proper or under WSL on workstations?
- linuxftw 2y ago
  > The use case for this is: corporation has RHEL servers but Windows workstations. This is entirely the point I'm making. RH could have used IBM's backing to make desktop linux a 1st class experience. Instead, they're doing none of that, and conceding the desktop market to Windows and Mac.
  - dismalaf 2y ago
    > RH could have used IBM's backing to make desktop linux a 1st class experience Desktop Linux IS a first class experience and has been for awhile now. Fedora is amazing. Fedora Silverblue is even better. RHEL Workstations are great. Linux on the desktop beats Windows, hands down. Even the laptop experience with Linux is flawless these days, I've got an MSI laptop and absolutely everything works, flawlessly, all the time with Fedora Silverblue, even Nvidia graphics, fingerprint reader, Wacom pen and touch screen, etc... But here is why corporations use Windows: they get locked into Excel/Outlook and MS offers corporate contracts that solve email, communication, cloud storage, productivity, etc... Plus the millions of office drones have a tough time adapting to anything that they don't recognise (my folks are boomer office workers, I still remember how much they complained when MS Office changed to the "ribbon" interface). The only way to beat Windows on the desktop is for Linux vendors to offer an all-in-one OS and productivity solution that a 50 year old accountant or secretary can use. Because that's Windows' bread and butter. But is it worthwhile for IBM/Red Hat to make desktop apps and a W365 competitor? Or for them to sell clusters, mainframes and AI infrastructure/services? The fact is, Linux is more important and more used than ever before despite MS' dirty tactics. Even on the desktop. And WSL is like a gateway drug to Linux. It's still a big win. Even if it's not what Linux users imagined winning would look like 20 years ago...
    - linuxftw 2y ago
      Linux and FOSS is losing the battle to proprietary hardware. How many consumer devices can easily run linux, and still be functional? Phones, tablets, ARM pcs, they are all non-functional or require numerous binary blobs. You'll look back in 20 years and remember this as the final few years we used linux on personal devices.
      - dismalaf 2y ago
        Open hardware is a somewhat different topic than FOSS. Yes, lots of hardware is closed and proprietary blogs are unfortunately still needed. But that doesn't mean Linux or OSS is going away anytime soon. There's more Linux systems in the world than every other OS that's ever existed combined. For a large portion of the world a Linux (Android) device is the only computing device they've ever used. Even in developed countries, desktops are less and less relevant and mobile devices are #1, and outside a few select countries, that means Linux (Android). And Linux is gaining steam if anything thanks to AI, since most of the infrastructure related to producing LLMs runs only on Linux. No one's running Windows server on a 300k node cluster. And to address your point directly, installing Linux on non-Linux hardware is still better than it's ever been. More hardware is compatible than ever before (I've been running Linux since the early 2000's) and while running non-Android Linux on phones isn't great, even that is better than it used to be. But yeah, we probably won't ever reach the "whole stack is open top to bottom" future that people like RMS dreamt about...
pjmlp 2y ago
Why should they? IBM doesn't care about desktop PC since OS/2, and Red-Hat famously abandoned Linux Desktop asserting it doesn't make any money. They sponsor GNOME to the extent an enterprise workstation needs a GUI of some sort, and that is about it.

When IBM acquired Red Hat, it was supposed to super-charge Red Hat, IBM was going to let them grow. They had an opportunity to really make desktop linux a thing. Now, they're conceding defeat.

jkaplowitz 2y ago

This is no more a sign of defeat than Debian or Ubuntu supporting WSL, which they both do. (Including Ubuntu's paid offering Ubuntu Pro.)

zokier 2y ago

I'm sorry, but ever thinking that IBM acquisition of RH was going to help Linux desktop sounds incredibly naive take. Its not a defeat if they weren't even in the race.

pessimizer 2y ago

Why would IBM care about linux on the desktop? And why would anyone else care if that linux desktop had to be redhat? "IBM’s Red Hat Acquisition Will Pay For Itself By Early Next Year" https://www.nextplatform.com/2024/10/24/ibms-red-hat-acquisition-will-pay-for-itself-by-early-next-year/ https://www.nextplatform.com/2024/10/24/ibms-red-hat-acquisi...

dismalaf 2y ago

Conceding defeat? The use case for this is: corporation has RHEL servers but Windows workstations. Developer wants RHEL on their workstation to develop tools for said server. Support for server infrastructure is where RH and IBM make all their money anyway, why do they care if an individual dev is running RHEL proper or under WSL on workstations?

linuxftw 2y ago
> The use case for this is: corporation has RHEL servers but Windows workstations. This is entirely the point I'm making. RH could have used IBM's backing to make desktop linux a 1st class experience. Instead, they're doing none of that, and conceding the desktop market to Windows and Mac.
- dismalaf 2y ago
  > RH could have used IBM's backing to make desktop linux a 1st class experience Desktop Linux IS a first class experience and has been for awhile now. Fedora is amazing. Fedora Silverblue is even better. RHEL Workstations are great. Linux on the desktop beats Windows, hands down. Even the laptop experience with Linux is flawless these days, I've got an MSI laptop and absolutely everything works, flawlessly, all the time with Fedora Silverblue, even Nvidia graphics, fingerprint reader, Wacom pen and touch screen, etc... But here is why corporations use Windows: they get locked into Excel/Outlook and MS offers corporate contracts that solve email, communication, cloud storage, productivity, etc... Plus the millions of office drones have a tough time adapting to anything that they don't recognise (my folks are boomer office workers, I still remember how much they complained when MS Office changed to the "ribbon" interface). The only way to beat Windows on the desktop is for Linux vendors to offer an all-in-one OS and productivity solution that a 50 year old accountant or secretary can use. Because that's Windows' bread and butter. But is it worthwhile for IBM/Red Hat to make desktop apps and a W365 competitor? Or for them to sell clusters, mainframes and AI infrastructure/services? The fact is, Linux is more important and more used than ever before despite MS' dirty tactics. Even on the desktop. And WSL is like a gateway drug to Linux. It's still a big win. Even if it's not what Linux users imagined winning would look like 20 years ago...
  - linuxftw 2y ago
    Linux and FOSS is losing the battle to proprietary hardware. How many consumer devices can easily run linux, and still be functional? Phones, tablets, ARM pcs, they are all non-functional or require numerous binary blobs. You'll look back in 20 years and remember this as the final few years we used linux on personal devices.
    - dismalaf 2y ago
      Open hardware is a somewhat different topic than FOSS. Yes, lots of hardware is closed and proprietary blogs are unfortunately still needed. But that doesn't mean Linux or OSS is going away anytime soon. There's more Linux systems in the world than every other OS that's ever existed combined. For a large portion of the world a Linux (Android) device is the only computing device they've ever used. Even in developed countries, desktops are less and less relevant and mobile devices are #1, and outside a few select countries, that means Linux (Android). And Linux is gaining steam if anything thanks to AI, since most of the infrastructure related to producing LLMs runs only on Linux. No one's running Windows server on a 300k node cluster. And to address your point directly, installing Linux on non-Linux hardware is still better than it's ever been. More hardware is compatible than ever before (I've been running Linux since the early 2000's) and while running non-Android Linux on phones isn't great, even that is better than it used to be. But yeah, we probably won't ever reach the "whole stack is open top to bottom" future that people like RMS dreamt about...

pjmlp 2y ago

Why should they? IBM doesn't care about desktop PC since OS/2, and Red-Hat famously abandoned Linux Desktop asserting it doesn't make any money. They sponsor GNOME to the extent an enterprise workstation needs a GUI of some sort, and that is about it.