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In the late nineties, some of the Linux distributions were also already viable. E.g. I remember introducing SUSE Linux at my high school in ~1998, and back then

In the late nineties, some of the Linux distributions were also already viable. E.g. I remember introducing SUSE Linux at my high school in ~1998, and back then it could be installed by a reasonably technical person. Which was not that much different than Windows 9x, given all the work that was usually required to install device drivers, etc. We also had some desktops with KDE and most students had no trouble doing their usual work (web browsing, text processing, e-mailing, etc.). I wonder if things improved that much. Yes, we now have Android and iOS, which have a limited scope (portable devices). But, on the desktop and laptop it's still Windows. Mac is only an option for the rich contingent of Western countries. Meanwhile, the Linux desktop has splintered into a market where there are no clear market leaders anymore - Red Hat abandoned the desktop, SUSE is not really visible anymore, and Canonical is working hard to get rid of its user community. That, plus a half a dozen desktops (GNOME, Unity, Mate, Cinnamon, KDE, Xfce). Frankly, it's a mess! However, what's perhaps more damaging is that 'the hope' is gone. There was a time where many people believed that the Linux desktop would eventually take over. Now nobody believes that there will ever be the year of Linux on the desktop and a large number of developers has left to OS X. The only spark of hope are web applications, since they are platform independent and there is usually some competition. However, you never purchase or own an actual license. So, the vendor could go bankrupt, cancel development, remove features that are crucial, etc. You can never make the decision to stick with an older version, since you don't own a license. Moreover, usually you get a backup of your data in any easy way, let alone convert your data to a web app of a competitor. tl;dr: mobile devices are not good computers yet, on general purpose machines one of the best competitors fragmented itself into oblivion, in platform-independent web apps you are dependent on the whims of the vendor and locked-in. To end on a positive note: at least Android is mostly open and captured most of the smartphone market and will do the same on tablets. It's really good to see the work of the Cyanogenmod community, etc. Edit: Downvoters: Is it because you believe that the Linux desktop hasn't fragmented? Do you disagree on the downsides of web applications?

tluyben2 13y ago
Not sure about the downvotes, but talking about the influence of who buys personal computing devices, almost no-one cares about the above. Cloud stuff disappears? You open up somewhere else and mobile devices are fine computers/computing devices. Almost no-one who is non-tech is buying laptops. And those are the same people who don't care about 'your data', data privacy and all that. They read about it in the paper, have no clue how it affects them and then start up Facebook and forget about it. And that's 30+ers. Kids < 20 really don't care about any of that. My cousins drop their tablet while playing and just open another Gmail account because they cannot be bothered to write down the password. And they do everything on those things. Unless you're talking CAD/CAM, game dev, 3D modelling, movie/music editing, sci computing, people are simply not buying laptops proving mobile devices are great computers for 99% of the world. Oh yeah; they don't care about the OS either; they care about what 'others' in their situation have; they buy what their friends have or what looks good when sitting at the hairdresser.
raverbashing 13y ago
"In the late nineties, some of the Linux distributions were also already viable. E.g. I remember introducing SUSE Linux at my high school in ~1998, and back then it could be installed by a reasonably technical person. Which was not that much different than Windows 9x, given all the work that was usually required to install device drivers, etc." I strongly disagree with this. In 1998 Linux was not easy to use. Sure, KDE, etc, was nice, but to get to a minimally workable system it was hard. I know, I did that, coincidentally in 1998 as well. Getting the video drivers to work, very difficult. Find the right driver, install, etc Configuring Dialup, hard. Using dialup, hard as well. After that, sure, it was nice to startup KDE and browse the web. Linux, as a "unix clone" was good if you had standard hardware and a permanent configuration. Then you can justify setting up wvdial like it was (and probably is today)
- josefresco 13y ago
  Came here to say just what you did. From 1998-200+ I installed literally hundreds of different linux OSes hoping that "this one would be the one". Sadly I spent even more countless hours finding and debugging drivers and generally failing at my attempt to find something to replace or even run alongside Windows (every geek I knew duel-booted another OS). So yes on paper Linux had/has everything Windows does but in practice it was another story. It arguably still remains the case even today which is shocking considering how longs it's been. Most of it is related to drivers and hardware industry support which will never happen until the other dominant players (Windows, OSX) stumble.
- marquis 13y ago
  >Linux was not easy to use True, it took me 5 days to download MKLinux correctly via dial-up. But it worked, went back to OS9 but soon I had build a phalanx of PCs as servers and for friends, and while I used a Mac as my main computer (still to this day) I fell in love with Linux. That's a pretty powerful experience for a girl growing up on the edge of civilization. It's thanks to Linux that I consider myself a child akin to Stephenson's Diamond Age, but thanks to the Mac's friendly introduction to computing that I get could started.
  - 13y ago

tluyben2 13y ago

Not sure about the downvotes, but talking about the influence of who buys personal computing devices, almost no-one cares about the above. Cloud stuff disappears? You open up somewhere else and mobile devices are fine computers/computing devices. Almost no-one who is non-tech is buying laptops. And those are the same people who don't care about 'your data', data privacy and all that. They read about it in the paper, have no clue how it affects them and then start up Facebook and forget about it. And that's 30+ers. Kids < 20 really don't care about any of that. My cousins drop their tablet while playing and just open another Gmail account because they cannot be bothered to write down the password. And they do everything on those things. Unless you're talking CAD/CAM, game dev, 3D modelling, movie/music editing, sci computing, people are simply not buying laptops proving mobile devices are great computers for 99% of the world. Oh yeah; they don't care about the OS either; they care about what 'others' in their situation have; they buy what their friends have or what looks good when sitting at the hairdresser.

raverbashing 13y ago

"In the late nineties, some of the Linux distributions were also already viable. E.g. I remember introducing SUSE Linux at my high school in ~1998, and back then it could be installed by a reasonably technical person. Which was not that much different than Windows 9x, given all the work that was usually required to install device drivers, etc." I strongly disagree with this. In 1998 Linux was not easy to use. Sure, KDE, etc, was nice, but to get to a minimally workable system it was hard. I know, I did that, coincidentally in 1998 as well. Getting the video drivers to work, very difficult. Find the right driver, install, etc Configuring Dialup, hard. Using dialup, hard as well. After that, sure, it was nice to startup KDE and browse the web. Linux, as a "unix clone" was good if you had standard hardware and a permanent configuration. Then you can justify setting up wvdial like it was (and probably is today)

josefresco 13y ago
Came here to say just what you did. From 1998-200+ I installed literally hundreds of different linux OSes hoping that "this one would be the one". Sadly I spent even more countless hours finding and debugging drivers and generally failing at my attempt to find something to replace or even run alongside Windows (every geek I knew duel-booted another OS). So yes on paper Linux had/has everything Windows does but in practice it was another story. It arguably still remains the case even today which is shocking considering how longs it's been. Most of it is related to drivers and hardware industry support which will never happen until the other dominant players (Windows, OSX) stumble.
marquis 13y ago
>Linux was not easy to use True, it took me 5 days to download MKLinux correctly via dial-up. But it worked, went back to OS9 but soon I had build a phalanx of PCs as servers and for friends, and while I used a Mac as my main computer (still to this day) I fell in love with Linux. That's a pretty powerful experience for a girl growing up on the edge of civilization. It's thanks to Linux that I consider myself a child akin to Stephenson's Diamond Age, but thanks to the Mac's friendly introduction to computing that I get could started.
- 13y ago