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2015: Year of linux on everything except the desktop?

by Shish2k 12y ago

Mikeb85 12y ago
Linux is doing alright on the 'desktop'. Chromebooks, Dell is selling Ubuntu laptops, you can buy Linux preloaded on a variety of hardware in some markets. Raspberry Pi and Pi2s are out there, and apart from Linux desktops, open source is getting to be huge. The real difference is that nowadays, the 'desktop' doesn't matter. Most new apps are either browser based, or built multi-platform from the start. There's very little you 'need' Windows for today.
- vezzy-fnord 12y ago
  With the exception of industrial and enterprise software, which remains a significant chunk. The problem with the Linux desktop is that the people developing it are completely out of touch with how the average user thinks, and they assume that introducing another opaque monolith daemon to handle an entire subsystem is the only thing stopping all those Windows users from flocking to Fedora in an instant. The result is that they alienate the people who actually care. Ironically enough, the examples you list (Google and Canonical) are ones that operate outside the general sphere of influence of the desktop developer scene. Canonical in particular is reviled as all hell by the Red Hat subculture.
  - Cuuugi 12y ago
    I'm not familiar with much Industrial software, but i am continuously amazed with the amount of enterprise software available on Linux. Support can be a little tricky, but it's absolutely out there.
- joshuapants 12y ago
  As far as I can tell, Linux still has less than 2% of the desktop market share. Windows Phone has something like 2% of the mobile market share and I think it would be unrealistic to say that platform is doing 'alright.' Adoption matters more than whether it is sort of possible to buy a computer with it preinstalled. Raspberry Pis aren't desktops, either. Though it's possible to use one as a really low powered desktop, that certainly isn't the majority use case. Even if all 5 million Pis sold were used as Linux desktops, that's still tiny in a world with 2 billion desktop computers. There may be little you 'need' Windows for today, but it is still overwhelmingly the go-to choice for desktop computing. I also think you may be incorrect on your assertion that most new software is either browser based or cross-platform; that may be the case for a lot of the products you're exposed to but I don't think you're considering the vast amount of niche software out there. Lest I be accused of any bias, I am a happy desktop Linux user.

2015: Year of linux on everything except the desktop?

by Shish2k 12y ago

2015: Year of linux on everything except the desktop?

Linux is doing alright on the 'desktop'. Chromebooks, Dell is selling Ubuntu laptops, you can buy Linux preloaded on a variety of hardware in some markets. Raspberry Pi and Pi2s are out there, and apart from Linux desktops, open source is getting to be huge. The real difference is that nowadays, the 'desktop' doesn't matter. Most new apps are either browser based, or built multi-platform from the start. There's very little you 'need' Windows for today.

vezzy-fnord 12y ago
With the exception of industrial and enterprise software, which remains a significant chunk. The problem with the Linux desktop is that the people developing it are completely out of touch with how the average user thinks, and they assume that introducing another opaque monolith daemon to handle an entire subsystem is the only thing stopping all those Windows users from flocking to Fedora in an instant. The result is that they alienate the people who actually care. Ironically enough, the examples you list (Google and Canonical) are ones that operate outside the general sphere of influence of the desktop developer scene. Canonical in particular is reviled as all hell by the Red Hat subculture.
- Cuuugi 12y ago
  I'm not familiar with much Industrial software, but i am continuously amazed with the amount of enterprise software available on Linux. Support can be a little tricky, but it's absolutely out there.
joshuapants 12y ago
As far as I can tell, Linux still has less than 2% of the desktop market share. Windows Phone has something like 2% of the mobile market share and I think it would be unrealistic to say that platform is doing 'alright.' Adoption matters more than whether it is sort of possible to buy a computer with it preinstalled. Raspberry Pis aren't desktops, either. Though it's possible to use one as a really low powered desktop, that certainly isn't the majority use case. Even if all 5 million Pis sold were used as Linux desktops, that's still tiny in a world with 2 billion desktop computers. There may be little you 'need' Windows for today, but it is still overwhelmingly the go-to choice for desktop computing. I also think you may be incorrect on your assertion that most new software is either browser based or cross-platform; that may be the case for a lot of the products you're exposed to but I don't think you're considering the vast amount of niche software out there. Lest I be accused of any bias, I am a happy desktop Linux user.