Is the Linux Desktop Dream Dead?

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/208337/is_the_linux_desktop_dream_dead.html

by macco • 16 years ago

5 36 16 years ago

joubert• 16 years ago

In the meantime mobile phones will probably (if not already) be most people's interaction with "computing" and there Linux is a compelling story.

InclinedPlane• 16 years ago

Yes.

And no.

Linux was never a very good desktop OS. Though it was a fair to perhaps good workstation OS. However, the future of the desktop may well be in mobile-heritage OSes such as iOS and Android. Just as the PC grew to fill its mini-computer and mainframe big brothers' shoes so mobile OSes are likely to mature into robust desktop platforms (though founded on different paradigms).

And if that's the case, then the linux desktop dream may yet live indirectly, through android and related offerings (chrome OS, etc.)

rbanffy7• 16 years ago

> Linux was never a very good desktop OS

Have you ever seriously tried to use it? Because, lacking a proper official definition of what a good desktop OS is, I am very satisfied with the one running in front of me and can only say it's really good. Good as in "solid and predictable".

I understand there are Linux distros for every taste, from the heavy-duty-server guy to the most curious hacker that wants to compile the kernel for every upstream release, but I find - and that's first-hand experience - Ubuntu makes for a very nice destkop OS.

StavrosK7• 16 years ago

I agree with you on everything, except the fact that it's solid. In my experience, it crashes a bit more than Windows (Gnome/the GUI does, the rest of the system runs great). E.g. gwibber-service keeps taking up 100% of my CPU at random times, network-manager-applet keeps disappearing, disconnecting me from the net, etc.

Other than that, I love it, it's my main OS. I just wish they debugged it a bit more. Ubuntu is known for using bleeding-edge packages rather much...

flawawa2• 16 years ago

Linux is the best desktop OS I ever used. Sure, it required me to learn a bit about its innards and consider what I need and why, but once configured it is a flawless and relaxing experience for me.

nailer• 16 years ago

I think the desktop itself is dying. The Linux desktop, however, did give birth to KHTML, which became one of the major browser platforms. You can now access your apps without a proprietary software requirement on most devices. A win, but not in the way anyone expected.

forgottenpaswrd• 16 years ago

Please, don't send FUD here.

PCWorld is a magazine witch primary Ad buyer is Microsoft, this kind of magazines live from their ads(I have worked on printing presses), not for their customers paying the magazine.

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

No, Linux is not dead, and you make the numbers totally up(1% market share). Linus is not going to be professional in the areas that commercial software makers only support Windows or Mac(games, CAD, CAE, publishing...) until they support Linux, but is the only OS in witch you have total control.

DisposaBoy• 16 years ago

I don't think this has anything to do with Microsoft, they're simply almost 2 weeks late hopping on that band-wagon. Note: the argument is about Linux on the desktop, not Linux as a whole. Linux as a whole does well with adoption elsewhere(mobile, servers, super computing, routers?). I don't really know much about Linux on the desktop as it was never a dream for many of us who have better things to do and I don't think it was ever alive so I don't know how it can now be dead :)

bad_user• 16 years ago

If you would have read the first sentence in that article, you would've seen the author argues the contrary ... that Linux on the desktops is not dead.

On the other hand your point is totally useless.

     Linus is not going to be professional in the areas that 
     commercial software makers only support 
     Windows or Mac

NO SHIT ... unfortunately it is not going to happen soon. You know why?

Because Linux users don't pay for software, and proprietary software has some kind of stench attached (RMS says so).

E.g. Adobe tried to ship Flex Builder for Linux: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex/flexbuilder_linux/

And I've been to one internal meeting in Adobe that discussed the viability of Linux. Users not paying for software was problem #1, but they still considered it viable because of recent trends (e.g. Dell / Walmart starting to sell Ubuntu / gOS computers).

Guess they backtracked on that decision based on consumer feedback.

mgkimsal• 16 years ago

perennial chicken/egg problem, but they 'chickened' out I guess (yeah, bad pun).

Would be interesting to know the final reason for killing it. At that time, I had a need for Flex Builder, and wanted it on Linux, and would have paid for it in a heartbeat. Others I know would have too. But we couldn't because it's not available.

I've paid for other software on Linux in the past (financial software, mostly) and got tired of waiting for the programs I wanted and needed to be available on Linux, so I jumped to a Mac. I'd been a rather late holdout, only jumping in late 2008, after about 8 years of trying to do only Linux on the desktop.

I guess there were never enough of us to make certain software profitable, or insanely profitable, which is perhaps what vendors like Adobe were after.

vetinari• 16 years ago

The problem with Linux is not the urban legend, that Linux users don't pay for software (just ask Varicad or MathWorks), for example).

For Adobe, the problem might be, that Linux users don't pay for subpar software. The Flex Builder is a perfect example - it feels foreign on Linux desktop. Would Mac users pay for software, that feels so foreign on Mac desktop? Of course not, so why do you expect Linux users to do?

tzs• 16 years ago

> No, Linux is not dead, and you make the numbers totally up(1% market share)

How is the 1% number totally made up?

erikstarck• 16 years ago

Android will be bigger than Windows ever was.

jarin3• 16 years ago

Linux is a passable desktop OS if you're a developer or most of the things you need live in the browser. I have an Ubuntu box loaded up and sitting in the garage just in case my Macbook gets stolen or dies on me, and I know that I'd be able to clone my projects and be up and running and billing clients again in a couple of hours.

That being said, desktop Linux is lacking a lot of the other things that I use on a daily basis (no, Gimp and OpenOffice.org are NOT "just as good"), and I just don't enjoy using it as much as OS X.

However, I in no way look down on the people who love their Linux desktop machines more than life itself, because without them we wouldn't have things like Webkit, TrueCrypt, VNC, Wine, Eclipse, and Cedega (and its cousin Cider, for running Windows games on Linux and the Mac, respectively).

So keep hacking away on your Linux desktop machines!

StavrosK7• 16 years ago

I'm the opposite, I used OS X for a few months and found it abysmal for development, really unfit for power-user usage (keyboard accessibility was horrid) and completely uncustomisable. I switched to Linux and never used it again.

I used to use Windows before that, but now I've switched all my computers to Linux. Windows is a close favorite (7 is great), but installing the dev tools I need isn't easy (or possible, sometimes). OS X is a distant third.

jarin3• 16 years ago

I can understand that point of view, but I notice that a lot of desktop Linux users bring up UI customization as one of the big arguments for using Linux.

I've always seen extensive UI customization as just one more distraction between me and real work. I'd rather just set a flat black or very minimalist wallpaper and get cracking instead of spending hours finding the right interface theme, tweaking the colors and fonts, and designing the perfect wallpaper to highlight my CPU/RAM/weather/calendar desktop widgets (I have done all this before).

I'm actually really glad that the only UI customization that's easy to do in OS X is choosing between color or greyscale title bar close buttons.

mkr-hn2• 16 years ago

They're just as good for a lot of use cases.

fbcocq• 16 years ago

The 21st-century desktop isn't based on the fat-client desktop of the last 25-years. It exists on the Web in Web-based applications and software as a service (SaaS) and what I call "Content as a Service." If the content providers have their way, you'll view content from the Web instead of downloading it.

So I just took a break and played a round of SC2 and now I'm back to do some work in Photoshop/Excel. Just thought you'd like to know.

nightlifelover• 16 years ago

Yes it is.

rue• 16 years ago

Daddy, what's a desktop?

bryanlarsen• 16 years ago

Linux got a lot of momentum from the "Microsoft is evil" camp. However, OS X sucked off most of that momentum, and now I would guess the primary users of Linux are developers who deploy onto Linux servers or embedded devices who realize that it's easier to develop on the same platform you deploy on. (And who have a lot of knowledge about the platform because they deploy on it).

But there is a growing "Apple is evil" movement, and I expect Linux to get some momentum from that. I wish that more people would try Linux for it's positive features -- for example, Virtual Desktops is my killer feature, but Linux still gets most of its users because its "not Windows" and "not Apple".

One huge advantage that Linux does have is that it's really the only Desktop platform that's seeing rapid advancement. KDE 4 is maturing into a very nice platform, Gnome 3 is coming out soon, all with significant changes and enhancements, for good or bad. OTOH, OS X 10.7 is coming out with what, an app store?

Of course, neither Microsoft nor Apple are putting a lot of effort into desktop environments because of their decreasing relevance...

rbanffy7• 16 years ago

> for good or bad. OTOH, OS X 10.7 is coming out with what, an app store?

... that could be described as a credit-card-aware half-brained package manager...

drallison• 16 years ago

I use Ubuntu out of the box for desktop machines and Centos for servers. The Gnome/Ubuntu desktop is OK and way better than XP for me. (Yes, I do know my tastes are 3 sigma away from the norm, but I am not sure which direction.)

I am irritated by the tendency of the Linux Desktop designers to clone the Windows and/or the MAC Desktop features and problems, good and bad. I would prefer a Linux Desktop that provides a better interface than the competition, one without the warts of the other products.

I do not see the need all the graphical configuration themes and options, which just seem to add complexity. Few of the people I know use anything other than the "standard" configuration simply because a private configuration needs to be maintained and provides almost no marginal advantage.

I find Desktop GUI tools are frequently cumbersome and using them causes a lot of busy hand work. Shell command lines, BASH scripts, and Python programs work better for me than the Desktop GUI. I am frustrated when Desktop Tools are not easily usable from scripts as sometimes is the case with Gnome.

None the less, I think the Linux Desktop is alive and well.

robwgibbons• 16 years ago

Linux desktops will never die.

Is the Linux Desktop Dream Dead?

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