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2008 - Year of Linux Desktop?

Posted by Zonk on Fri Jul 06, 2007 06:34 PM
from the what-year-isn't-the-year-of-the-penguin dept.
rstrohmeyer writes "Over at Maximum PC, we're betting that Linux will pick up unprecedented momentum in the coming year. With phenomenal new distros, swelling international support, and a little extra momentum from Dell, we think Linux is poised to exploit the current atmosphere of doubt surrounding Vista and pick up serious traction in '08. 'For end users here in North America, Linux poses a low barrier to entry. While many still balk at an upgrade to Vista (typically centered around cost and restrictive licensing terms), those who are curious about the open-source alternative will find few of these obstacles. And an increasingly rich array of ready-to-run software (not to mention surprisingly effective utilities that let you run many Windows apps) makes it easy switch ... Ultimately, I'm not predicting that Linux will take over the market next year. Or anytime soon, for that matter. But if there's ever been a time to try out the world's leading free OS, 2008 will be that time. I am predicting that users will switch to Linux in record numbers next year. And many will never look back.'"
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  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2007, @06:35PM (#19774109)
    It'll happen this time! Honest!
    • Linux is the OS of the future, and always will be.

    • by Spacejock (727523) on Friday July 06 2007, @10:09PM (#19776007) Homepage
      Actually, the two most common support questions I'm getting for all my freeware apps are (1) I just switched to Mac, and are you planning an OSX version? and (2) I just got Ubuntu, are you planning a Linux version?

      In seven years of giving away my software I've never seen this many requests for non-Windows versions. Unfortunately all my apps are written in Visual Studio 6, so the current answer to both questions is NO. I am rewriting my stuff in VS2005 though, which might offer a bit more cross-platform support down the track with the Mono project. (And no, I'm not switching languages. First, because I do this for fun and second, at almost 40 years of age and with a publishing contract for my novels in hand, I'm past the days of learning new languages.)
  • Ooops ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by foobsr (693224) * on Friday July 06 2007, @06:35PM (#19774111) Homepage Journal
    Someone missed to post the 12th anniversary [google.de] version of the story.

    CC.
  • Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by khasim (1285) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Friday July 06 2007, @06:37PM (#19774127)
    It's all about the applications. There are too many apps that too many people use that are available on their Windows machines.

    There will not be a "year of the Linux desktop".

    There will only be the year when people realize that most everyone else is running Linux, too.
    • Re:Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Coryoth (254751) on Friday July 06 2007, @07:02PM (#19774429) Homepage Journal

      There will not be a "year of the Linux desktop". There will only be the year when people realize that most everyone else is running Linux, too.
      Exactly! Both the people expecting a "year of the the Linux desktop" and the people who mock that saying Linux won't and can't succeed on the desktop are deluding themselves. Consider that Linux is now quite successful in the server space; was there ever a "year of Linux on the server"? No, it simply became more prevalent and slowly but surely snowballed. As more people used it on the server it gained support for a wider variety of servers, and slowly but surely invaded the server space. Linux will be just the same on the desktop. There is no point when Linux is "desktop ready", since there will always be something that is lacking for some users. Instead Linux will slowly but surely become more viable as a desktop for a larger and larger userbase. As the userbase expands the application availability and user-friendliness will in turn steadily improve. There is no magic tipping point.

      If you want to see that Linux will eventually gain significant desktop market share then just compare Redhat 5.2 to Windows98, and Ubuntu 7.04 to Windows Vista; the desktop gap has been slowly but steadily closing for years. More and more people are finding Linux a viable alternative desktop. It is still not viable for everyone, but little by little it will get there.
      • Re:Nope. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tooyoung (853621) on Friday July 06 2007, @10:05PM (#19775973)
        Look, this isn't meant as a troll. Linux is great. Much better than Vista. Offer me the choice between the two, and I'd take Linux hands down. However... nobody knows what Linux is.

        Honestly.

        Go ask 10 non-technical people if they would consider using Linux as an OS, and 9 will look at you like you just spoke Greek to them. No, it doesn't count if you ask your wife, who you constantly bore with tech-talk about how much better Linux is than Windows. No, it doesn't count if you go ask your parents, whom you've been trying to convince to make the switch for the past 5 years. Go ask people that don't work in the tech industry, and who you haven't badgered constantly about Linux.

        As I mentioned above, 9 won't know what you're talking about. The 10th person will think that Linux is pure command prompt, with no UI. Why? Not because they are dumb, but because they have just never heard of it. Just like they haven't heard of Solaris, and just like they haven't heard of z/OS. They don't talk about Linux on CNN, they don't write about Linux in Cosmo or Maxim. Hell, how often do you see it mentioned in 'science' magazines, like Discover or Popular Science? It doesn't matter if Ubuntu has a nice GUI and can load DVDs like any other OS. Most people just don't know that, and they probably don't care much. The idea of spending an hour replacing XP or Vista with Ubuntu would strike most people are boring and daunting. What reason do they have? Their computer works for the most part. Most wouldn't even know where to start. Not because they are dumb, but because:
        1. They wouldn't know where to get Ubuntu.
        2. They assume it would be as much of a chore to install as Windows. Oh, you don't think that is a chore? Well, that is probably because you're reading a technical website.

        Yeah, I'd love to see Linux blow up this year. It is doing great in server land, but it has a ways to go before it gets on the desktop of the general public.
  • Every year... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fyre2012 (762907) on Friday July 06 2007, @06:39PM (#19774155) Homepage Journal
    ... it's said 'is XXXX the year for the Linux Desktop'?

    What would make it so? At what point would it be possible to quantify that 'yes, this IS the year!'... when there is 100,000 users? 500,000 users? 10,000,000 users?

    slashdot, of ALL places should understand that Linux is making better ground each year in a number of markets, including the desktop. To say that 'this is the year' we might as well say 'this is the century'. It's impossible to quantify.
    • Re:Every year... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kebes (861706) on Friday July 06 2007, @07:26PM (#19774689) Journal
      By the way... I think the number of Linux users is probably already higher than any of the hypothetical numbers you threw out.

      It's obviously impossible to know for sure how many people use a given OS... especially when that OS is distributed freely and requires no kind of registration. However we can get some vague ideas from a few sources. The Linux Counter [li.org] estimated 29 million in 2005. This was in part based upon verifiable numbers from Red Hat indicating 8 million installs in 1998 (yes, this is including corporate installs, not just home users).

      Another (again not totally reliable) way is to use browser stats. W3school [w3schools.com] reports ~3.4% of browsers are running in Linux. Since there are [internetworldstats.com] 1 billion internet users, that means 39 million Linux users.

      Again, these numbers are open to massive debate. But I think the real number is somewhere in the ballpark of 10 million to 40 millions users. Alot more than most people think.
        • Re:Every year... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by PeterBrett (780946) on Friday July 06 2007, @08:03PM (#19775069) Homepage

          (My experiences dictate that if GNOME or KDE fails, an inexperienced user is left helpless at the command line - Windows does no such thing. This needs to change and support needs to become even *more* accessible before acceptance is widespread.)

          You're quite right. Windows does no such thing. My experiences indicate that if the Windows GUI fails, an inexperienced user is left helpless without a (usable) command line.

    • Re:Every year... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by westlake (615356) on Friday July 06 2007, @07:30PM (#19774733)
      . it's said 'is XXXX the year for the Linux Desktop'?
      What would make it so? At what point would it be possible to quantify that 'yes, this IS the year!'... when there is 100,000 users? 500,000 users? 10,000,000 users?

      I've seen estimates of Windows' desktop share that begin at 300 million users - equivalent to the entire population of the U.S.

      Vista entered the consumer market in January.

      In July, Walmart.com sells HP Pavilion Vista Premium laptops starting at $780.

      15" Wide-Screen Display, Dual Core AMD CPU, 1 GB RAM, DVD burner and DX 9 GeForce Go graphics that do not suck. For $12 add 1 GB ReadyBoost Flash, for $120 a key chain USB HDTV tuner.

      OEM Linux at Walmart is out. The generic Vista laptop from Dell is in.

      If the Geek thinks mass-market pricing of Vista is going to be a turn-off, he is delusional. If he thinks that product activation, DRM, Windows Update, etc., concern anyone in this market, he is ready to be committed.

  • why not (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gEvil (beta) (945888) on Friday July 06 2007, @06:40PM (#19774169)
    I don't [slashdot.org] see any reason [slashdot.org] why it wouldn't be... [slashdot.org]
  • by nobodyman (90587) on Friday July 06 2007, @06:53PM (#19774321)
    Year of the desktop? Let's see:
    • 1994: No
    • 1995: No
    • 1996: No
    • 1997: No
    • 1998: No
    • 1999: No
    • 2000: No
    • 2001: No
    • 2002: No
    • 2003: No
    • 2004: No
    • 2005: No
    • 2006: No
    • 2007: No (pending)
    So, though I may be going out on a limb here, I'm gonna say "no" for 2008. And those that think that Vista's awefulness has any sway must have not been around to see how the whole "Windows vs. MacOS" thing played out.
  • by DaleGlass (1068434) on Friday July 06 2007, @06:58PM (#19774379) Homepage
    It seems logical that Linux will keep getting progressively better.

    It's "Linux desktop" for me already. All of my computers now exclusively run Linux. I have no Windows installs on my server, firewall, laptop or desktop, and only have a couple of Win2K installs in vmware lying around mostly for the very rare times when I need to compile something for Windows.

    For me, the switch to Linux was gradual. I didn't just one day decide to do the switch. Over time, my working Windows installs started failing and I found myself using Linux instead, as it was easier than to spend a weekend reinstalling everything. Eventually I was spending months without booting it, and finally it vanished completely when I upgraded hard disks and didn't have any reason to install it.

    I don't really see a "Year of Linux desktop" happening. People seem to like their weird theories about what's holding Linux back, as if changing directory structure, or getting rid of X would suddenly make Linux become really popular overnight. It won't. People will gradually fix the problems there are, and its market share will progressively go up, as people run out of reasons not to use it.
  • by Swift Kick (240510) on Friday July 06 2007, @07:09PM (#19774497)
    While the article is nice and points to some great progress in a number of fronts (like Dell's recent announcement about shipping desktops loaded with Ubuntu), Linux still has an enourmous amount of ground to cover before it comes close to being a serious rival to Windows in the consumer desktop market.

    Please note that this is just a personal experience which has repeated itself pretty much every time I ran across a new machine.

    It is still a bit of work to get Linux to function properly in a machine with recent hardware. As an example, we have a few new Dell boxes with nothing fancy here, just Core 2 Duo processors, SATA drive, and ATI X1300 video cards.
    Fedora 6 and 7 both barfed when starting the install because of the SATA DVDROM. Ubuntu had the same behavior.
    After 4 hours of checking multiple forums for FAQs and HowTos, we got Fedora 7 running on them, yet the video card isn't recognized properly by Xorg off the box, so no dual-head, no native resolution. Off to get more updates, more FAQs, etc.
    By comparison, we had XP running in 30 minutes in one of the boxes, and one hour later it had all the required software needed for the developer to go to work, including VMWare with a Fedora 7 virtual machine running in it.

    How can you expect large user migrations to Linux is experiences like this one are closer to the norm? Joe User doesn't want to spend 2 or 3 days just trying to get his OS installed, only to have to spend another few days just trying to get his/her bearings around.

    People will *not* migrate to it if the applications they want to run don't run on Linux, and Joe User can't be bothered with adapting to a whole slew of apps, that 'sort-of-look-but-aren't-really-the-same' as their old ones, even if they're superior to their Windows versions when it comes to functionality.
    Let's not even start discussing games. Yes, a number of popular games run under Wine or Cedega, but people do not want to spend hours trying to diagnose issues or tweak stuff; more often than not, they want to install it and go.

    Until you can take a distribution disk, pop it on a random machine with decent hardware, and have everything up and running without requiring any type of user action 'under the hood', Linux will remain firmly esconced in the realm of server rooms, geek basements, and nerd bedrooms; not in your average household.
  • Sadly (Score:5, Funny)

    by ucblockhead (63650) on Friday July 06 2007, @07:15PM (#19774575) Homepage Journal
    This will probably be the year I replace my Linux desktop with a Mac.
    • by larry bagina (561269) on Friday July 06 2007, @06:49PM (#19774293) Journal
      The fact that OS X has unix underpinnings is irrelevant to the game -- unless that game happens to be "hunt the wumpus".
    • by misleb (129952) on Friday July 06 2007, @07:20PM (#19774625)

      It's sad that theres no globally accepted library etc, that all devs use. I mean some apps are mac / windows. why not mac /windows / linux? Since mac runs on a version of *nix. And don't give me that wine / cedega bs. Sadly, until I give up gaming on PC I will have at least one windows box. I hope that Linux continues to offer more and more people an alternative though. Competition is good!


      The way I see it, it doesn't matter that there aren't games on Linux (and to a lesser extent, Macs) It isn't just that I'm not a big gamer, it is that I don't mind booting into Windows to play a game. Most games have a bit of a time commitment to them. At least an hour. If I'm going to be playing for that long or more, what's 2 minutes to reboot? Of course, that mean maintaining a copy of Windows... drivers and all, which is a bit annoying in and of itself, but not a deal killer for Linux.

      Of course, I've never paid for a copy of Windows in my life, so maybe things would be different if I was legit and had to shell out extra money just to play games.

      Another thing is that a lot of the really cool games are coming out on console first these days, so maybe the whole Windows/game issue will be moot. GTA IV, anyone?

      -matthew
              • Re:A tiny market... (Score:5, Informative)

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 06 2007, @09:48PM (#19775863)
                Loki is gone, but they went bankrupt because their CEO and his wife thought of the company's account as their personal ATM. Loki had no problem turning a profit on porting Windows games -- it was their looting of the finances that drove the company under.
                  PS. It's been a few years since Loki, and there're more Linux users now. You might wanna update your stupid flamebait.
    • by Ungrounded Lightning (62228) on Friday July 06 2007, @07:26PM (#19774695) Journal
      But once this percentage gets over, say 5-6%, linux will start having more traction, and will become more difficult/risky/costly to ignore.

      IMHO Dell selling a Ubuntu-preloaded machine is not just a vendor having this epiphany, but also a force to promote it with other vendors.

      People wanting to sell peripherals to users of Dell products now have a wakeup call about furnishing Linux support - along with a big-name company betting significant resources on a market being big enough to chase.