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Chrome Open Source Linux

Is 2021 The Year of the Linux Desktop? (pcmag.com) 192

"2021 Is the Year of Linux on the Desktop," writes PC Magazine. "No, really..." Walk into any school now, and you'll see millions of Linux machines. They're called Chromebooks. For a free project launched 30 years ago today by one man in his spare time, it's an amazing feat.... Linux found its real niche — not as a political statement about "free software," but as a practical way to enable capable, low-cost machines for millions...

Chrome OS and Android are both based on the Linux kernel. They don't have the extra GNU software that distributions like Ubuntu have, but they're descended from Linus Torvalds' original work. Chromebooks are the fastest growing segment of the traditional PC market, according to Canalys. IDC points out that Canalys' estimates of 12 million Chromebooks shipped in Q1 2021 are only a fraction of the 63 million notebooks sold that quarter, but once again, they're where the growth is. Much of that is driven by schools, where Chromebooks dominate now. Schoolkids don't generally need a million apps' worth of generic computing power. They need inexpensive, rugged ways to log into Google Classroom. Linux came to the rescue, enabling cheap, light, easy-to-manage PCs that don't have the Swiss Army Knife cruft of Windows or the premium price of Macs...

One great thing about open-source hacker projects is that they can be taken in unexpected directions. Linux isn't controlled, so it can adapt, Darwinian-style. It was a little scurrying mammal in the time of the dinosaurs, and then the mobile-computing asteroid hit. Linux could evolve. Windows couldn't. When you're building something that fits in your hand and has to sip battery, you can't just keep throwing processors and storage at it. Microsoft had a tough time adapting its monstrous megakernel OS to the new, tiny world. But *nix platforms thrive there: Android (based on Linux) and iOS.

"Android and Chrome water down the Linux philosophy," the article argues, "but they are Linux..."

Does this make any long-time geeks feel vindicated? In the original submission wiredog (Slashdot reader #43,288) looks back to 1995, remembering that "my first Linux was RedHat 2.0 in the beige box, running the 0.95(?) kernel and the F Virtual Window Manager...

"It came with 2 books, a CD, and a boot floppy disk."
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Is 2021 The Year of the Linux Desktop?

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @02:20AM (#61809667)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      The problem is here:

      "Chrome OS and Android are both based on the Linux kernel. They don't have the extra GNU software that distributions like Ubuntu have, but they're descended from Linus Torvalds' original work."

      They also contain transistors, but we don't say they are "Bell Labs machines". Also, Torvald's "original work" is descended from the "original work" of others, including those of Bell Labs. This is NOT the standard.

      Chrome OS and Android are defined by what the user experiences, not specific bits

      • In that case there is no such thing as Linux for an ordinary user? Since if you can rip Linux out of an operating system distribution running Gnome, XFCE, or whatever and replace it with one the BSD kernels without most of the users noticing, then perhaps nobody is running Linux.
        • In that case there is no such thing as Linux for an ordinary user?

          For everyone with a brain Linux on the desktop = Linux/GNU.

          • But GGGP just argued that substitutibility of XYZ being a component of a product without changing the user experience means that the composite product is "not XYZ". I'm just making a reductio ad absurdum argument here, which of course includes the thing that you're saying.
          • For everyone with a brain Linux on the desktop = Linux/GNU.

            Bollocks. A lightweight Linux using little more than the kernel and busybox and perhaps uclibc is still Linux. You can assemble a fully non-GNU toolchain which can rebuild such a system.

      • by ChunderDownunder ( 709234 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @04:36AM (#61809823)

        Android and Chrome OS are Linux-based only as long as Google allows.

        I would expect both to be running under Fuchsia within 5 years, if not sooner.

    • To be even more exact, "the desktop" as in "Linux on the desktop" defines a specific way the visual interface of the operating system looks and is designed to be operated (here: with a pointing device and a—usually—physical keyboard), not the physical location (on/under a desk) or the physical shape of the device (tower/desktop/laptop).

      In everything else, I agree!

    • So yea, almost nothing that's actually in use counts, since they're all vendor lock-in walled gardens using FOSS for bricks and chains.

    • I don't know what you or the summary are talking about. My Chromebook is filled with GNU tools running on the Linux kernel.

  • by Pierre Pants ( 6554598 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @02:21AM (#61809671)
    It's never the year of the Linux desktop, and it never will be. Just shut up already. Yes, Linux is wonderful and so on, but it will never be "mainstream" on "the desktop". FFS with these question titled "articles" already.
    • BSD has had it's year of the desktop (Apple's OS X), so it's not completely beyond the bounds of reason for Linux to have such a moment: perhaps it'll be with a Windows UI and Win32 compatibility layer!

      • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        Stop it. This kind of ignorance contributes to the problem. Mac OS is NOT BSD in precisely the same way that Android is not Linux.

        "...so it's not completely beyond the bounds of reason for Linux to have such a moment: perhaps it'll be with a Windows UI and Win32 compatibility layer!"

        Then it would not be a "Linux desktop", it would be yet another Windows desktop. Your problem is that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the most basic aspect of the issue.

        • Stop it. This kind of ignorance contributes to the problem. Mac OS is NOT BSD in precisely the same way that Android is not Linux.

          That's not how any of this works.

          Mac OS uses a BSD kernel running atop Mach. It is nominally BSD. But it uses a nonstandard init system which sucks. Which makes it a lot like most modern Linux systems :D ... and they are still considered Linux.

          Android uses a weird user environment running atop a Linux kernel. It is clearly Linux, it even uses a classic init system unlike most modern desktop Linuxes. You can use Linux Deploy (with root) to install a complete userland from one of several Linux distributions on it, at which point it behaves like the Linux you know and love. Or you can install Termux (with or without root) to get those userland packages installed.

          Android is Linux in the same way that OSX is BSD, which is to say mostly, and for most purposes.

          • by Junta ( 36770 )

            While technically it is Linux, there isn't a good generic word for the thing that people are expecting, Choice of a few particularly popular desktop environments and very easy access to source code and ability to rebuild any component as you like, if desired and put it into action, and the general user base is using those, not just a fringe subset that went out of their way to be able to run some desktop environment or applications on the environment.

            Frankly if something very familiar came along and had a d

            • While technically it is Linux, there isn't a good generic word for the thing that people are expecting

              Do we need one? We can use phrases, we're smart enough to process words together around here.

              Choice of a few particularly popular desktop environments and very easy access to source code and ability to rebuild any component as you like, if desired and put it into action

              Well I will try be the first to say that the Android build process has historically been a garbage fire, and that IS a big problem with Android. But if you are running an AOSP variant, then you have access to full sources. And you can run a fullscreen vlc and connect back to a local Xvlc, or run a fullscreen X server (although most Android X servers seem to be shit) and connect to your local machine that way, and ru

              • by Junta ( 36770 )

                I think a key component is a pretty accessible build system and the ability to rebuild only a small chunk that you were working on.

                However, the process described as being adequate to satisfy one clamoring for a linux desktop is akin to saying a printer is a system to run Doom, just because someone can replace it's firmware with Doom and run it on the control touchscreen.

                • What I see you saying is that you want a way to tinker on the system, but you don't want to have to tinker to get there. I see this as being fundamentally incompatible with the Linux mindset. It's not like it's actually difficult to do any of this stuff, because others have figured out how to do the work for you and packaged it up as an app.

                  • by Junta ( 36770 )

                    I don't see how not wanting to *have* to tinker to get to that point is incompatible with 'the' Linux mindset. A huge point of the way packaging and tools evolved was to make it easy to get going while still having easy access to rebuild a relatively small package. That's what Linux distributions have been all about. Even when I started with Linux, with Slackware back in 1995 there's a lot of stuff I already didn't have to do to get going thanks to the distribution. Sure to have anything approaching dece

        • by Malc ( 1751 )

          Then it would not be a "Linux desktop", it would be yet another Windows desktop. Your problem is that you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the most basic aspect of the issue.

          So a Microsoft Windows desktop environment means it's not Linux, but a shit quality one like Gnome plus WINE would be ok? Sounds like a very narrow and somewhat invalid definition of Linux based more on personal beliefs than anything.

    • FFS with these question titled "articles" already.

      Came here to see if anybody had mentioned Betterige's Law yet. Am leaving disappointed.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      Corrollary: Any headline that ends with a question mark is always just clickbait.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        Fair point, I don't think it will ever be the year of the Linux desktop until they literally remove the bash console from a distro and that distro still be usable, configurable and fixable when things go wrong. I can't remember the last time I had to use Windows command console to fix anything on my desktop machine.

        The last few versions of windows have made a mess of things when it comes to searching and configuration, Windows could be beaten in usability simply by having a coherent settings system for hard

  • by bemymonkey ( 1244086 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @02:22AM (#61809673)

    ... it's the detachble tablet part of a Lenovo Chromebook Duet. The tablet experience is like broken iPad... especially the on screen keyboard is awful by comparison. Android phones and tablets are also much better in terms of touch responsiveness nd UI optimization.

    With a keyboard and mouse attached it's a nice little Chrome (if you prefer Firefox look elsewhere) browser device with long battery life. I'd recommend something in the clamshell form factor for people who actually plan on typing though - this detachable keyboard crap sucks.

  • by theshowmecanuck ( 703852 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @02:23AM (#61809675) Journal
    Haha haha ha haha ha ha ha!
  • Death of the desktop (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bert64 ( 520050 ) <.moc.eeznerif.todhsals. .ta. .treb.> on Sunday September 19, 2021 @02:25AM (#61809681) Homepage

    It's more that the general purpose computer is going back to the niche it was intended to serve - geeks and power user use cases.

    For the average user there are more suitable devices that can serve their needs without all the overhead and complexity of a general purpose os. Users don't want to be worrying about malware, applying updates, installing drivers etc. For the average user a chromebook and/or a games console are far better tools for their requirements.

    • For the average user there are more suitable devices that can serve their needs without all the overhead and complexity of a general purpose os. Users don't want to be worrying about malware, applying updates, installing drivers etc.

      I disagree. Over the last few years, more and more "average users" around me, even some that actually hate computers and only use one because they can't avoid it, have moved to Linux and are happy with it. Why? Exactly because they don't want to worry about malware and updates and with Linux, they don't need to, as long as the applications available from the usual package sources cover their needs.

      Also, at least if they choose their distribution and desktop environment wisely (they shouldn't, for example, c

      • "they don't want to worry about malware...and with Linux, they don't need to": If "not worrying" = "not running anti-virus", they're in for a rude awakening.

    • Yeah, the "desktop" as we knew it in the 1990's is mostly gone now. Most people get their work done with smartphones and laptops now, with a docking station used if they still need that "desktop" experience with multiple monitors.

  • Drivers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by whyisanonymousdisabl ( 8680209 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @02:32AM (#61809691)

    The year of the linux desktop will be the year of vendor's linux drivers. This requires the year of stable kernel APIs.

    Example: AMD released the drivers of their RX 68000 graphic cards the same day that the card was available. Except it didn't work, at least on Ubuntu 20.04LTS. The reason? A patch between 5.4.0-54 and 5.4.0-66 kernel touched an API! We are not talking about major releases (say, 5.x and 6.x), we are a talking about a dot-dot-dot patch!

    (PS: the trick was to downgrade to 5.4.0-54 version, or build the 5.11 kernel from source)

    AMD was taking heat for this (at least by some youtubers). Do you think that other hardware vendors are willing to have the same fate? To work hard to create a driver just so that a patch release broke it? Do you think that average joe is going to stick with linux when windows supports its hardware perfectly?

    • AMD released the drivers of their RX 68000 graphic cards the same day that the card was available. Except it didn't work, at least on Ubuntu 20.04LTS.

      This kind of a thing is a problem for hardcore gamers who are running stuff that needs the latest and greatest driver. It's a non-issue for everyone else. They don't care if they can run the latest, and they're never going to upgrade their hardware.

      Do you think that average joe is going to stick with linux when windows supports its hardware perfectly?

      No such thing. I have had Windows explode due to video driver problems with literally every video card I've ever owned, which has included basically every major vendor at some point. 3dfx, 3dlabs, nvidia, AMD, NEC... you name 'em and I've probably had one of thei

      • Re:Drivers (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Mitreya ( 579078 ) <mitreya.gmail@com> on Sunday September 19, 2021 @11:44AM (#61810701)

        AMD released the drivers of their RX 68000 graphic cards the same day that the card was available. Except it didn't work, at least on Ubuntu 20.04LTS.

        This kind of a thing is a problem for hardcore gamers who are running stuff that needs the latest and greatest driver. It's a non-issue for everyone else. They don't care if they can run the latest, and they're never going to upgrade their hardware.

        This is an illustration of the problem with the year of the Linux desktop. The answer is, "this isn't a problem because it doesn't matter"

        From https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi [debian.org] (the first one that came up on Google):

        Before you buy, verify your intended device is supported by an available Linux driver.

        I don't know if this is the case now, but 6-7 years ago, I remember finding more than one discussion forum where the advice was to recompile the kernel to get the WiFi card to work. Can we at least agree that "just recompile the kernel" is not something that a regular Linux user would want to do?

  • For 20 years, no. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Sarusa ( 104047 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @02:41AM (#61809701)

    You guys have been predicting the year of the Linux desktop for 20 years now. It's never going to happen, because Linux people have no idea how to make a usable UI for normies. Ubuntu was the best shot, and Canonical just repeatedly s@#$ the bed with that.

    Calling ChromeOS - a proprietary OS controlled by a giant amoral multibillion-dollar corporation - 'Linux' is stretching it beyond recognition, even with the Chromium part as a figleaf. Ditto for Android, or BSD with MacOS. It's pretending you won the war while violating the corpse of every single principle you pretended to stand for.

    Brand-name Linux is for servers, embedded, and as a desktop for one in a hundred users - mostly for cost reasons. It's not the desktop for casuals, and never will be.

  • *Sigh* Android... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @02:53AM (#61809717)

    Walk into any school now, and you'll see millions of Linux machines. They're called Chromebooks. For a free project launched 30 years ago today by one man in his spare time, it's an amazing feat.

    Chromebooks are a walled-garden environment designed solely for the purpose of stealing and monetizing people's personal data and locking them in to a single vender - Google. They just happen to use Linux and a ton of other open-source code because it's free, and because the nasty malware runs server-side in today's world.

    That's the beauty of cloud computing and software-as-a-service: the terminals (because that's what Chromebooks really are) are cheap commodity hardware designed to be useless without the very-much closed source stuff running on the mothership: Google gets the data it wants and gets to save mountains of money on the consumer-facing hardware.

    I know Linus isn't much of an idealist, but I'm pretty sure what Google did with his creation flies right in the face of what he believes in.

    • *Sigh* Android... (Score:5, Insightful)

      What does Android have to do with Chromebooks? They don't run Android.

      • by waspleg ( 316038 )

        They're the same idea, take something FOSS and make it evil for profit.

        • They're the same idea, take something FOSS and make it evil for profit.

          Oh yeah, making computers usable is evil. How dare they?

          Hint: Nothing prevents anyone from making their own chromeos-like Linux distribution based around another browser. Jolicloud leaps to mind, I used to run that on my EEE701. It was also Linux.

    • I know Linus isn't much of an idealist, but I'm pretty sure what Google did with his creation flies right in the face of what he believes in.

      Maybe he believes that everyone has the right to use his creation however they want, provided that they make any source modifications available?

      That seems more likely, given that this is explicitly the way he chose to share it with the world.

    • What kind of data do you think a Chromebook is taking that a desktop isn't?

      I use a Chromebook every day. I barely touch Google services on it. I simply open an IDE, edit files over an SSH mount, and do Git pushes. How is that going to steal all my data?

  • by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @03:00AM (#61809727) Journal

    When he returned to Apple and someone wanted more account executives for corporations Steve said No. Paraphrasing "Microsoft won. Windows won the desktop wars last decade. It is time to work on making MacOSX great but it will never beat Windows".

    Steve knew Mac was superiors. In the end it didn't matter which is why he went into iPods and then iPhones. He was not saying Windows was better rather than Microsoft is the defacto standard for apis, programs, operating systems, and communication between all of these. Apple lost when they fired him in 1985 which is why he opposed continue funding of the AppleII.

    The whole Think Different campaign was only to build a niche for certain professionals and indivisuals. Linux it is the same even if Ubuntu didn't fuck up with Gnome 3 and many other things the community did wrong with the desktop (xorg, pulse audio, systemd, wayland etc).. Fact people want Windows. People are familiar with Windows. Apps are made only to run on Windows. Tech support is familiar with WIndows. IT departments manage Windows. There is no reason to change.

    1991 was too late for Linux sadly as the IBM monopoly which MS took over was entrenched with the things stated above and was the standard for everything and anything on the desktop.

    • by Dwedit ( 232252 )

      The only thing that could break the Windows monopoly is Microsoft's arrogance, and shoving things people don't want down their throats. Once you lose the ability to refuse bad updates, you start looking for alternatives.

      Also see Mozilla, who are doing the same thing with Firefox.

  • people are lazy, they will stick with what they know. It is easier to get the os they were taught in school and/or use at work. They will go with the os that came with their computer. Why should they (mistaken belief) wipe out a perfectly good os and install one they would have to learn and have a large learning curve? Though android is related, it is not the same. Linux also has way too many distros, pick the wrong one for the first time, it could scare a person away forever.
     

  • Android and ChromeOS are not Linux because in either of them Linux is a tiny part of the system and can be replaced as well (check Google Zircon).

    No, 2021 is not the year of the Linux desktop. Not by a long shot [altervista.org]. It may work for certain individuals, there's no doubt about that - but as an OS which could replace Windows on over a billion of devices? No way. Not this year, not five years later. Not a single commercial company does nearly enough to make this a reality. There are too many inner unresolved iss

  • by gTsiros ( 205624 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @03:41AM (#61809781)

    Watch an HDR movie, in HDR.

    Windows does it. Mac does it. Hell, my android phone does it.

    Linux? Nope.

    When I mention this, my behavior is called infantile and that i should instead buy a television.

    A machine powerful enough to AUTHOR such content... unable to play it.

    • Most Linux distros cannot do it out of the box for legal reasons which make no sense, since other OSes just ship with a non-commercial use only disclaimer in their EULAs. Of those which can play back modern formats from official repos, VAAPI keeps being broken or crippled in ways which make playback noticeably less smooth than on Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. Should you dare to use an NVIDIA card for the best possible games compatibility, you are stuck with an unmaintained VDPAU which misses support for
      • HDR support is not stifled by any legal reasons, it's purely the Linux userspace which is not being upgraded to support it.

        Even 10bit per channel color support in X11 is utterly broken in terms of applications: a ton of them either don't work outright or have broken output despite it being supported for decades.

        • by gTsiros ( 205624 )

          Isn't it baffling that applications depend on the bit depth of the output device?

          What a mess.

    • Watch an HDR movie, in HDR.
      Windows does it. Mac does it. Hell, my android phone does it.
      Linux? Nope.
      When I mention this, my behavior is called infantile and that i should instead buy a television.

      Did that years ago on a $50 SBC running Linux (CoreElec JeOS) plugged into the TV.. Now with chip shortages it costs a few dollars more.

      From what I remember Intel was working on HDR for mainline kernel. I assume it exists by now. Not sure about distros/hardware.

    • I have no clue what you're talking about, I can set my xorg to 10 bit or even 12 (for no good reason than that I can), and use mplayer for playback of HDR content, just have to adjust the protector (Epson tw 9400) signal colour space to get things to look right.
    • by godrik ( 1287354 )

      Watch an HDR movie, in HDR.

      Windows does it. Mac does it. Hell, my android phone does it.

      Linux? Nope.

      Tried that recently, it seems like Xorg does not support it without completely screwing up other things. But I haven't investigated much yet.

      When I mention this, my behavior is called infantile and that i should instead buy a television.

      Actually I haven't heard that kind of talk in the linux community in quite some time. It used to be standard about 15 years ago; but more recently I haven't seen much of that.

  • by Morpeth ( 577066 )

    No. and no.

  • Every year, Slashdot has a "Is _INSERT_CURRENT_YEAR_ the year of the Linux desktop". Such headline usually shows up about January or February time frame. Is this headline just way late, or was it supposed to be 2022?

    Spoiler alert, the answer so far has always been "NO".

  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @04:13AM (#61809809)

    3 months to convert hundreds of millions of computers? Wtf are you smoking dude?

  • My time to switch has definitely come
  • an ebook server and a multi TB server. all running debian or ubuntu.

    Been running them all for multiple years.

    No Microsoft products in the house, besides the stickers that fell off.

  • I've switched to kubuntu.

    The wife was getting fed up with all the advertising shennanigans manufacturers get up to these days and when she heard how Microsoft is starting to put ads into the start menu and how they're changing the UI in 11 once again, she actually said we should go to Linux.

    Well, I tried Ubuntu, mint, devuan and kubuntu, bevore I stuck with the latter. It works well enough but man do I wish I could pay for it and be OWED proper support. The linux community used to be a bunch of snobs, sure.

  • PC??? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @06:55AM (#61810041)

    >"Chromebooks are the fastest growing segment of the traditional PC market"

    Exactly how is a locked-down, mostly thin-client, a segment of the traditional "PC market." I hate the term "PC" because it is so nebulous. Do you mean IBM? X86? MS-Windows? Or do you mean just a computer that is personal? Chromebooks, at least in their default/intended form, fit no definition of "PC" that I can think of. And if it is a "PC", then so are all our phones.

    My Linux desktop is a Linux desktop. I chose the hardware, chose which Linux distro, all the computing power is local, I have full control over what I want installed, full administrative rights, determine what it connects to and how I use it, and has little or no tracking or dependence on any company.

    >"Android and Chrome water down the Linux philosophy," the article argues, "but they are Linux..."

    Watered-down is a bit of an understatement. They are Linux devices in such that they run a Linux kernel. But so does my TiVo, many cars, my thermostat, my router, my bike GPS, many NAS's, my watch, my TV, my Roku, my Kindle, security camera systems, etc, etc, etc. I have a keyboard and monitor and pointing device attached to my TiVo, where I can interact with it, install "apps", browse the web, and it is in my house and actually on a desk. Is it a "PC" or a "Linux Desktop"?

  • by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @06:58AM (#61810047)
    No. More realistic evaluation; "Thin clients" & cloud services are growing in use regardless of OS. This also has implications for citizens' & children's personal information & privacy.
    • BTW, calling Android or Chrome OS 'Linux desktops' is an insult to people who those of us who choose to use Linux desktops. At least I use Linux because it's so much more flexible & easier to do serious work with than Windows or Mac. On my Linux machine, I can be root (when I need to be). On my Android devices, I don't have that level of control.
  • is Linus Torvalds. Until he weighs in, it's all semantics and spin.

    I don't know who's qualified to say what counts as a desktop computer.
  • by Miles_O'Toole ( 5152533 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @07:39AM (#61810097)

    If there's any possible way to pervert something decent, corporate America will find it:

    "The selling point of the Chromebook is its cloud-based approach, and therein lies its Achilles' heel. Chromebooks have very little internal storage, so almost everything that users put on them is stored in the cloud. Emails, documents, pictures, etc. are not safely stored on an internal hard drive; they exist only on Google's servers. [Students] then have very little control over who sees their private data, which is especially unsettling when you consider that the data dwell with what some regard as the world's largest advertising company."

    URL:https://www.hotspotshield.com/blog/chromebook-google-spyware-machine/

  • A mon and dad store, their store's computer was a Chromebook.

    So not only a desktop, but also a work computer.

  • like MacOS is FreeBSD.

    And, as usual, no, this isn't the year of the Linux desktop. Linux desktops suck worse than the other two popular desktops as usual, and nobody uses it, as usual.

  • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Sunday September 19, 2021 @08:24AM (#61810173) Journal
    Earlier there was no difference between computers used by content creators and content consumers.

    Content creators includes programmers, video, audio, image editors, web site authors, office correspondence, accounting, engineering work stations all of them used the same computer, same platform all the capabilities are bundled.

    Content consumers who are one two orders of magnitude larger than content creators bought the bundle and subsidized the unit cost of the creators. When Netscape IPO went ballistic, pundits were confidently predicting the "Browser is the next standard user interface, platform agnostic UI is just around the corner..." back in 1994. That set a fire under the seat of Microsoft, scared witless, it did everything it can to undermine Netscape.

    Netscape was too small, and it could not survive the onslaught of Microsoft's machinations and illegal use of de-facto monopoly advantages. Its emigrees created Firefox and were distracting it.

    It took Google with its financial clout to really create a platform agnostic browser, the target virtual machine for all content. It finally broke through, created good enough is good enough philosophy google docs, made collaborative editing front and center of office documents, ... and finally attacked Microsoft's cash cow, the MsOffice.

    Now Microsoft is reorganizing, going back to the roots when it was fighting the Unix systems back in 1980s. Provide value to customer or die. The recent product offerings in Teams, OneDrive, 360 etc are decent. Apple, Google and Amazon cloud are big enough to force the hand of Microsoft and make things like Active Directory authentication open to other platforms. Some of what Microsoft dies is still irritating, but thats probably my personal bias and suspicion stretching back 25 years. There seem to be decent competition in the desktop/workstation space.

    Most pure content consumers have gone off desktops. Tablets, notebooks, chromebooks, phones ...

    Desktop has become a niche.

  • "descended from Linus Torvalds' original work"?
    That's Ken and Denny's original work. Stop rewriting history.
    There's nothing original about Linux, especially in the early years.

  • Yes it’s hyperbole but considering Chromebooks are often used to lock students into Google’s solutions I find it a bit ironic that an OS were freedom is a buzzword is celebrated for tesulting in the opposite.
  • ... that it goes with this old chestnut? How many "Year of the Linux Desktop" declarations have we seen? 10? 20?
  • At the moment there are 5 Linux computers running in my household, all headless:
      - ADS-B plane tracking on Raspberry Pi 3
      - FT8 amateur radio monitoring on Asus Tinkerboard
      - Octoprint 3D printer server on Orange Pi
      - WeeWX weather station on Raspberry Pi Zero W
      - Discord bot on Raspberry Pi Zero W
    Granted, this is not a typical household. I just want to make a point that there is more use for Linux than just desktop.

  • It's already been the Year of the Linux Server and Year of the Linux Handheld.

    Don't get me wrong, I use Linux on my laptop as a daily driver, but a Linux desktop is at this point an afterthought. And if they'd like it to ever be "Year of the Linux Desktop" they still have a lot of work to do when it comes to stuff that just works properly on both Windows and Mac (and has for years) such as full GPU support without having to understand a bunch of political horseshit, jettisoning decades-old X11 crap in favo

Keep up the good work! But please don't ask me to help.

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