The Linux Desktop was never a thing so how could it be killed?
What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)
211–220 of 307 posts
Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)
#212The original sin of the Linux desktop was the kde/gnome split over licensing. Had Linux had one good desktop, like the other operating systems, it could have had a future on the desktop. Instead it has had a number of almost-good desktops that are still fragmented by hate and the desire to thwart interoperability. For instance, the GTK team won't fix certain bugs that affect running in a rootless X server because the…
How common is this in Linux development? Is it better to have two competing solutions and "may the best one win"? Or would it be more effective for those two teams to work together on one project?
Part of the problem about KDE vs GTK is that it comes down to C++ vs C, which is a pretty big dividing line in the Linux programmer community. (You can have API wrappers, but the "native" language of the desktop environment influences the core abstractions, and so it'll probably seem more "natural" to use the same language the DE was written in.)
Maybe someone will come along and write a new desktop environment in Rust or something that's better than the other two. My fear that then we'll have three desktop environments.
Another option is to accept that these old debates will never be resolved and to start over with something new that isn't Linux. I've had a feeling like that's the best option that's been growing for the last few years. It's an enormous amount of work, though.
Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really, CS students have usually been exposed to Linux at the university and very few of them still choose it as an operating system.
To start with, CS students are not the masses. In addition to that, some CS students at some schools are exposed to the linux command line, and even less are exposed to linux desktop environments because most CS students have grown up using Windows or Mac and the curriculum is nearly always structured in such a way that it is unnecessary for the student to install a linux DE in order to do their work. Finally, I'm no…
For what it's worth, I have a counter anecdote. I go to a university where for some computer science courses, your labs are on computers with a Linux desktop environment. Other students seem to do fine in these labs. Even so, when I look around the classroom during lectures, almost all the open laptops are Windows or Mac. Perhaps these students don't get enough exposure over the couple of courses or don't get shown enough of the reasons to switch to Linux.
Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly gnome shell is the greatest thing ever. My focus and productivity skyrocketet. I see how people who would prefer to run XP dont like it. But no reason to make it bad.
I can agree on this, the booster was super key to show all window, I've never been this fast to context switch between window.
Yeah exactly. And super to start apps. Find documents. Its all just a super away
Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)
#215For anyone who skipped the comment section of the article, I found the following comment by "has" to be very insightful. Specifically the way that the community would rather divide its resources to keep multiple mediocre implementations of a given thing around than consolidate them, and how the Unix Philosophy has been ignored: @Miguel: You are right about developer culture being a huge factor. Linux geeks all to oft…
The comment you quoted was right; people don't care about the OS, they care about their apps. Since Windows is king on the desktop, it would make sense to have an open source "clone" of Windows that will be able to run all the Win32 apps people love. This is exactly what React OS is! Sadly, the project never got the resource and support it deserved. Instead, we have 200+ Linux distros, multiple package manager, DE, etc...
Ironically, the only "distro" that has a real chance of success is Chrome OS, because everything is moving to the web, but also because Google made it ultra simple, secure and zero maintenance. It can also run Android apps, so that's interesting.
Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
If people were happy with Windows XP in 2003, why change it and install Linux? We deviated from what was good enough 15 years ago! Let's put XP back on the clients and Solaris back on the servers! /s When I started using Linux, it was about thinking out of the box and about change. It had many exciting window managers that put everything in Windows to shame when it came to customizing and style. Nowadays I have the f…
I'd use OSX if it could do focus follow mouse and had a trackpoint.
Focus follow mouse would be a disaster with the way menus work in MacOS.
Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Libreoffice meets my needs just fine. I spend a couple of hours a week in their spreadsheet and word processor, and don't really have any complaints.
Agree. Libreoffice works quite well, and although their presentation software isn't as pretty as powerpoint, I actually prefer their slideshow mode on multiple monitors. Quite sexy, in fact. There's no reason for any government office or public school system at any level to be paying for office licenses IMHO. We can communicate and teach quite well with L.O.- and donate a share of the saved budget to FOSS.
Where do you draw the line for how much you can cut costs and sacrifice a little bit of productivity or retraining? For example, I often see programmers talk about having proper tools to do their job, whether that be high quality keyboards, faster computers with more memory, or subscription IDEs like Intellij. Should government programmers be denied these things because it is possible to program quite well without them?
Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)
#218How many Linux distros and their many different GUI/UI variations have been listed here??? No wonder the Linux desktop was dead upon arrival. Too many flavors of developers to satisfy. But it wasn't about developers; it was about end users who just wanted something simple. No matter the changes that Windows has made, from 95 to 10, for end users, the changes caused relatively minor disruption, especially with everyth…
I'd say Chrome OS will be the only Linux "distro" that will become mainstream.
Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having worked at Microsoft, I'm convinced that, internally, running applications through the Microsoft menu jumbler is the main justification for most upgrades.
So it's like Calculus textbooks. 13th edition versus 12th edition: let's add 8 pages of new contents, mostly about the early life of Leibniz, but most importantly, let's scramble all the exercise numbers.
Exactly.
Re: What Killed the Linux Desktop (2012)
#220It's the difference between riding a hand-tuned motorcycle versus a car. The latter is low maintenance, always works, etc. but ask a biker, he'd say how passionate he's in maintaining his beast and how well it performs, etc. a car is no comparison to it.
Now how many bikes do you see as opposed to cars? The premium would always be lesser, only for those who want it and are willing to sweat for it.