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What killed the Linux desktop

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Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#41

Post by batista »

ajross wrote: post #30
batista wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So in that light, I think the idea that the Linux desktop got "killed" is sort of missing the point. It's no more moribund now than it was before. Oh, but it is. Because it has lost a lot of momentum that it had, momentum that was coming from the "we're gonna overtake MS and win over the Desktop" feeling prevalent at the time. Heck, the guy behind GTK complained recently that he is just one man taking care of the p…

I really didn't intend it as a swipe against Miguel, but I think it does inform his perspective. And I meant "platform fan" in the advocacy sense: he has a tendency to "fall in love" with favorite products. That's not uncommon in the general population (it's pretty much the norm at HN!), but it certainly is among core Linux people who tend to prefer doing new things in different ways. > His early world was Midnight C…

>And I meant "platform fan" in the advocacy sense: he has a tendency to "fall in love" with favorite products.

Well, for one, C#/CLR was not a favorite product when he fell in love with them, were they? At the time lots of people thought MS was foolish to try to overtake Java, and it took a couple of years for people to accept and like .NET.

>But to claim that these were innovative new projects is silly.

Sure, they weren't, but it's not like Linux in general has given us much innovative things in the desktop space.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#42

Post by wheels »

I'd agree with a whole lot of what's said here, but also add:

One of the big thrusts of the Linux desktop wasn't simply dominance itself, but for it to simply not matter what you were using on the desktop. The Linux desktop fought to produce the first cracks in Windows hegemony a decade ago, but the final push came from the rebirth of Apple and the rise of the smartphone.

Today people happily do their normal productive or recreational tasks from a variety of computing environments: Windows, GNOME, Unity, KDE, OS X, iOS, Android, et al. Probably the majority of (Western) web users use at least one non-Windows internet device.

During the golden age of the Linux desktop everything seemed predicated on reaching exactly this point -- that you wouldn't need Windows, and then, by virtue of competing on a leveler playing field, the Linux desktop would ascend.

But the Linux desktops didn't "scate where the puck is going" -- or their attempts at such missed the mark. By the time we reached the era post-Windows dominance, the Linux desktops weren't positioned to take advantage of the new playing field dynamics. The rest of the industry isn't even all that concerned with the desktop wars anymore. It stopped mattering very much -- and ironically, that came around to bite the projects in the ass that first got the ball rolling.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#43

Post by spiralpolitik »

Largely the same issues that killed UNIX as a viable desktop alternative are the same issues that are killing Linux as a viable desktop alternative: Fragmentation and lack of consistency across different distributions.

This is compounded by most distributions having a lack of centralized vision on how everything fits together. They are merely a collections of individual parts rather than a collection of parts that are designed to work well together and they lack the polish as a result. While the lack of centralized vision was fine for SunOS circa 1992, it simply doesn't cut the mustard in 2012.

Ubuntu seems to be trying to push such a centralized vision with Unity, but I fear they lack the clinical editorial willpower to make the hard decisions required to see it through to its ultimate conclusion.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#44

Post by alexchamberlain »

chimeracoder wrote: post #19
jfaucett wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

absolutely agree. I love linux, its a great os but drivers are a nightmare, honestly, I've never had any linux distro, where I could comfortably buy an IO device and not have to worry about compatability issues. This to me is the biggest problem by far with the os(s) in their current state.

What do you mean by 'an IO device'? I can count on one hand the number of driver issues I've had, and none of them qualify as IO devices.

What other devices you got?

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#45

Post by patrickaljord »

What killed it is that it didn't have a huge and multi-billion dollar company betting on it (on the desktop) like Microsoft and Apple had, even Apple with its billions is still around 5% market share worldwide so having 1% is still a great accomplishment when you think that it had no support from huge corporations.

Now take the mobile world for example, Linux on mobile had been around for a decade but it never really took off until a huge company like Google decided to throw its billions of dollars and its great ingenuity at the task. Getting an OS to be popular is just incredibly difficult and it needs way more than just good driver support and/or good software. It needs marketing, talking to manufacturers, dedicated and well payed devs, designers, UI and UX professionals, sales, R&D and so on and so forth.

Focusing on the technicality of drivers and API is typical of us devs, but it has nothing to do with why Linux didn't take off on the desktop, sure Linux did fail because it couldn't do any or some of that well, but why couldn't it do any or some of that? Because it didn't have a huge and focused company pushing for it. How many popular desktop OS are there? Only 2, I think that's enough to show that it's incredibly hard to get into that market and that only a huge company can make it. Also, let's not forget that Windows was good enough and there was not much Linux could do to attract users, in fact this is still true and probably why even OS X is still at 5%: Windows is good enough and it's the de facto standard used by +90%. Having the best UI and UX in the world like OS X doesn't help that much either.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#46

Post by batista »

nirvana wrote: post #25

I think he's right, but I think he's missing a key point. Design. Design is what killed the linux desktop. It never had it. OS X has it. Even windows, crappy as it may be, has it. Before I go on, let me say that Design is NOT "making it look pretty". In fact, thinking that this is what design is, is what leads many linux advocates to reject the needs of design. Apple's work looks pretty-- because it is designed to fu…

>I think he's right, but I think he's missing a key point. Design. Design is what killed the linux desktop. It never had it. OS X has it. Even windows, crappy as it may be, has it.

I'm not sure he is missing it, even if he doesn't name it explicitly on the post.

For one, he was always pro good design (and trying to get the good design parts of other systems), but also, when he laments the anarchy and lack of long term planning on the Linux side, he is essentially lamenting the lack of a central design authority.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#47

Post by bundyo »

hnriot wrote: post #7
brianobush wrote: post #3

funny; I am using a linux desktop right now. not dead yet.

by choice though, or out of work necessity?

Choice here too - have been running Linux at home for almost 10 years and I never regretted it. There are almost no downsides, except careful choosing what hardware to buy and the lack of Photoshop (though Wine helps with that now).

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#48

Post by darkstalker »

thiderman wrote: post #18

I never understood this. Why would market share of Linux on the desktop matter? I've always viewed Linux on the desktop as something for power users and developers, and thousands of said power users and developers are continually developing and maintaining multiple distros and thousands of applications. It's not like it's a stale and abandoned paradigm that's left to die.

Was gonna say exactly the same. People thinks that if it's not popular among the masses it's "dead". Totally wrong, since it covers a completely different niche.

The author seems to forget that some people actually enjoys configuring and hacking their systems in detail. Also there is the people who hates using the mouse, and wants to do everything with the console and keyboard.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#49

Post by spiralpolitik »

wonderzombie wrote: post #39
nirvana wrote: post #25

I think he's right, but I think he's missing a key point. Design. Design is what killed the linux desktop. It never had it. OS X has it. Even windows, crappy as it may be, has it. Before I go on, let me say that Design is NOT "making it look pretty". In fact, thinking that this is what design is, is what leads many linux advocates to reject the needs of design. Apple's work looks pretty-- because it is designed to fu…

At the risk of re-igniting that flame war, I posit that this is also a cathedral vs. bazaar issue. OS X is more or less centrally planned, by one company, Apple.

There is nothing stopping people sourcing the parts from the bazaar and using them to build a cathedral.

After all it's exactly what NeXT (and Apple) did.

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