Live data from Hacker News

Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

howtogeek.com

31–40 of 99 posts

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#31

This article is full of nonsense. The Linux desktop push isn't failing because it has experiences and apps that are similar to Windows and macOS. Being able to run Windows apps on Linux is a benefit, not a failure. As for religious wars over init systems, desktop environments and package managers, competition is making the options stronger, not weaker. Competition is a reason why package management on Linux is far be…

> Being able to run Windows apps on Linux is a benefit, not a failure.

It is a massive moral failure though. It shows that after two decades of work, the Linux community has been unable to build a simple sane functional stable development environment better than Win32.

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#32

It's 2025. The "year of the linux desktop" has been a meme for years. No one says it in earnest. No one is having init or DE wars. And while there is plenty of healthy discussion about flatpak and other alt forms of software distribution, this is exactly the kind of innovation and experimentation that leads to the usability improvements the author wants to see. Linux is doing just fine, and I'm glad there are multipl…

The /r/Linux Reddit very much exists contrary to your take, and you’ll see many commenters here also argue about whether it is the year of Linux on the desktop.

Never underestimate the identity association in enthusiast communities.

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#33
The mother of my girlfriend installed Ubuntu this year.

She's 58 and a book keeper.

She even went so far and got some windows apps running with wine. All just with the help of a forum posts she found via a web search engine.

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#34

> The problem is that these are "wins" because they bring Linux closer to Windows or macOS. I disagree that this is an issue. The main advantage of Linux for me is that I have choice (including using various desktop environments that the author is annoyed by; I used GNOME for years and eventually had too many problems with it so I switched to KDE), and those choices are not controlled by one entity which, in the case…

One of my complaints with Gnome is that I can’t hand it to a normal person and let them use it because it’s not obvious how to use it. The entry point to everything looks like a horizontal scroll bar in the top left corner and basic actions take more clicks than Windows. The biggest battle desktop Linux is losing is the one where a minority of devs are dictating their preferred compute paradigm to a majority of users…

Using a computer take training. Look at a windows user switching to macOS. It's not intuitive for them either. GNOME is actually nice, even if it's less customizable than KDE.

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#35
This article is kind of old hat - it's basically been true that Linux is fine as a desktop OS for Grandma since some point circa 2010 +/- a few years. The big requirement is that Grandma just uses web browsers and other basic software from the OSS ecosystem, hardware was relatively compatible to begin with, and somebody does the OS upgrades for her every 3 years.

The real issue is that these kinds of "grandma" users maybe just don't use computers anymore. And the folks that do are joined at the hip to proprietary software like Photoshop or CAD programs or whatever else they care a lot about and don't want to relearn, and also make enough money that the costs are invisible. Or they're business computers and not using what's familiar (Windows) is a support cost.

From this perspective, gaming and specific hobbyists are basically the only feasible audiences for the Linux desktop unless people are very much pressured by software costs, or annoyed by proprietary software (DRM, lockdowns, upgrades, etc.) enough to switch their major activity to an open source option. In which case they awkward situation of "software works better on Linux, but won't try Linux until confirmed they like the not-totally-integrated-and-nice-on-windows-or-mac software running not on Linux."

I do think there ought to be more of a business case for Linux as a business OS as you should get reduced hardware and software and support costs, but there aren't actually a lot of people with the right experience and expertise to run a business off Linux as a desktop OS to begin with and so those savings can't be realized effectively.

That said, as computers get more locked down, I think there will be a bigger drive for power users who influence friends and family to switch.

Any case, my house has had year of the Linux Desktop ongoing since circa 2006.

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#36
post #2

One thing that I think this argument sorely misses is an honest discussion of how e.g. bad (or perhaps unliked) decisions get made that have big impacts here. For example, count me in with those folks who think the "new" GNOME sucks. Now, maybe you disagree and that's fine -- but so often those discussions start and end with "Well it's open source and so because you're not making anything better you can't even talk."…

Imagine if Windows got rid of or hid the start button, taskbar, tray icons, and window controls. Gnome is made for the devs that work on it more than the normal people that use it.

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my complaints with Gnome is that I can’t hand it to a normal person and let them use it because it’s not obvious how to use it. The entry point to everything looks like a horizontal scroll bar in the top left corner and basic actions take more clicks than Windows. The biggest battle desktop Linux is losing is the one where a minority of devs are dictating their preferred compute paradigm to a majority of users…

Using a computer take training. Look at a windows user switching to macOS. It's not intuitive for them either. GNOME is actually nice, even if it's less customizable than KDE.

MacOS has some really clunky stuff. I hate finder. I like Gnome once I add dash to dock, tray icons, and window manager tweaks. I’m just saying the defaults are a bad choice if they want adoption.

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#39

> The problem is that these are "wins" because they bring Linux closer to Windows or macOS. I disagree that this is an issue. The main advantage of Linux for me is that I have choice (including using various desktop environments that the author is annoyed by; I used GNOME for years and eventually had too many problems with it so I switched to KDE), and those choices are not controlled by one entity which, in the case…

One of my complaints with Gnome is that I can’t hand it to a normal person and let them use it because it’s not obvious how to use it. The entry point to everything looks like a horizontal scroll bar in the top left corner and basic actions take more clicks than Windows. The biggest battle desktop Linux is losing is the one where a minority of devs are dictating their preferred compute paradigm to a majority of users…

> The biggest battle desktop Linux is losing is the one where a minority of devs are dictating their preferred compute paradigm to a majority of users that don’t agree it’s a good solution.

Absolutely. A commercial product can succeed while maintaining an auteur's vision, so long as that vision largely aligns with users' needs. In contrast, open-source projects are often not viewed through a "product" lens, to their detriment.

When this happens in open source, we get clunky and idiosyncratic (though sometimes lovable) software like GNOME and GIMP. When it happens in the commercial world, we get projects like Megalopolis.

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#40

This article is full of nonsense. The Linux desktop push isn't failing because it has experiences and apps that are similar to Windows and macOS. Being able to run Windows apps on Linux is a benefit, not a failure. As for religious wars over init systems, desktop environments and package managers, competition is making the options stronger, not weaker. Competition is a reason why package management on Linux is far be…

> Being able to run Windows apps on Linux is a benefit, not a failure. It is a massive moral failure though. It shows that after two decades of work, the Linux community has been unable to build a simple sane functional stable development environment better than Win32.

Neither has Microsoft, Google nor Apple.
Post reply on HN