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It Will Never Be the Year of the Linux Desktop

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Re: It Will Never Be the Year of the Linux Desktop

#61

Post by maxeda »

godelski wrote: post #60
qsort wrote: post #7

The object-level discussion is interesting, but I disagree with the premise to such an extent it feels like a moot point. It feels like the article doesn't play out the line to its logical conclusion. Why would agents want GUIs made for humans? It's already the case that, like everyone who's good at computers, agents want a terminal and good APIs, not some ad-ridden crap. If anything, AI is a reason why it will never…

> tmux+vim is as good as your Visual Studio. You probably don't need tmux. The utility is really when you're remoting into machines and want to keep your session (or are too lazy to use nohup or disown) Your terminal should split panes for and do tabs. Ghostty is my preferred but use whatever. And fwiw, even if your terminal sucks vim can do this all for you too (:term), so you don't even need to leave vim. > vim is…

Just because tmux doesn't work for you doesn't mean it can't be useful for someone else. I for one really appreciate having the same interface and keybinds across several devices and I've never felt a need to look elsewhere.

Re: It Will Never Be the Year of the Linux Desktop

#62

Post by godelski »

Weird argument.

I live in the terminal and that means I can speak the same language as agents[0], but I'm human and also enjoy GUIs and TUIs.

  There is no reason a machine can't be usable by normal people AND make power users happy
I don't know why we believe we're have to fuck over power users. The computer as a machine (which includes your phone) doesn't work without that. The problem is we've been creating walled gardens and saying "power users don't matter, they're a small percentage of users". The percentage of the userbase is a meaningless statistic. It's a proxy for other things (usually revenue).

But your power users are the ones who write programs, fix bugs, and do free work that makes your product more valuable. Apple/others would still make money on every app even if they were to stop taking a cut of sales and stop charging money for developer licenses. They make money by selling the fucking hardware and shipping the OS. They create the environment, they create the default base experience. But no one buys a smartphone or computer without installing new software. Being able to do that is the reason these products are do great.

That's the real reason Linux is starting to win. Because Microsoft and Apple have lost touch. They got greedy, egotistical[1], and myopic.

[0] people keep asking me if it's worth learning now with AI. Bash and terminal knowledge have only become *more* valuable, not less. Think of it this way: do you want a manager with an MBA or one that's been an engineer?

[1] Apple is famous for blaming the user and not recognizing the design is bad. "People wouldn't buy it if it was bad". Well guys what? People won't buy it if it's bad AND there's another option. That's the variable that changed: options

Re: It Will Never Be the Year of the Linux Desktop

#63

Post by honr »

jamesgill wrote: post #29

The thing is: it already is the year of the Linux Desktop for me. I don't care about 'OS market share' or how many people use something; I have no control over them. I also don't care about "OS-maxxing", either--quibbling over 'Wayland', or which OS has the best window manager, arguing about 'gaming', etc. What I do care about? Freedom and control. Linux gives me that. So my desktop? It's Linux. The Year of Linux on…

Agreed, mostly. To me the effectiveness of window managers is a bellwether of the control aspect. So, IMO, if you compare them on control or on the quality of window managers, you'll get the same result. Linux has ended up with many window managers (effectively catering to various styles and needs), while macos, for example, has a one-size-fits-all approach with no REAL multiple-desktops (Spaces is a joke and a toy). As a result, I can easily manage 50-100 open terminal windows on my linux box, but on macos 5 is too many (and if I use Spaces to fit a few more, I can't get to the terminal I need in less than a second. In linux, even with 100 xterms, I can). So, a macos product manager might probably ask me why I would want 100 terminal windows, to find me some alternative. In linux no one asks me that question, and hence I can have what I want.

Re: It Will Never Be the Year of the Linux Desktop

#64

Post by mmh0000 »

godelski wrote: post #60
qsort wrote: post #7

The object-level discussion is interesting, but I disagree with the premise to such an extent it feels like a moot point. It feels like the article doesn't play out the line to its logical conclusion. Why would agents want GUIs made for humans? It's already the case that, like everyone who's good at computers, agents want a terminal and good APIs, not some ad-ridden crap. If anything, AI is a reason why it will never…

> tmux+vim is as good as your Visual Studio. You probably don't need tmux. The utility is really when you're remoting into machines and want to keep your session (or are too lazy to use nohup or disown) Your terminal should split panes for and do tabs. Ghostty is my preferred but use whatever. And fwiw, even if your terminal sucks vim can do this all for you too (:term), so you don't even need to leave vim. > vim is…

Everybody needs tmux, especially locally.

My terminal splits panes (which I don't use), but what if I want to open two terminals that share the same set of splits? Can't. But tmux can!

What if I want to SSH back into my desktop (because I'm on a laptop or whatever) and grab something from my desktop terminal? Can't. But tmux can!

Vim splits and the vim terminal are poorly implemented. Technically, yes, they work. But you'll run into a lot of issues. I know, because a few years ago I went down the same path: Why do I need tmux, when I have vim!? ... I quickly learned why I needed tmux.

I agree with your side note: plasma+kitty+tmux and a few support scripts:

(please don't criticize my scripts; these were never meant to be shared, and it's a disaster, but it works for me)

I have this script (https://doc.xn0.org/tmuxedkitty-newwindow.sh) bound to WIN+T; it opens kitty, and either creates a new tmux session if there isn't one or attaches to the existing session and creates a new pane.

Then, I have my insane (I understand I am insane, but it works for me!) tmux config file: https://doc.xn0.org/.tmux.conf

Then, I have my insane zshrc that auto-titles my tmux windows: https://doc.xn0.org/.zshrc

Using titles from: https://doc.xn0.org/tmux-window-titles

I have put way too much thought and time into this...

Re: It Will Never Be the Year of the Linux Desktop

#66

Post by ndiddy »

ryanmcbride wrote: post #14

I've always interpreted "Year of the Linux Desktop" as a personal journey, like Hot Girl Summer. It's not about the year that there's a watershed and suddenly everyone is rolling custom distros, it's about an individual's journey with discovering and trying Linux. Every year can be the year of the Linux desktop if you believe!

I like this definition: https://lwn.net/Articles/928581/

> More importantly for the future success of Linux was that the X11 system was ported to it, making 1992 the year of the Linux desktop.

Re: It Will Never Be the Year of the Linux Desktop

#70

Post by classified »

A great write-up, with a fair description of Linux. It cites facts and gives some explanations. And it brings good news: My KDE Plasma Linux Desktop running on X11 is completely safe from being hijacked by agentic robots. I run Wayland only for the few games that don't work on X11, then I switch back again because Mathematica does not like Wayland.

Linux is an OS that lets me do what I want when I want it and importantly _doesn't_ do a whole lot of shit that I _don't_ want it to do, as opposed to macOS or WinDOS. That includes robots wreaking havoc on my desktop.

Being able to run the software you want to run is very important. But not being forced to run software you don't want to run is even more important. And neither Microslop nor Apple respect the wishes of their users in these regards.

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