>Linux has been built and used by brilliant mechanics, but it is time for Linux to be used by all.
it will be very hard for Linux to be used at home/corporate PC.
Apple/Microsoft started out in the home/corporate PC. Apple with Apple 1 and Microsoft's DOS. They are too entrench in the PC industry. Linux shine in server, mobile, IoT and embedded devices.
> Apple and MS seem to continue to resist this notion but they are increasingly exceptions.
I din't think resisting is the correct word: Linux could be perfect from the user perspective but not the device one: battery handling in a notebook, good support of certain devices, etc. Linux does not replace the whole needs of users or organizations and that is why MS and Apple continue to exist. They existed before Linux either! The business is not the OS.
> I'm seeing Linux slowly take over on workstations, both at home and at the office.
My observation is more and more people are trying linux, probably because of Win10 stuff. But they all say they don't like it, and go back to Win or to Mac. I heard yesterday one diehard linux fan pondering going to Mac ... If Apple did not let quality slide they would have be the windows-replacement, but we are stuck with 2 bad options and one funny-bad one. And Windows is still the most convenient and easiest, even if only because of history and inertia.
Quote: "The only way to fix Linux is to take one distro, one set of components as a baseline, abadone everything else and everyone should just contribute to this single Linux."
Essentially the article's point is that technical totalitarianism would make Linux succeed on the consumer desktop, using the successful models of Windows and OSX -- one source, one model, no disagreement. Hate to acknowledge it, but it might be true.
> The act of using Linux outside of the server context for a personal machine is hobbyist.
I don't know how you arrive at that, unless you're trolling or haven't gone that deep on Linux. Linux is a far better development environment for many languages and ecosystems than Windows, and Mac (granted of course that you'll have a much better time on Windows with .NET, etc). I've been forced to use both now and again in various jobs over the years and have always gone back to Linux.
Mac is better for non-programming office software, and Windows has better games support.
That's the real strength of Linux, creating appliances from commonly available hardware. The biggest mistake is therefore to copy Apple and MS and their general purpose approach, it will never work because the community isn't united like a company, every Linux camp seeks to make the best thing for their own purpose, and constantly clashes with other camps that want to do the same for themselves. A general purpose Linux OS is an anti pattern.
> I use ThinkPads, so I probably could use Linux if I wanted to. But other people might not want to prioritize their OS choice over their hardware choice.
Yup, absolutely true, and I'm no evangelist or Linux maximalist. People should use what works for them. It's not like Linux needs the desktop to succeed. The reality is, it's already taken over the world. In the grand scheme of embedded devices, phones, servers, infrastructure, etc, the desktop is just another niche...
> Linux hasn't succeeded on its own merits but as an economical way for companies to bootstrap their own products to fight for Apple's leftovers.
This has been one of Linux's merits for a very long time, something they embrace.
> Sure, Linux has spread far and wide, but most consumers still have no idea what Linux is, and nor would they care. Linux isn't something people want, it's something they use without being aware of it. Is that a victory or a tragedy?
This benefits Linux desktop users as well, for example better hardware support.
> I think Linux has an edge in driver support, and corp vendors -- especially for gaming with things like Steam.
Still, remember when using linux meant compiling the kernel ten times, editing some .c file, changing some obscure flag. And then you needed to open that .doc, .ppt or use msn messenger. You tried dual booting, but windows kept rewriting the bootloader...
Now, with VMs and tech like PCI pass-through this is just SO easy, that issue is less relevant and will result in more popularity for other OSs and a reversing of the consolidation trend.
> Linux on the desktop is now around 1-2% by some estimates. I don't think it will ever reach the market share of windows
20 years ago, Linux was an attractive way to be able to work in a Unix environment on the desktop. With the release of MacOS X 20 years ago, and the release of package managers like brew, people can get a lot of that from MacOS. For personal use, I still primarily use Linux on desktop and laptop - I use System76 Ubuntu, because I usually just want a working environment, and not to futz with it too much.
Tablets and especially phones have been a popular form factor in recent years, and Linux is ubiquitous on both.
I think linux had the best desktop for a very long time now. Maybe it's not as accessible to casual users but objectively speaking tilling window managers, workspaces etc have been really next level if you're a developer.
> For me, these are professional tools, and reliability therefore outweighs just about everything else in my consideration of what to use.
Can't argue here, Apple is indeed the only choice in such case.
> and I'm not even going to talk about my experience with Linux on laptops because I have enough problems today without attracting a crowd of angry partisans.
I bet you did not use laptops designed for Linux and instead installed it on some Lenovo. I've been having solid experience with a laptop sold with preinstalled Linux. But Apple is still probably more solid.
> I don't think it's likely anyone else will come along to compete on the combination of compatibility, reliability, and active concern for privacy that matters most to me. I think it would be great if someone did, though.
> Linux is literally the most used operating system on phone and in the data center, which is where it counts.
Since phones are completly locked down, and Linux is the symbol of freedom by software, I'm not sure of that.
Besides, companies still needs desktops (or laptops) to work. Nobody is going to do accounting on Android or iOS. And I'm certainly not going to dev on something else than Ubuntu.
>Yes, most things sadly are designed for Windows now, because it's a monopoly. Not a fault of Linux, but it does make it less attractive.
Yes all hardware is designed for either windows or windows and linux, never both and linux is always an after thought. That is why windows is superior from a usability standpoint.
Yes, it's not the fault of linux. But in the end that's not really what matters.
> Linux will succeed as a desktop environment only when (and if) its various factions agree on a single model and a single goal.
It's going to be pretty hard. I think something great about Linux is the freedom you get to choose the software that fits your needs the best, and that might be one of its weaknesses at the same time. I'm more than happy with how Linux is right now (but I agree that for someone with little or no experience it can be hard to get up and running, or using it). Oh, well, nothing can't be perfect.
> The operating systems industry could use a bit of a shake up.
There is no OS industry anymore. What's left is OS's that ship telemetry and ads to customers (both Apple and MS do this). Linux-based OS's made a lot of progress, but still they're not ready for mass adoption.
> It is somewhat strange then that enterprise linux is not more common, you get stability and configurability.
Subjectively, I am under the impression that, in the enterprise desktop space, Linux is a more serious competitor to Windows than mac OS is.
For example in public administration: At one point the city government of Munich had replaced over 12000 desktops from Windows to Linux [1], and you keep seeing ideas to do similar things pop up in political party manifestoes and position papers like [2].
It is also not uncommon for large universities and research facilities to run on Linux.
Meanwhile, an enterprise running hundreds or even thousands of mac OS devices is something I've never heard of.
I think, in the past, enterprises were a bit more locked-in than they were now because they ran Windows software that they custom-developed, or off the rack but very niche and available for Windows only. But with the trend over the last two decades having gone towards writing that kind of software as web-based software, I think that element of lock-in is gradually but steadily decreasing as well.
The problem is that, once this competitive threat against Microsoft reaches critical mass, it's a bit too easy for Microsoft to counter the threat by simply backpaddling on the trash. In the meantime they just want to milk the cash cow as much as they can possibly get away with.
De-trashing an OS is easy. Meanwhile, they are working hard to make sure that Windows is the OS that runs the widest array of software on the widest array of hardware, which is not so easy (anything Windows from ancient to modern, Windows subsystems for Linux and Android). Windows emulation on Linux is also making massive progress, thanks in part to Steam, but I guess that structurally, it will always be easier for Windows to emulate Linux than for Linux to emulate Windows.
it will be very hard for Linux to be used at home/corporate PC.
Apple/Microsoft started out in the home/corporate PC. Apple with Apple 1 and Microsoft's DOS. They are too entrench in the PC industry. Linux shine in server, mobile, IoT and embedded devices.
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