by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Monday February 16, 2015 @09:22PM (#49070551)
Stupid joke aside, the year of the Linux desktop is the year that you choose to run Linux on your desktop. The end. People have been running Linux on desktop machines long before it was convenient or even sensible (Red Hat's early releases and broken GCC's come to mind)...now you can download something like Linux Mint and be up and running, fully patched, faster than you can with most Windows systems.
So yeah, the year of the Linux desktop? Whatever year you want it to be. All I can say is that I hope you're not as old and tired as your sense of humour because if you are, I doubt you'll live to see 2020 anyway.
In that sense, every year is the year of the DOS command line desktop.
Which is actually partially why it doesn't really matter to me what my distribution does, when I primarily use it as a vehicle for a shitload of terminal windows to SSH to the equipment and servers that I have to maintain. I need decent fonts (which there are tons of them out there now), a good window manager (and they all have the same window managers basically), good web browsers (plural, since I need to keep some mutually-incompatibl
> I'm in a similar situation with similar requirements, which is why I use OSX.
Unfortunately, that means that you have to use Mac hardware. That's not really a good tradeoff at all. That's especially true if you are ignoring the parts that are most often used by anyone else.
I regularly use many of the keys that Apple either leaves off of their keyboards or requires the use of a meta-key to access, which becomes a problem of that key is supposed to be used in key-combinations which don't work well with meta-keys.
I'm also sitting at a computer with five USB ports, four of which are in use for console cables. This is a problem if I don't want to use a USB hub.
I like that my native command shell has everything local too, not just for network access. I sometimes have to serial-console into devices. I also like that I have immediate access to my entire filesystem from the terminal window, unlike when cygwin runs in its own separate thing.
I have a Windows machine for field work, I installed a modified port of the cygwin SSH client that runs from the command prompt, but it has a problem in that it doesn't understand the Microsoft/Windows home directory structure
Working on one terminal. Monitoring pings or other stats on another terminal. Documenting (*gasp!*) on another terminal. I usually have four 132x44 terminal windows open in a quad-layout on each screen in my window manager. Works fine that way.
Though I do admit that when I use the dumb-terminal on my desk (yes, I actually have a Wyse VT52 terminal in-service on my desk) I end up using screen.
now you can download something like Linux Mint and be up and running... faster than you can with most Windows systems
I can't count how many times I've read this same comment. And it is true, but do you really think the reason someone picks an operating system is because they can save a few minutes when they first install it? What I think would be most frustrating for end users is installing and updating software. For some apps that can be a nightmare.
There is no standard for what the "year of Linux on the desktop" means, so it's not possible to move the goalposts. The fallacy that you reference cannot apply.
Linux-based OSs have had reasonably advanced desktop functionality for well over a decade now. Millions of people are using one of them as their primary OS today. The AC is right. Your "year of Linux on the desktop" is the year that you decide to use it.
> Hardly. The "year of Linux on the desktop" is indeed understood to mean some form of market dominance.
So? Apple managed fine without this.
It's a DOS centric mindset that demands that a successful consumer microcomputing product must WIPE OUT all of the other options. Although it does nicely frame the problem that any alternative faces.
Are you REALLY buying your own BS, or are you just trolling? As one Linux friendly site easily defines "a year of the desktop where Linux desktop market share suddenly rises in relatively dramatic fashion."
That's their definition. It's by no means a universally-accepted one.
If you want to argue about whether or not particular goals have been met, then you're going to have to define what those goals are and who is trying to achieve them. The phrase "year of linux on the desktop" doesn't do so.
You're arguing from a misconception, and looking like an idiot doing it. I haven't "lost" anything, because I'm not in a competition with anyone. This war that you think I'm fighting against Microsoft exists only in your own mind.
It is undeniable reality that millions of people, many of them non-technical, use a Linux desktop every day. You can make up your own definition for "year of the Linux desktop" if you like, but good luck getting everybody else to follow your lead.
You left out Valve. If (and that may be a big IF, but one can hope), if they are able to get enough game developers supporting Linux as a real option then I think a double digit shift in market share is certainly possible. The biggest problem then is the legacy games. My main system has been running Linux for a while now (though I had dual boot there to play some games). Now I have a secondary system that runs windows for those games (with a dual boot to Linux, just because), but they generally stay in
It depends on the direction of application development. The reason Windows stays on top is that it's compatible with Windows-compatible software. People have returned Linux-based computers because they won't run Windows software (no, in this case Wine is not a satisfactory answer).
If everything moves to the web, then the operating system really doesn't matter, and Linux then becomes a better choice. The popularity of tablets and smart phones does make cloud storage more attractive, and the desirabilit
It was 1993 for me. And I moved to Linux from, guess what, BSD. I've never gone back and I don't plan to.
Yes, I really have been using Linux as my main operating system for more than twenty years, and I still haven't found anything better. And Linux, in 1993, was just a reimplementation of UNIX, which is forty years old. Software evolves so bloody slowly!
For me, the years of the Linux desktop were roughly 1998-2001. Once Windows XP and Cygwin became available, the Linux thing became more trouble that it was worth for most purposes. Nowadays, of course, a huge majority of computers are running Unix hidden under the covers (Android and iOS), so this discussion is kind of moot.
I've been long done with this "year of the linux desktop", and I don't see why I'd even want such a thing.
The only thing that matters to me is attracting enough developers to Free software to keep it maintained. So like everything else, target audience is key. The person in mainstream society right now does not add anything, and may serve to cause problems, and perhaps even disrupt the ecosystem. The more of them, and less of us, the even less developers are going to care about the tinkerers, geeks, and hac
The year of Linux on the desktop has come and gone and most people didn't even notice (M$ certainly did). That was the year when the majority of people put their Android smart phone down on their desk after using it. M$ didn't buy Nokia for nothing, they certainly managed to buy it on the cheap though, after it was crippled by an ex(nudge, nudge, wink, wink) M$ employee. It sort of all tied in with the change in nature of what roles computer fill and how they fill it.
Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only
specification is that it should run noiselessly.
That clinches it. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That clinches it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupid joke aside, the year of the Linux desktop is the year that you choose to run Linux on your desktop. The end. People have been running Linux on desktop machines long before it was convenient or even sensible (Red Hat's early releases and broken GCC's come to mind)...now you can download something like Linux Mint and be up and running, fully patched, faster than you can with most Windows systems.
So yeah, the year of the Linux desktop? Whatever year you want it to be. All I can say is that I hope you're not as old and tired as your sense of humour because if you are, I doubt you'll live to see 2020 anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
In that sense, every year is the year of the DOS command line desktop.
Re: (Score:2)
Which is actually partially why it doesn't really matter to me what my distribution does, when I primarily use it as a vehicle for a shitload of terminal windows to SSH to the equipment and servers that I have to maintain. I need decent fonts (which there are tons of them out there now), a good window manager (and they all have the same window managers basically), good web browsers (plural, since I need to keep some mutually-incompatibl
Re: (Score:1)
> I'm in a similar situation with similar requirements, which is why I use OSX.
Unfortunately, that means that you have to use Mac hardware. That's not really a good tradeoff at all. That's especially true if you are ignoring the parts that are most often used by anyone else.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm also sitting at a computer with five USB ports, four of which are in use for console cables. This is a problem if I don't want to use a USB hub.
Re: (Score:2)
I have a Windows machine for field work, I installed a modified port of the cygwin SSH client that runs from the command prompt, but it has a problem in that it doesn't understand the Microsoft/Windows home directory structure
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
when I primarily use it as a vehicle for a shitload of terminal windows to SSH to the equipment and servers that I have to maintain.
Cue the suspender wearing Unix graybeards: "What, you don't use GNU screen on console?"
Cue the tabbed terminal users: "What, you don't use a tabbed terminal? Who needs multiple terminal windows cluttering things up.
Re: (Score:2)
SuperPuTTY [google.com] is a very nice tabbed window extension for PuTTY. I use it extensively.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the heads up on that, I haven't used putty in a while and I didn't know putty had a tab extension.
Re: (Score:2)
Though I do admit that when I use the dumb-terminal on my desk (yes, I actually have a Wyse VT52 terminal in-service on my desk) I end up using screen.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
now you can download something like Linux Mint and be up and running ... faster than you can with most Windows systems
I can't count how many times I've read this same comment. And it is true, but do you really think the reason someone picks an operating system is because they can save a few minutes when they first install it? What I think would be most frustrating for end users is installing and updating software. For some apps that can be a nightmare.
Re:That clinches it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Are we talking about a Linux distro or Windows here?
A distro has everything neatly managed in the repository. Click, install and it updates automatically with the rest of the system...
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
There is no standard for what the "year of Linux on the desktop" means, so it's not possible to move the goalposts. The fallacy that you reference cannot apply.
Linux-based OSs have had reasonably advanced desktop functionality for well over a decade now. Millions of people are using one of them as their primary OS today. The AC is right. Your "year of Linux on the desktop" is the year that you decide to use it.
Re: (Score:3)
> Hardly. The "year of Linux on the desktop" is indeed understood to mean some form of market dominance.
So? Apple managed fine without this.
It's a DOS centric mindset that demands that a successful consumer microcomputing product must WIPE OUT all of the other options. Although it does nicely frame the problem that any alternative faces.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Are you REALLY buying your own BS, or are you just trolling? As one Linux friendly site easily defines "a year of the desktop where Linux desktop market share suddenly rises in relatively dramatic fashion."
That's their definition. It's by no means a universally-accepted one.
If you want to argue about whether or not particular goals have been met, then you're going to have to define what those goals are and who is trying to achieve them. The phrase "year of linux on the desktop" doesn't do so.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You're arguing from a misconception, and looking like an idiot doing it. I haven't "lost" anything, because I'm not in a competition with anyone. This war that you think I'm fighting against Microsoft exists only in your own mind.
It is undeniable reality that millions of people, many of them non-technical, use a Linux desktop every day. You can make up your own definition for "year of the Linux desktop" if you like, but good luck getting everybody else to follow your lead.
I won't even throw a temper tant
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It depends on the direction of application development. The reason Windows stays on top is that it's compatible with Windows-compatible software. People have returned Linux-based computers because they won't run Windows software (no, in this case Wine is not a satisfactory answer).
If everything moves to the web, then the operating system really doesn't matter, and Linux then becomes a better choice. The popularity of tablets and smart phones does make cloud storage more attractive, and the desirabilit
Re: (Score:2)
It was 1993 for me. And I moved to Linux from, guess what, BSD. I've never gone back and I don't plan to.
Yes, I really have been using Linux as my main operating system for more than twenty years, and I still haven't found anything better. And Linux, in 1993, was just a reimplementation of UNIX, which is forty years old. Software evolves so bloody slowly!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've been long done with this "year of the linux desktop", and I don't see why I'd even want such a thing.
The only thing that matters to me is attracting enough developers to Free software to keep it maintained. So like everything else, target audience is key. The person in mainstream society right now does not add anything, and may serve to cause problems, and perhaps even disrupt the ecosystem. The more of them, and less of us, the even less developers are going to care about the tinkerers, geeks, and hac
Re: (Score:3)
The year of Linux on the desktop has come and gone and most people didn't even notice (M$ certainly did). That was the year when the majority of people put their Android smart phone down on their desk after using it. M$ didn't buy Nokia for nothing, they certainly managed to buy it on the cheap though, after it was crippled by an ex(nudge, nudge, wink, wink) M$ employee. It sort of all tied in with the change in nature of what roles computer fill and how they fill it.