I say the future of desktop software is going to involve Linux, finally.
Both Windows and OS X are becoming walled-garden tablet-centric shitfests.
Both Windows and OS X are becoming walled-garden tablet-centric shitfests.
As a Linux desktop user, I'm not sure that I can.
That, more than anything either Apple or Microsoft does is what worries me about desktop Linux. We have met the enemy and he is us.
I'm using 12.04, and it's the first significant amount of time I've used spent with Ubuntu. I can say that a month in, I'm digging it. It beats Windows for me in a number of ways but I actually like the level of ui polish -- it's smoother than Windows. (That and it renders fonts far better than Windows, for some reason).
Rails on Ubuntu is also far, far easier. Terminal beats every pretend version on Windows, rvm and bundler work the way they're supposed to, and I really like gedit more than Notepad++.
gedit is available on Windows too. If you really want to harness the power of Linux, run Vim. You'll see at least an order of magnitude in productiviy improvement.
I also grabbed RubyMine but I haven't spent any significant time there yet as I already have the terminal->gedit workflow down and fighting through RubyMine modal menus to setup BitBucket git pushing started to get old quickly. Terminal is easy. I just push.
What does Vim offer that gedit doesn't? I guess I don't understand the main difference.
I would really like to get some code suggestions/completion features, certainly not a need but I think it would help cut down on my occasional stupid mistake.
It's about the modal editing. It's a completely different paradigm for text editing. It changes the way you interact with your code.
What advantages other than freeing up screen room and RAM would I get from using Vim over eclipse that would give me an "order of magnitude" productivity increase?
I know vim has a lot of keyboard shortcuts, but there are also quite a few in eclipse.
Rather than "Linux apps" expect it to be running stuff using things like Google Native client or increasingly sophisticated JS virtual machines.
Apple incorporates the cost of OS X into selling hardware. Windows' licenses are effectively free for OEM manufacturers.
Dell is the only major OEM I know of that offers a Linux laptop and I'd guess that division is in the red. The original Asus EEE PC was Linux only and spawned the netbook revolution, but Linux only did not last very long once the market took off and Microsoft intervened.
Additionally, more and more governments pass laws that require their institutions to use linux or open source, or choose bidders that do. Then you have an incentive for a company which wins such a bid to use linux on umpteens of desktops.
Those are just two incentives. There are probably more.
It's not a knock on Linux, but if the mass market moves to tablets and smartphones (not sure if you count laptops as desktops), owning the desktop is going to be like owning the mainframe market. It doesn't disappear but it's not what it once was either.