Can we please stop talking about the Linux desktop? | Hacker News Reader

Can we please stop talking about the Linux desktop?

techrepublic.com

7 pointslmedinas4 comments

What an absolutely worthless blogspam article. What did you exactly expect to happen by submitting it here?

I don't think it should be considered as blogspam. The author has a point, the Linux desktop is not a success, especially among "non technical" users. However, I don't agree with his conclusion, I think it can change through the convergence strategy between the mobile and desktop Linux variants.

First paragraph:

> Linus Torvalds wants the Linux desktop. Too bad no one else does. This is never going to get any better, so let's give it up.

... What?

> No one outside geeky events like LinuxCon pines for the Linux desktop anymore.

What the F?

Article written by "Matt Asay", previous COO at Canonical. What a piece of trash this can be.

Of course the Linux desktop is not a success amongst non-techies. But that doesn't mean squat. Us techies have a very, very different market share regarding Linux. I am in the same situation as hundreds of other devs I personally know: I develop on Linux and I simply cannot develop on any other OS. If I were to switch to OSX or Windows (which I have attempted in the past), I would be slow, I would be inefficient, I would not enjoy programming as much and I would be frustrated all day to the point I'd simply not do anything productive.

So screw that. If the "Linux desktop" were to disappear, it's safe to say an immense amount of companies would temporarily be brought to a stall due to the amount of devs in my situation.

I'm also a DE developer. I don't work on the linux desktop for those theoretical "I hate Linux I don't want it" users the article mentions. I work on it for myself and people in my situation. Funny thing though, with proper UX, that overlaps with the theoretical users/grandmas/etc.

Will it be successful in the future? Maybe, maybe not. But having a libre OS, with a libre application suite is extremely important and it is just as important that people keep working on it.

It's easy to see how Canonical has become such a trashy company with people like the author previously at their helm.

While I think the article is garbage, I can definitely agree that the desktop is a problem. We need more people using Linux that are willing to make applications easy to use. Unfortunately I worked with GTK a bit this weekend and wow is that a painful experience.

I'm trying to find the video but unfortunately I can't right now. Either way, Linus made an excellent point in that the tools to make an excellent Linux desktop hadn't yet been developed until very recently and I'd agree with this. And with that said I'd say now is a better time than ever for some real advances in the desktop arena. Look at Elementary OS. I don't use it myself (Arch) but it does look quite nice and easy to use.

On a another note I have plenty of non-technical friends all operating on Ubuntu. May not be the best distro to put someone on according to the FSF but you must admit that Ubuntu has brought things a long way.

On boot they notice the Unity interface and say "Oh, it's like a phone". (Unity App bar)

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