> ...someone says that the next year will be a year of Linux.
Who says that unironically in 2014, though?
Who says that unironically in 2014, though?
I'm an equal-opportunities OS user. I have two Linux boxes (Slackware!), two Windows boxes, and an OS X laptop within arm's reach of my desk. I was just poking fun at the Year of Desktop Linux thing -- it's a bit of a meme/running joke in tech blogger circles.
This Linux desktop has actually overthrown both Windows and iOS. The market share was 85% in Q2 2014 according to:
http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/07/31/android-reached-reco...
Android just uses another type of input than classical keyboards and mice. But you can also use keyboards and mice here. There are x86 implementations of Android, and you can root into the Linux system, and you can use Linux features within your Android device. Terminals for instance:
http://news.dice.com/2014/03/31/run-linux-terminal-android/
Of course, Windows 10 advocates don't want to let people know these facts :-)
Android is a mobile phone OS and as suchhas a marginal market share on desktop. Windows still has over 90% market share on desktop (http://www.netmarketshare.com/)
Same to you :-) Windows is also a mobile phone OS since Win 8.
I haven't used Windows 8, but it still seems to have a greater market share on desktop systems than Android. Judging by the above link, Windows 8 alone has a greater share of the desktop market than the category of systems based on Linux in its entirety.
Of course I use it mostly to play around and do tests.
And since we're being pedantic here, let's talk about definitions. A mobile operating system is one that has been designed primarily for devices intended to be carried on one's person, such as a phone or tablet. A desktop operating system is one that has been designed primarily for devices that are large enough to be stationary during use (e.g., workstations). Both form factors have unique requirements and capabilities, and need vastly different user interfaces.
Further, you seem to be arguing that the kernel (and only the kernel) is what defines an operating system. If that's the case, then Android can only properly be described as a fork of Linux, not Linux itself.
And one of Android's original use models was a non touch screen connected to a keyboard (mainly for Blackberry style smartphones before they were sure that slates would take off, but still...).
I think the point here is that "desktop" as a location has no real meaning - it's the use case that defines it rely. By desktop system one really means a day-to-day used system that is used for word-processing, web browsing and other standard domestic/work uses (photo editing, spreadsheets, games and such). That's the stuff a desktop system has always done and now you can do that on a phone, phablet, tablet, laptop, desktop or whatever. The hardware form is just about convenience it [no longer] describes a logical difference or significant processing ability [eg my phone has about as much processing power as my desktop (ignoring the GPU), some phones definitely have more]
If you're using your phablet paired with a keyboard for the same uses as others use their [traditionally defined] desktop for then what use is the distinction?
Android can be used on the desktop, but IMO it's not tailored for that and so shouldn't be described as a desktop OS.
The whole "year of Linux on the desktop" thing is about market-share as much as anything; as other have said many people have been using it as a desktop OS for plenty of years.
What exactly is a logical difference in this case, and how is it relevant to the discussion? Is my decision illogical if I consider the ergonomic implications of using a particular hardware/software platform?
Aside from ergonomics, I'm not sure what is so controversial about assuming that the different user interfaces will (and quite obviously do) cater to different use cases. What I can realistically do with a keyboard and a 24" monitor is certainly different from what I can do with my mobile phone. What I can realistically do with Debian is certainly different from what I can do with iOS or Android. These differences alone convince me that the distinction between desktop computer and phone/tablet/crablet is still meaningful, regardless of the literal meaning of "desktop computer". Manufacturers, retailers and consumers generally understand this, no matter how much anyone pretends that a tablet is equivalent to a desktop computer.
> "year of Linux on the desktop" People have been using [insert any relatively obscure OS] as a desktop OS for plenty of years. The fact remains that Linux doesn't hold a significant share of the desktop market, which is what the idea of "year of Linux on the desktop" has always been about.
You can use a smartphone with a bluetooth keyboard to write business docs with wordprocessing apps or construct spreadsheets (you could use the on-screen keyboard if you're a masochist). Different physical interfaces target different use cases as we've both noted but the distinction is more about marketing than ability of a system.
Going back to where this all came from I doubt this discussion is fruitful.
* Android is a desktop OS
* Android has a market share way larger than Windows
* Therefore Android has overthrown Windows as a desktop OS
Which is completely false. Because on desktop Windows still has a ~90% market share.
This is only true for _PC_ desktops but not for the overall desktop situation.
Consider Windows 10. It derives from the mobile Win 8 desktop which is made more suitable for PCs so that people can use office and spreadsheets and other classic software in the traditional Win 7 way. But you can do many of these things right now on Android devices. For instance, gaming and office:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft....
Both "static" and mobile desktops are continually merging together. Soon we will have mobile desktops which can turn into PC desktops instantly by just plugging the device into a docking station which is connected with a large display, keyboard, and mouse.
So when we define "desktop" as the sum of all traditional desktop applications then Android has really overthrown all other OS. The current office versions of Android are yet just not as convenient as PC desktop versions. Soon it will make no difference if you write your letters on a PC or on a mobile device with docking station. Of course this doesn't count for productivity software (software engineering, CAD etc.) which still requires a lot of PC horse power.
What other kind of desktop is there? Chromebooks/laptops fall under the same category, but that still isn't nearly enough to justify your claim.
The vast majority of actual 'personal computing' is phones and tablets. PCs are content creation devices.
Asides from Android obviously not being the traditional stack - no glibc, no KDE or GNOME - AOSP isn't very useful compared to semi-proprietary Android. We could also say that CMU Mach / FreeBSD won the desktop because iOS and OS X use them.
For whom? Companies might make more money selling mobile devices compared to desktop/laptop PCs but that doesn't equate to the inane statement oft repeated that "desktop computing doesn't really matter that much anymore".
Desktop (including laptops of course) is where 99% of the world's actual office, accounting, design, writing, programming, editing etc, computing based work is happening.
Agreed. Try typing out a dissertation on a tablet (no external keyboard or mouse to compensate) which has an approaching deadline.
I don't think the old stereotype of "consumers" as some sort of purely passive livestock is especially useful any more. Clay Shirky's old but very readable "Here Comes Everybody" makes a similar case at much greater and more articulate length.
BWAHAHAHAHA!! Thank you. I needed that laugh.
Laptops and desktops will always be more powerful than mobile devices, therefore there will be users who want the option of having said extra power. Even if you could, say, run AAA games on a mobile device, the interface would be awful for most of them (eg FPSes).
Personally, I want my desktop system to be a real power horse, and despite being built on top of GNU/Linux, Android doesn't seem like a particularly open environment and it obviously wasn't developed with desktop users in mind.
On the PC desktop world Windows is still leading with Win7 and XP, followed by OSX, followed by Linux and others. Linux won't get leadership here but who cares? Linux is a very good PC desktop system anyway, absolutely competitive to Win 7.
If it is just (any flavour/use) of Linux vs (any flavour/use) of Windows, then I think the vast majority of people use Linux more than Windows. Routers, TV-decoders (and most of the streaming servers they use for on-demand content), NAS for home use, phones, etc all use Linux.
As for rooting requiring bugs and security vulnerabilities, that's simply false.
As most android devices are handheld, "the desktop on the hand" is now a thing in my mind. It makes sense - so much communication and scheduling happens on the handheld device.
* Globally, Android pretty much owns the mobile market. Android is a Linux.
* Most servers run some flavour of Linux or BSD.
* Although Windows still dominates the desktop market, a healthy share of the laptop market belongs to OS X, which is (partially) based on BSD.
This isn't exactly how the Open Source crowd envisioned "Linux on the desktop", but if the goal was to marginalize Windows in flavour of open source based *nixen, much of that goal has been accomplished.
Of course neither Android nor OS X are Free (as in freedom) and OS X is only partially a BSD, but you can't have everything.
Shouldn't Apple be somewhere in this table, then?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_share_of_personal_comput...
I think you're hugely overestimating Apple's market share in laptops.
Case in point: I don't even own any Apple products.
Firm (4Q13 US Market Share) HP (26.5%) Dell (22.8%) Apple (13.7%)
But anyway, the problem you described is the fault of your vendor, not "Linux".
I went to the website, downloaded a .deb file, double-clicked the downloaded file, clicked the big install button in the Ubuntu Software Center window that it spawned, entered my password, waiting a few seconds aaaaand it's installed. I can now run the application by clicking the big Ubuntu button on my sidebar (or pressing the Windows/symbol key) and typing in the first few letters of its name. I can optionally drag the icon to my sidebar for quicker access.
Here's how I installed the last couple of applications that didn't have a .deb file (mostly development builds of games and developer-targeted applications):
I went to the website, downloaded the .tar.gz/.tar.bz2/.zip file for my platform, double-clicked the downloaded archive to extract it to a new folder in my home folder, opened the folder and located and double-clicked the executable.
Thousands of other software do the same. Examples (compare the installation instructions for Windows v/s Linux/UNIX for all these pages below):
MOPEX [http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/data/SPITZER/docs/dataanalysist...]
Multibit [http://multibit.org/en/help/v0.5/help_installing.html ]
Octoshape [https://support.octoshape.com/entries/21488922-Octoshape-App...]
UNetbootin [http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/]
Tuxboot [http://tuxboot.org/installation/]
You listed a few major ones which work the desired way, while there's a sea of applications which make Linux still look archaic.
The 90s called, they want their complaints about Linux back.
Will happen when Microsoft's ability to strong-arm hardware manufacturers using restrictive OEM licenses is diminished.
MS actually seems to prefer a scorched earth policy (destroying the laptop/desktop markets entirely) to allowing Linux to gain anything more than a token foothold.
We can see this by the way they scuppered 'desktop linux' by co-opting and ultimately destroying the netbook market in 2007 (by enforcing OEM licensing terms that crippled netbook specs - prohibiting giving them anything more than 2GB of RAM for instance).
We can see it again by the way they pushed UEFI / secureboot on manufacturers - a clear attempt at creating Windows lock-in that largely worked.
2007 would have been the year of the desktop were it not for this anti-competitive behavior by MS.