As someone who has done a lot of hacking with Linux as a desktop platform, one would be absolutely right to dismiss it. The desktop platforms on Linux are still heavily fragmented and in some ways are still decades behind Windows/Mac. The existence of a better compatibility layer to run Windows games doesn't really change this fundamental flaw. I personally don't think it will ever be fixed because this fragmentation seems to be the whole reason why people want to use Linux on a desktop. That's what I personally would say is meant by "the year of the Linux desktop will never happen".

To put it another way, It's not like the existence of some Steam games is going to suddenly make it so you can go into a Walmart and buy a machine with Arch or Slackware preinstalled on it.

But what of the Steam deck? If it sells well enough then you will absolutely be buying a machine with Arch pre-installed on it from Walmart.

A big 'if', and not currently the case, but also not as impossible as commentators such as yourself would suggest.

I'm not sure what that has to do with the desktop. AFAIK the steam deck is a handheld gaming device similar to a Nintendo Switch, not a desktop PC. It seems about as related to desktop Linux as google stadia, i.e. not much. When I say machine with Arch I mean a desktop/laptop with just the stock Arch on it.

Edit: And if you really want to be pedantic, ChromeOS is technically Gentoo underneath the covers, but the only reason it works for its target use cases is because it's heavily modified with some proprietary components. Getting one of those is really different from the experience you would have with trying to put upstream Gentoo on a laptop.

>AFAIK the steam deck is a handheld gaming device similar to a Nintendo Switch, not a desktop PC

It is essentially a fully fledged desktop PC in a handheld form factor [0]. It is identical architecturally to a desktop PC with integrated controller running Arch-based Steam OS 3.0.

>When I say machine with Arch I mean a desktop/laptop with just the stock Arch on it.

Which is fair, but not what I asked.

[0] https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/steam-deck

Yeah I get that, but you still probably are not going to want to run desktop apps on that thing. It doesn't have a keyboard or mouse. It looks more suited to running tablet apps. And regardless of that, my point is that the status of gaming APIs shipped by one vendor on a proprietary bundling of Linux has little to do with the status of the rest of the platform, which by the way is also woefully inadequate for shipping tablet apps. And also: Linux still is not able to adequately run the majority of desktop software for Windows that people actually want to use, which is all proprietary. Progress has not changed or increased here, Wine is still about as far behind (relatively speaking) as it's ever been. AFAIK the only reason Proton is able to work is because support for Direct3D 11 was added, which at this point is a 13 year old API, and it still doesn't work perfectly.

While I doubt that many people are going to want to run desktop applications on the Steam Deck, it appears to have the ability to connect a monitor and keyboard/mouse. Devices like this, Chromebooks, and many others will make Linux a more consumer facing OS in the decades to come.

I agree that the Windows API, beyond those needed for games, is a thorn in Linux's side. On the other hand, I also see the Linux desktop taking a larger percentage in the years to come. It won't really be because of growth in the Linux user base. It will be because desktops will have less of a presence outside of business use.

"Devices like this, Chromebooks, and many others will make Linux a more consumer facing OS in the decades to come."

Can you see how that's the point I'm making? "Linux" is still decades off from being a viable desktop OS, and it will always be so. A new embedded device running Linux that you can technically connect a keyboard and mouse to doesn't help the general case that Windows targets, or the case of purpose-built desktop/laptops that Apple targets.

With a dock you can have a keyboard and a mouse :)

Moreover, given that the Steam Deck is essentially a PC, any investment in the Deck in drivers, APIs, desktop environments, display manager (Valve have invested in KDE Plasma/Wayland and Gamescope), native game compatibility, compatibility layers (applies to all software, not just games) is also an investment in desktop Linux as a whole. Even if we are just limiting it to games, having more games on Linux makes the platform more viable for people who want to use their computer for gaming.

This isn't even mentioning how much has moved to either web or cross-platform electron apps in the last 10 years (which includes Teams, Spotify, Discord, Youtube, VSCode and others)

>which by the way is also woefully inadequate for shipping tablet apps

I will bow to your experience on this one, I don't have any experience in this area.

>adequately run the majority of desktop software for Windows that people actually want to use

Actually you can run pretty much all Microsoft Office on Linux - the big ones that people still have trouble with are Adobe Creative suite.

All of that stuff is fine and good but it's the same incremental progress as always. I don't see anything particularly special about using this device with a dock, that seems like a really niche use case. These type of devices are not new and have never been big sellers. I'd assume most customers would just use it for games and don't care that it technically runs Linux and allows them to switch out of their game and fumble around trying to use LibreOffice or GIMP on a touchscreen until they get frustrated enough to plug in a keyboard. Unless Valve is planning to invest billions of dollars in overhauling KDE for general uses (including non-gaming uses), then I don't think anything is going to change significantly. Yes, that's how much money it would cost. This is what Google had to do to with Android to make that kind of "Linux" a viable platform, it won't happen with anything else unless similar amounts are invested.

And for windows software I'm not talking about Microsoft Office or Adobe, I'm talking about the "long tail" of Windows apps that don't get attention from Wine developers. There's still a lot of those.

> Linux still is not able to adequately run the majority of desktop software for Windows that people actually want to use, which is all proprietary.

All of this has been getting replaced by the web over the course of twenty years.

The primary exception to this is games, because they're so resource intensive and benefit from being closer to the metal. Which is why gaming APIs are significant -- AAA games don't get converted into a web page and therefore are the main thing still tying a large group of consumers to Windows.

You assume customers don't want to be tied to Windows which is not the case. Maybe you and I got sick of Windows 20-30 years ago but Microsoft's customers (the vast majority of desktop computer users) don't care. They see ads in the OS and they think "that could be our ad up there".

Sure they don't care. But that means they don't care.

If you tried to sell a PC with Linux on it at Walmart in the year 2000, people would return it because it wouldn't natively run Microsoft Outlook or Starcraft.

If in a few years from now you're on webmail regardless and it can run every game on Steam, there is no reason to return it. And it costs less by the amount of a Windows license, so there is a reason to buy it.

That cost reduction doesn't just come out of thin air. If you want to build software that is competitive with Windows in other aspects, then you will have to charge similar amounts. Otherwise you're just leaving money on the table, because we know by now that customers are extremely willing to pay for it. And as long as Microsoft is shipping new APIs on Windows, Linux will never be able to run every game on Steam or every Windows program. It will always be perpetually behind playing catch-up, just like it has been for the last 25 years. The problem with your plan (and with all of these type of plans that I've seen people post) is that it requires Microsoft to give up and cede the market, which is not going to happen.

> That cost reduction doesn't just come out of thin air. If you want to build software that is competitive with Windows in other aspects, then you will have to charge similar amounts.

The assumption here is that development costs are linear.

If you spend a thousand dollars developing an operating system and your competition spends a million dollars, theirs won't be a thousand times better than yours, it will be infinitely better because theirs might actually boot and yours won't.

But if you spend a billion dollars and they spend a trillion dollars, theirs won't be a thousand times better than yours, it will be 2% better. Maybe. Because your billion dollars already caused to exist an operating system that does everything people need from an operating system and there is a point of diminishing returns. Which is where all the major operating systems already are.

What you would expect in a market like this is price competition. 80% as good for 20% of the price wins. 98% as good for 0% of the price wins even more. We're already there -- Microsoft has been giving away the Windows 10 and Windows 11 upgrades for free. They now need that to be competitive.

They can add new APIs all they want, but if Valve is providing ones that are just as good and will allow your games to run on their consoles which have any non-zero market share in addition to Windows, developers will prefer those.

I don't think they are at a point of diminishing returns. There are still advancements in hardware and drivers, and that's where the investment really pays off. Microsoft has historically been really good at designing APIs for this stuff that developers actually want to use. The vertical integration with shipping the whole OS really pays off for them. In Linux, it's extremely difficult to make any changes because you have to plumb everything through several layers of the stack which are all in separate disconnected projects. Only a few wealthy companies can really do it well and those tend to have a narrow focus on a specific vertical (Google, Red Hat, etc).

Price competition on the OS doesn't actually matter, as you have noted the market has moved towards additional services. When you say "98% as good for 0% of the price" you're not factoring in all the additional paid services that the company wants (and needs) to sell. I can tell you that Canonical certainly does not charge 0% of the price for everything, if they are taking a customer from Microsoft then they would probably like to gain 100% or more of that price from any given customer.

I have seen nothing to show that developers will prefer any Valve APIs, a lot of the games still seem to be running in Proton which actually shows that most developers still prefer to use the Microsoft stack and tooling. I should have mentioned this earlier but Visual Studio (the original, not VS Code) is also extremely important and entrenched, game developers are not just going to all switch to Vim and Emacs because Valve sold a product with Linux on it.

>they are using the term to essentially dismiss Linux as a platform

The original framing of 'year of the Linux desktop' from back in the 90s was predicated on the assumption that desktop OSes were mature, that Desktop Linux would soon catch up in usability with the proprietary ones, and then free would win. It was the precursor to Google's "open always wins" mantra with Android.

That is almost certainly never going to happen, and it's fine. The Linux desktop scene is very mature at this point, and we're all the better for it being there as a developer, sysadmin and hobbyist playground. If the traditional GNOME, KDE, xfce, etc style Linux desktop never becomes a mainstream option for high street users that's fine and it's not dismissive. It's just recognising the reality, after well over 20 years.

I think there is a difference between recognising current reality and trying to snub something out of hand. I find those that are doing an honest appraisal of the current situation usually won't use the phrase in either a positive or a negative sense.

But again, I’m not snubbing anything out of hand. If it is controversial to say that regardless of kernel, successful consumer operating systems require billions of dollars of investment, I’ll own that. But that’s being dismissive. That’s being a realist and responding to the nature of the article posted, which in my opinion was a lot of recycled from 2006 talking points that are still getting clicks and discussion like it’s fucking Slashdot or something. OS wars and text editor wars are eternal, I realize. But my response was to the article, not snubbing or even impugning the very hard and very impressive work that has happened over the last 30 years with Linux.

Again, I think there are some really valid reasons to move to Linux. I don’t think this article was a good example.

I think your responses to it being a very flannely, clickbaity article without much substance are fair, but I find that responding to the article by making sweeping statements isn't refuting the material of the article - it's making an appeal to authority where the authority is just the fact that Linux is bad on desktop.

>Again, I think there are some really valid reasons to move to Linux. I don’t think this article was a good example.

I can agree with that. I definitely wouldn't be sending this article to anyone to convince them...

One of the things I learned watching decades of development of computing is to never say never. Things like "the laptop I bought just a couple of years ago is not supported by the most recent version of Windows" might seem insignificant now, but in the hindsight it's one these little things that influence global changes and future trends.

I mean, I’m not dismissing Linux though. I am dismissing the idea that an operating system not funded by a trillion dollar company can make inroads with many , many end users, yes, that’s true (Google, Microsoft, Apple are all in that category), but I’m not dismissing Linux or the massive impact it has had. The Linux kernel is one of the singularly most disruptive forces in computing of the last 30 years. I think there is an argument to be made that it is the most disruptive. But Linux on the desktop, sorry. It’s not going to happen. And I just don’t consider Chrome OS Linux any more than I consider iOS Unix. I’ll probably still call macOS Unix (tho the Unixy bits are getting eroded with every release), but I personally don’t consider the kernel the operating system in this way, I just don't. I actually think the success of Chrome OS and macOS show what is necessary to make a successful desktop operating system: billions of dollars in investment. Not millions. Not tens of millions. Billions. It isn’t about the kernel. It’s about everything else.

My TV has a Linux kernel inside it. My coffee maker is running some variant of Linux or Busybox or something. Again, the Linux kernel is one of the most disruptive and important advancements in computing.

But the article was about switching from Windows to Linux on the desktop. And I think there are plenty of valid reasons to switch. I don’t think that particular article is a good example of them — and I think debates about what desktop OS people want to use are inflammatory by nature.

> I mean, I’m not dismissing Linux though.

> But Linux on the desktop, sorry. It’s not going to happen.

I mean this seems like a dismissal to me. I am specifically talking about the desktop. I don't think the impact that the Linux kernel has had on the server or mobile spaces is up for debate - as you say it's pretty massive.

The issue I have is the certainty with which you can dismiss the viability of Linux desktop. I've seen you mention Proton, but I don't think I've seen you consider or weigh up whether you think that Proton will or will not have an impact on viability of Linux on the desktop. What about EAC and Battleye anti-cheat? The fact that in the last 10 years we've transitioned from Flash to HTML5 and other cross-platform codecs.

I just can't see how you could wave all that off as 'sorry not going to happen'. Like, there has been improvement. There just has! (Going to use your own debating tactic there...). That isn't to say that Linux on the desktop is happening or that it has happened. I am saying that it could happen, and that is in stark contrast to how dismissive you are being about it.

> > I mean, I’m not dismissing Linux though.

> > But Linux on the desktop, sorry. It’s not going to happen.

> I mean this seems like a dismissal to me. I am specifically talking about the desktop. I don't think the impact that the Linux kernel has had on the server or mobile spaces is up for debate - as you say it's pretty massive.

There's never been on a ‘year of the Mac desktop’ in the way that people typically discuss a potential ‘year of the Linux desktop’, and instigating one is pretty obviously not part of Apple's strategy. Imo it's easy to imagine Linux desktops carving out a more secure place in society and ‘the market’ which doesn't involve any kind of mass adoption, meaning that it's safer to assume compatibility or other measures to accommodate desktop Linux users (from vendors, from governments, from social clubs, whatever).

I’ll put it this way, I think that a successful Linux on the desktop would not be something a lot of the people that advocate and love Linux on the desktop would embrace. It would be a lot more like Chrome OS (and Google is writing their own kernel, which just blurs a lot of the lines even more), meaning purposefully obfuscating the Linux bits, using custom or highly-customized desktop environments, being tightly configured with close-sourced backend cloud services, and being very difficult to use custom libraries or app repositories. I think Proton is a good example of this, actually. Valve has done some great work with compatibility and its great to see the work they have done to improve the gaming situation (tho people who claim that Windows and Linux are equivalent in gaming, as far as the desktop goes, are being disingenuous imho) and desktop Linux as a gaming platform is certainly superior to Mac, in terms of library. But Valve’s primary motive is to create a front end for their storefront and to do it in a way so that Valve can avoid paying various licensing fees. Gabe has been very upfront about that from the beginning. Steam Machines were a massive failure (I was at the launch party in Las Vegas the CES they were unveiled) and although I personally preordered a Steam Deck, I don’t think we really know what the actual market is for that kind of device. It could be on-par with consoles or it could be a lot less. But everything we’ve seen from that shows that the experience is very much designed to mimic a console experience — albeit with a lot more freedom for nerds like us. I don’t think that is at all the same thing as Linux Mint or even Ubuntu being the primary desktop OS for end users. Or that if Steam Deck is successful, that we will see computers sold with traditional Linux distros pre-installed at Best Buy (and the developer edition XPS and Lenovo machines aren’t what I’m talking about).

And that doesn’t touch on the still existing consumer software issues on Linux — getting developers like Serif (makers of Affinity) to target the Linux desktop (I’m not even going to try for Adobe) or for existing commercial software to come over.

Now, some of this ceases to matter because the web won and the web runs everywhere. But keep in mind that you’ll need to use that proprietary version of Chrome on your Linux desktop to watch HD Netflix or other DRM content and to access other stuff. The web winning doesn’t mean that software freedom has won.

As I said in my OP, I’m a diehard macOS user and I certainly appreciate the POSIX underpinnings and the fact that the OS has some BSD roots. In fact, it’s a huge part of the appeal for me (like many nerds in their late 30s, I embraced Mac OS X in the early 2000s because it was kind of like Linux but pretty and had Photoshop). But most Unix purists I know don’t like macOS (especially these days) for a variety of reasons and would rather use OpenBSD or pine for the days of Sun OS or Solaris.

So yes, despite the many notable efforts that have been made, no, I don’t think the Linux desktop as I think you define it will happen. If it were to happen, it would look and act a lot more like Windows and macOS with everything good and bad that that entails.

Well that's definitely the answer I was looking for. Thank you for this. I will concede that I agree with your points.

Nothing further to add, your honour.

Hey, thanks for the very nice back and forth. I really enjoyed the discussion!

As a peaceful bystander, I enjoyed it, too! Many good points. And specifically, things to address, like the DRM situation that is unhealthy. Also the browser ecosystem is a concern: if web app developers start to ignore Firefox and encourage macOS users to use Chrome instead of Safari, the user experience on Linux will face another serious problem that we already went through in the early 2000s. Many other things will need to be solved - but what makes me very happy is that we are actually solving issues one by one, and the situation of Linux users in 2022 will be incomparable to what they needed to go through twenty years ago.