Instead of rewriting Bun, maybe Anthropic should have thrown some tokens at finishing Hurd.

We'd have to name it Turd then.

That'd be GNU/Turd to you!

I hold out hope for (human) work to coalesce on creating a stable/secure microkernel (SeL4 anybody???) and getting it mature enough to build an OS on.

Once that is done, then you build out the absolutely massive collection of userspace drivers that would be needed to replace linux by leveraging LLMs and other automated techniques. The good part is that by keeping the drivers in userspace, the security risk of generative techniques for driver development is pretty low.

I thought work was finished to allow Hurd to use Linux device driver code as is?

You can't polish a Hurd.

Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1508/

I mean, we're already ahead of schedule for Elon Musk stuff and BloodDrone, so who knows...

Fun fact: Duke Nukem Forever shipped before GNU Hurd.

Maybe they are still in the same level of forever. Oh well.

"I come here to code GNU Hurd and chew bubblegum, and I got a whole lotta bubblegum..."

Come GIT some!

Sorry, only pun I could think of.

Hurd will have its day once Linux makes it on the desktop :-)

While I upvoted this, as being true for the general population, for me Linux has made it on the desktop (and laptop) much more than 2 decades ago, around 2003, when the remaining problems that had forced me to use dual-booting with Windows had been solved (i.e. when it became possible in Linux to play movies, read DVDs and use TV tuners). When that happened, I wiped out Windows from my computers.

If you have a pro to help you, already for a long time Linux has been fine on the desktop for anyone. My parents, over 80 years old, have used Linux on their PCs for many years, and they did not even know what "Linux" is. That was possible because I installed and configured for them the operating system and all the applications they needed for reading and writing documents, Internet browsing, e-mail, music listening and movie watching etc.

Windows is easy only because it comes preinstalled. I have installed Windows at work on many kinds of computers and during installation I have encountered much more problems impossible to solve for a non-expert than when installing Linux.

Pretty much. I have been using Linux since 1998 but it became my only system back in about 2009 I think. It just isn't that geeky blued together unix-y thing any more. So long as your hardware is supported, thats it.

Yes, the games support was rough but that is almost a non issue nowadays. Thanks to Proton and Steamdeck support, I don't even check compatibility any more on games.

I've managed to run Linux just about exclusively since probably just before I was a teen in the early 2000's. I think I bought Red Hat 8 or 9 or something like that at CompUSA on a whim and proceeded to call customer support to get help doing basic tasks on the desktop which they very kindly helped me with. Man I was feeling like a seriously 1337 h4x0r.

I didn’t have a pro to help me. But I used Linux a lot on the cloud/cluster. I didn’t want to futz. So I bought a computer with Linux preinstalled. Then I got one for work. Then a desktop from a different vendor.

There is an extra cost associated with it (I’m paying more for the same hardware), but for me totally worth it to have a functioning Linux install on delivery.

Linux has made it to the desktop, packaged inside VMs served by Apple, Microsoft and Google.

That's not really what everyone means.

However the recent success of gaming-related distros such as SteamOS and Bazzite seem to be succeeding where Usability-focused distros such as Mint, Pop!, and Zorin couldn't get deep traction

This should be a lesson about providing a product versus providing a technology.

Ubuntu is "like Windows but not" which is mostly relevant to people boycotting Windows. Steam Deck is "a gamebox" which people who already like games might want to buy. Bazzite is "a thing that turns your computer into a game box."

Why are you still manually executing commands like it's pre-fable 2025?

Because it is way cheaper?

It's around $1 / M on claude code plan. Most users report around 200M tokens on the $200 plan.

I don't think anyone is paying full API pricing.

No, but that is what they will ever get from OEMs selling PCs at computer stores used by normies.

Also lets not forget those distros play Windows games, because hardly any studio bothers with native Linux games.

They play both, which is much better for adoption anyway? And it's contributed substantial improvements back to wine and other projects.

It is hardly any different that saying gaming on Linux is great because MAME exists.

Game studios will keep buying Windows, using Visual Studio, and let Valve do the needful.

Additionally people keep acting as if Valve and Gabe will be around forever, they won't, none of us will.

MAME and Proton are not the same at all. You can reuse Wine/Proton libraries even on Windows.

It just...has made it. Plenty of power users just use it as their primary OS. I think official figures under-estimate it because many people daily-driving will spoof user agents of other OSes.

And there's Android.

Ah, Android, with a userspace based on Java, Kotlin, C and C++ standard libraries, Android native APIs, without anything related to GNU/Linux, unless it is a rooted device, or one gets to package a full Linux userspace as an APK, which isn't fully compatible due to security enforcement mechanisms.

I would look into those statistics regarding desktop world wide adoption, distribution per OS.

Anyone who wants it can have Termux which gives you a full Linux experience under Android with GNU tools if you want it, though.

No it does not.

It gives a Linux experience within the security sandbox from Android, which is why there are limitations when using it on regular devices, via PlayStore.

Also it requires working around the NDK limitations on available POSIX APIs.

Not with Fdroid's release.

Oh come on. :-)

Linux is not userspace. Linux is a kernel, and android is a parallel fork of the kernel. So android is a version of linux but is not GNU/Linux.

Android/Linux, if you will. We dont have to be shy this.

Yeah, exactly because of that, lets not do victory laps for a kernel.

GNU/Linux, the Linux desktop, has zero relevance on Android.

No one, not a single person, buying Android tablets and phones at places like MediaMarkt, cares about GNU/Linux Desktop.

They care about what apps via PlayStore, Samsung, Huawei and Xiomi stores, they can use, just like all normies.

People using Linux in 1992 would say something similar to people using any of the current flavours of Linux.

No they wouldn't, given that the only reason I got into Linux was the lackluster POSIX support on Windows NT.

Linux hit 10% desktop usage recently

Not really, that was a fluke, still below 10%, although getting closer with 7.53%.

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

Both numbers are big, no? Especially given the complete dominance of linux in many other settings.

Yeah, if we ignore Windows 70%, and Mac's 20% of desktop share.

I think it is pretty impressive if you consider ChromeOS, with all of Google's resources behind it, is at 1.47%.

Eric S. Raymond opines that now that Microsoft makes its profits mainly from Azure, some product owner in Microsoft will be allowed to enshittify Windows for collection short-term profit, thus paving way for Linux on the desktop.

https://x.com/esrtweet/status/2084605702203424896

Hasn't this been happening for a while now?

Ah so X/Twitter is where ESR is nowadays. Kind of not surprised.

As a sign in the window of a tiny shop in my quiet suburb says "Laptop and phone repairs - Windows, Linux and MacOS". If that doesn't count, I don't know what else could.

First there will be the Desktop Linux of the year breakthrough. Evil folks say it will coincide with the end of the world via a total global catastrophy but these people don't understand beauty - such as TempleOS, the most perfect OS of all times.

Nah, Claude will finish it over night

That's what they tell us, but for some reason software still looks just as bad or worse than it ever has.

Next year will be the year of Hurd on the desktop, I am sure of it.