Quote:
Originally Posted by AstroViking
Sadly, very true.
Whilst Linux has made massive inroads into the server space (and sits on every Android device every made), Linux will never get to the desktop in anything approaching large numbers.
Why? Because the vast majority of software developers code for Windows first, with MacOS a distant second.
The other big obstacles are closed-source, proprietary protocols used by business-scale applications like Active Directory / Exchange365 / Office365 / Azure. The interconnection of Microsoft's core applications and dependencies on things like .NET, C# and the Windows APIs means that writing a Linux Exchange client (for example) is pretty much doomed to failure because the underlying support libraries are not there.
Add to that the huge market for games. No developer is going to code for Windows and it's graphics capabilities and then duplicate that work for Linux. Add to that the underlying graphics drivers (Intel / NVidia / AMD) and the amount of work has skyrocketed.
Finally, the fragmented nature of the Linux world is against it. There are many different distributions with different package handling and different desktop environments.
Love it or loathe it, by controlling the desktop world, Microsoft has come to dominate the enterprise-class application / server world.
Cheers,
V
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Linux is of course quite embedded in our lives (pun intended), my NAS and TV are Linux, and this segment is growing. There are also users who need the stability and ability to customise the OS who use *nix, such as the Antares particle accelerator at ANSTO and the huge SEM at Wollongong Uni. This technology trickled down to their desktop instruments which is where I saw it. So I don't think it's going the way of OS/2. [I used OS/2 on an IRMS and it was a very capable OS and in 1995 far ahead of anything MS had, but it lost the marketing battle and petered out.]
On the home desktop I don't think the situation is as difficult as many believe. There is a very competent ecosystem of applications which accomplish everything I need. I'm presently editing a docx document started on Word and everything works perfectly. Some years ago my wife found that 'track changes' didn't work properly (I don't know if that has been fixed). Similarly Excel macros I wrote at work won't run on Calc but all formulas and formatting are fine. IMHO unless you need to interact with Win users a lot and with some complexity, Libre Office (or OneOffice if you like the ribbon interface) are just fine. I also find that GIMP and Darktable have more functionality than I can use. Apparently Photoshop is better but the difference is probably lost on me. My preferred desktop planetarium is KStars, even though I have Cartes du Ciel and Stellarium. I also have Siril, VStar, APT and Astroplanner. There are many more astronomy application prepackaged on Astronomy Linux.
Games is a recognised area of weakness for Linux. I have zero interest in any games (except chess) so this is a non-issue for me. 'Flatpack' (or Snap if you are Ubuntu - grrr) was developed to make it easier to port software to Linux and supposedly this is helping. Still, I doubt Linux is going to be the games preferred platform anytime soon. Sadly flatpack will also promote bloat, something Linux has been good at avoiding.
You are probably right that Linux will not be used in large numbers. However I'm confident that there are many users for whom it is a good choice who don't recognise this fact. If you usage is web surfing, email, Zoom, prettying up photos etc and you don't have to interact in the Win world nor play games (or not many?) then it could be for you. A friend is using Linux as his imaging rig and is happy.
The up side is that old hardware is fine and IMHO the desktops are generally nicer and certainly far more customisable. (I use MATE on Mint but all major distributions support all major desktop environments.) I have Win 10 in a VM with Office, Occult and OccultWatcher installed and nothing else and that uses 36GB of disk space and 2.3GB of RAM with no apps running. My Mint install has a plethora of software installed and occupies 16GB and uses 0.9GB of RAM. I'm using an old twin core i3 and I only notice it being a bit slow when stacking images. Most of the time it's quite snappy.
cheers,
David