I have to agree with Linus here. The continued development of Linux on the desktop is certainly cause for optimism. I don't think that it will ever be as big as Microsoft or Apple, but Linux desktops have been at the forefront of innovation for personal computers in the past decade.
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| The Linux desktop is thriving. (image courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu) |
Consider, for instance, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. It's vastly different from Windows or OS X, but nonetheless it is of high quality. I mean, it has to be if Google uses it, right? I've been using it for a year and a half now, and I have to say that it gets better with each release. Because 12.04 is a long-term support release (hence the abbreviation "LTS"), I don't have to reinstall a new version for the next five years, as opposed to the 18-month shelf life of a regular release.
Perhaps the reason many people say the Linux desktop is dead is because those people are focusing only on Europe and the US. Indeed, the desktop may be dying in those places because of the popularity of mobile devices and the cloud. I get that.
In Asia, though, desktop computers are more affordable than laptop computers. It's possible to buy a desktop for as low as $500. Laptops, on the other hand, may cost you $900 or more.
Add to that the free nature of many Linux distributions, and you can see that desktop Linux in Asia (and probably in other parts of the world) is far from dead. In fact, I think it offers us a quality alternative to Windows software, which is quite expensive for many people here. Most people, of course, would not spend a single dime on software if they knew they could get an alternative one for free.
Hopefully, development on the Linux desktop continues. It truly offers people a chance to use quality software. Like I said, I've been using it for quite some time, and I only use Windows at work because I don't have a choice. Linux doesn't have to compete with Windows. It only needs to be a great alternative OS -- which it already is.
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