Is the Linux Desktop Dead?

Last week, one of the founders of GNOME, formerly one of the most popular Linux desktop environments, came out and pronounced the Linux desktop dead. Such a bold pronouncement indeed, and one bound to guarantee a lot of enemies. Linus Torvalds rejected this notion outright. 

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. 

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. 

Ubuntu, Linux, and Free Software

After months of trying out Linux Mint (and after more than a year of using Ubuntu), I buckled and reinstalled Ubuntu on my PC again yesterday. I'm no techie, of course, so don't go judging me here. I simply went by my consumerist instincts and went for what I felt was the best product. 

Linux Mint is a great OS. It provides out-of-the-box functionality for most everything you need to do. You get Flash and different audio and video codecs. I get that. However, as I evaluated it for a few months, I decided that Ubuntu has the best support system.

First of all, Ubuntu is backed by Canonical, which also offers the OS plus support-for-a-fee to companies worldwide. The OS on its own, however, is free, as are most Linux-based operating systems. That's great for me because I don't want to spend a dime on Microsoft software. And THAT really is expensive. 

Both Linux Mint and Ubuntu are great. They provide non-techie users like myself a way to get work done quickly and to browse the web safely. I ultimately chose Ubuntu, though, because of the possibility of more software and greater support. It is, after all, the most popular Linux distribution. 

That's what's so great about free software. You get to choose the OS you want. It's "free" in the sense that you don't have to pay anything for most distros, and in fact you can create multiple copies of these distros to share with friends. You really can't do that with other operating systems, now, can you? 

However, in the free software community, "free" also refers to freedom from restrictive software licenses. That means people who want to modify free software can do so without fear of litigation. 

The possibility of openly modifying software benefits all of us, I believe. It leads to more innovation and more possibilities. For us end users, it gives us more choices in software. That way, we are not chained to Microsoft or Apple, which really don't give us much of a choice. 

This is why I would encourage everyone to use Linux software and operating systems. Frankly, I don't care whether you use Fedora, openSUSE, Ubuntu, or Linux Mint (or a host of others). If you are not dependent on Microsoft or if you want to move away from it, I suggest you use Linux. There's a slight learning curve, of course, but generally these distributions work quite well.