Jimmy writes...


My dearest sexy Coder hosts,

Touching on the discussion about Linux dying as a desktop OS. As someone who has run Linux since the late 90's, this has been something on my mind over the last 5 or so years.

To me, it seems as though even how much Linux has come and caught up with the other big two OS's, in terms of functionality and application/game support etc, we are now back in the same place we were 20 years ago.

By this, I mean mobile and ecosystems. Even with really cool projects like KDE Connect, and what the KDE and Gnome teams are doing to improve touch support, we are still over a decade behind. Not even in the same ballpark.

When you're in your 30s with kids, with things in your house like tablets, TVs, cars and lady tubes all connected and syncing, not even to mention an ever growing connected outside world, Linux starts to become a hindrance, something that needs to be tweaked constantly just to get some of the basic features I just mentioned half working. 

Not only is that annoying when you are busy and want things to just work, it's going to be more of an issue as we start to use phones and other devices for things like door access and ID cards.

Take that, along with Windows being better than ever for developers, Apple doing their thing, and the automation of servers with Cloud, Serverless and containerization, It's hard to see how Linux will stay relevant for most people going into the future, only for a niche few who are working on the core technology behind the scenes, being paid at FAANG companies. (If something like Fuchsia doesn't gain popularity).

It makes me sad to think about this, but another way to look at it - look how far this little FOSS/Open Source project and community went. 

From a small nerdy project, often mocked for being only for hobbiests, to powering the entire internet and complete infrastructure of every large service billions of people rely on day to day. 

Hell, even Windows has it baked in now. Who would have imagined that in 2008 whilst tweaking their Compiz settings on Ubuntu Hardy Heron. Linux beat all the others, and ultimately won! 

So, if the day does come in the next decade where I have to pour one out for my home boy Tux, I'll do it with a smile and fond, proud memories.