The current dogma is that Linux can’t become a popular desktop operating system while the worlds most popular applications are written for Windows. But that’s just not true anymore. My grandfather who’s in his 90′s recently got his first computer. The only two applications that matter are web and email. The fact is that the OS matters much less now then it did in 2001 and it’ll matter even less in 2010.
Applications are moving to the web and application platforms are moving online as well. Flex from Adobe is moving things into the Air platform. Silverlight from Microsoft is bringing .Net onto the web. Prism from Mozilla is also bridging the gap by bringing web applications to the desktop…. And Java, ahh Java, but that’s another story.
There’s no reason the next OS platform can’t be Linux but there has to be something in it for the typical web user experience. Even if Linux takes a foothold on the desktop the open source community will wake up to find that the field goals have moved. While everyone was touting Linux standards and open platforms everyone will have moved on and the operating system will be the Web. Your apps, your files and your data live in the cloud, not on the desktop. This future is coming closer every day and it often feels like Linux on the desktop ignores this eventuality.
For the Linux desktop to succeed it needs to begin to enhance the user experience for the web user. it also has to be more relevant to today’s developers. Currently the browser experience is disconnected from the desktop and the innovations from KDE, Gnome and others aren’t relevant or visible to the web-community. (Both end-users and web-developers)
Questions Linux Architects need to ask:
- What can Linux as a platform do to enhance the web experience?
- What can Linux as a platform do to get developers excited about writing apps, the way that people are excited about writing iPhone apps.
- How will Linux innovate and set itself apart from Windows and Mac? The hardware and the software are starting to look the same, what can Linux do with new interaction techniques and innovative hardware that will make people say wow, I want that!
For next year to be the year of the Linux desktop it needs to become relevant and provide something more then a free alternative to something that everyone already gets for free with their computers.
It’s time to face the inevitability that Linux will always be the low end solution for desktop users. It lacks the unified framework and interface consistancy that really sets OS X apart (and to a lesser extent Microsoft’s latest stuff), and the open source community will never rally behind one way of doing things. So users will put up with the inevitable sharp edges and shrug it off to their own cheapness. This lack of polish and integration will relegate Linux to the low end of the user-oriented computing spectrum, at least for desktop usage.
Personally I think that the current fixation on “cloud computing” AKA “rich internet applications” is somewhat misguided. This is another revolution in the same mold as Java. A least common denominator solution in the sense that it can never fully take advantage of platform features. It will work for many people, but it will always be a lot less than a full revolution, and simply expand the universe of possible solutions to people’s problems.
While I’ll agree wholeheartedly that Linux is eating the low-end of the desktop spectrum alive, I take issue with the statement that Linux can only live in the low end. My office is about 50% Mac users, most of the rest Windows users, and one or two Linux users, including me. But I’ve already see a couple of people wanting to install Ubuntu or Fedora on their Macbooks after they have seen some of the things Linux is capable of that their shiny OS just can’t do. My experience with OSX on a day to day basis is limited, but every time I have to help the Mac people with a computer task I can’t help but notice how crippled some parts of OSX are regarding the low level of control and configuration they give to the user. A year ago I was thinking about buying a Mac myself, but seeing how limited OSX can be at times, coupled with the amazing advances that desktop Linux undergoes in only a year’s time has made me change my mind.
The gOS distribution goes a little bit in your sense. Personally I’m not convinced by the Rich Internet Application, you still need an OS and that’s the burden. Maybe people would be more interested to have the OS in the cloud, maintained and updated by someone else.
NEED HELP, PLEASE, I DEFINATELY NEED HELP TRYING TO GET MY WIRELESS COMPATIBLE WITH LINUX. WHEN I INSTALLED LINUX UBUNTU, I LOST MY WIRELESS CAPABILITY. PLEASE, SOMEONE OUT THERE PLEASE HELP ME FINE THE WAY TO GET MY WIRELESS BACK. WHERE I LIVE WE HAVE WIRELESS AXCESS AND I SURE MISS NOT HAVING IT. PLEASE HELP. GAR