Derek Bodner’s Blog

It’s become a running joke in the FOSS community that every year will be “the year of the Linux desktop”. Well, this will not be the year of the Linux desktop. Linux is not yet ready to take a major jump up and gain market share in the Desktop computing market. But that doesn’t mean the improvements made in the Linux Desktop haven’t been a great success (including ATI’s announcement of Open Source drivers), and that we’re not getting closer to Linux being a viable desktop environment.

Why isn’t the Linux Desktop ready? The main culprits aren’t exactly a surprise, and have been mentioned many times over. Less than spectacular hardware support, virtually no commercial games, and users resistance to change are all very real factors preventing widespread adoption of *nix desktop systems. Ubuntu has made great strides in helping to improve the Linux Desktop experience, but these issues are still very real and prevalent. The first time somebody is told they simply have to vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf or that their scanner isn’t supported under Linux is when Linux has failed this user. Linux is all about choice. And the user should always have the choice of dropping to the command line and gaining that level of control over their system. But doing so should not be necessary to perform every day tasks, and Linux is not quite there yet. It’s not necessarily the fault of the kernel developers, software developers, or distributions, but the problems still exist.

Currently the biggest problem holding Linux back is the user installation base. Hardware manufacturers won’t be pressed to release their specs to open-source developers if the demand isn’t there. Efforts won’t be made to improve drivers for an Operating System without enough users, and video game manufacturers won’t spend the time and effort developing for and porting to the Linux platform until it’s lucrative enough. None of these problems will be fixed until the installed user base expands. But Linux won’t get the user base until these problems are fixed. Seems like a little chicken and egg going on here.

I’ve seen complaints that Ubuntu’s not being pushed by Dell to a large enough audience. I believe that to be incorrect. As I’ve said, Linux isn’t ready for mainstream adoption, but this isn’t a matter of “Linux developers fixing the bugs” as much as it is getting 3rd party vendors to properly support the platform. The worst thing that could happen right now is for Linux, while not being ready, to be pushed as a Windows replacement. As previously mentioned, the first time a user is told to open up and edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf is the first time Linux has lost a user (who will most likely never turn back as Linux is “broken” in their mind). Pushing Linux to be something it’s not could be a huge setback. Instead, marketing pre-installed Linux to “advanced users and tech enthusiasts” could be exactly what is needed to get Linux over the hump. First, Dell gets to thoroughly test Ubuntu and work with them on specific hardware that they can be assured will work as the user expects. And by marketing it to advanced users, these will often times by users who not only know what they are doing and can work through problems but also users who are looking for a little bit of tinkering and adventure. This has the possibility of opening up a market that Linux previously may have missed, and in doing so may give Linux the user base where hardware and video game manufacturers begin to pay attention. If this happens, 2007 may not be the year of the Linux desktop, but it may improve the odds of 2008, 2009 or 2010 becoming so.