Will Linux miss its big desktop shot?

I switched to Xfce "before it was cool." If Xfce goes the way of other DEs, no big deal. I'll use LXDE, Openbox, Fluxbox, whatever. Still plenty of choices.

This old hand-me-down 'puter can't handle Unity (it barely managed KDE 3) because Unity is a resource hog. But I do think Unity looks pretty cool. So much so that I rigged my Xfce box to "emulate" Unity's appearance and functionality.

I'm having my cake and eating it too.

@Grishnakh: going back to Windows might not even do the trick for those folks. Have you read what's apparently coming in Windows 8? Looks a lot like all the other iconfests!

Quoting: The problem is that there's only so much of this that can happen before people start abandoning Linux altogether and going back to Windows. I've heard many people saying they're already done just this, because they're so sick of the state of the Linux desktop (i.e., being dumbed-down for Facebook-surfing touchscreen users).

It's not like somebody's going around casting Imperius on all the WM and DE devs or putting hallucinogens and downers in their water supply, is it? That's two desktop environments where the devs are acting deranged, three if you count Cojonical's Unity; that's not all of them by any means. Most of the init-5 layers are still designed as workfaces for computers, not dashboards for Fisher-Price toys.

It's not like somebody's going around casting Imperius on all the WM and DE devs or putting hallucinogens and downers in their water supply, is it? That's two desktop environments where the devs are acting deranged, three if you count Cojonical's Unity...

You do have to admit the stupid planets did seem to align at almost the same time. Unity and Gnome foisting these changes on their users almost in concert. They may not be all of the WM's and DE's but they are absolutely the most popular/most used. It's also obvious that thousands if not tens of thousands of people are abandoning these projects as users.

I am one of them. I am extremely comfortable with my 10.04 LTS and then one of two things will happen. Either these projects will have matured to the point where functionality and sanity have returned or XFCE will have taken over as the number one used DE. I can work with either scenario.

I'm thinking anyway.

So, when does 10-4 go 10-7?

Not arguing that the stupid-pills affected the preponderance of current users. Just pointing out that Linux doesn't even have just one (or two, or three) desktop to choke.

Quoting:Have you read what's apparently coming in Windows 8?

True, but MS is not abandoning the legacy interface all together, it intends to keep it available along the new one, and for a long time or so it seems.

This is where Canonical and Gnome went wrong. They both shouldn't have declared they are dropping the legacy interface, and they would be better off if they quickly reverse their decision and keep the legacy Gnome interface supported and for a long time.

If and when they do that, I believe they will have smooth sailing with their users, which I am not one of them by the way.

This is where Canonical and Gnome went wrong.

Absolutely correct. When one shoots oneself in the foot, it is always wise to do so with a small caliber pistol...not the double-ought buck double barrel shotgun they chose.

Quoting:not the double-ought buck double barrel shotgun they chose.

@Ken, Do you really think the damage is that bad to be irreparable/irreversible? :-)

I think they still have a chance, at least if they make a declaration now with the intent to continue support actively in the future.

Fettoosh, I don't think they've turned the corner into obscurity but like Gnome, they showed great apathy and a lack of concern toward their users. There is the Peter Pan part of me that hopes they spread some Tinkerbell dust on Unity and make it a viable and useable environment. Time and future releases will tell. I don't think they will and I don't think that clapping three times will bring it back to life once they do turn that corner. This is one time I would truly like to be wrong.

Now as far as Gnome goes, their staunch and stubborn insistence upon not allowing plugins and extensions into Gnome3 is telling. I mean allowing them on an "official" level. Not too long ago someone from Gnome said that he did not want their newly developed environment "tainted" by user contributions.

Fettosh, no matter how much perfume you put on that, no matter how many times you try to rearrange the words of that statement, it stinks of elitism and arrogance. My annual financial contribution to Gnome of 100 dollars halted the minute I read that quote. I will just add it to the amount I send to the Trinity project annually and be done with them.

I admire a confident man Fettoosh. I detest an arrogant one.

Linux will seriously "compete" on the desktop when developers treat end-users like CUSTOMERS instead of beta-testers.

How likely do you think that is?

Linux will take significant (but probably never dominant) market share only by inches at a time. The netbook thing was an anomaly, but one that put Linux on people's radar a little more. The next fronts are in tablets and set-top boxes. Traditional desktop PCs will always be around, but with less of a market share, and in the possession of those who need the horsepower and peripherals that go with them (content producers, number crunchers, power app users, tinkerers, etc.). The other formats will fill many of the niches currently occupied by desktop machines.

The Linux netbooks were only an anomaly in the sense that Microsoft (and Intel) hadn't yet put into place semi-covert, semi-legal and illegal mechanisms to bar Linux netbooks from the market whether or not customers actually wanted them.

(I'm not sure whether that's agreeing or disagreeing with you).

Agreeing. M$ was taken by surprise with netbooks. That's why they subsequently got more powerful and expensive, for the reasons you indicated. It's anomaly because M$ totally missed the attraction of the market segment.

They got more powerful, but at the same time the power was restricted (only certain screen sizes, can't have too much ram, etc.) by the Windows licensing requirements MS put in place to "define" netbooks. The whole thing was quite strange really.

I disagree that M$ missing the attraction of a market segment is anomalous. M$ leading the market with a new product type is what would be anomalous, because that would require them to be, you know, innovative.

Q: What has Microsoft brought to market that left people saying, "D@mn, wish I'd thought of that!", instead of, "WTH, we've already had that for N years now"?

LOL yeah, I think that pretty much every time MS or Apple starts touting some "new and innovative" feature in their OS. I scratch my head and go "uh...Linux has had that for like, 5 years or more...and it works better than what they have."

Quoting: Q: What has Microsoft brought to market that left people saying, "D@mn, wish I'd thought of that!", instead of, "WTH, we've already had that for N years now"?

The Kinect,... Which they bought, but still...

But my point was not that M$ missed the market segment to capitalize on it, rather they missed it to shut it down.

Ummm... I thought that Microsoft's innovation was the idea of paying for the OS, itself, in the first place?

@BernardSwiss: Nope. CP/M-80 cost money, Mark Williams' Coherent cost money, Mountain View Forth cost money... In the microcomputer world, in general unless the code was in a ROM on the board you bought, you paid for it.