Linux's heyday for desktop and laptop was January 2020.

[Paddy Landau]

I think the point of this thread was to gain excitement…

No, I had no such intention. I was sharing something that I found interesting. Every year, someone seems to announce that this is the year of Linux for desktops and laptops, but I don't see that happening.

i'm confuzzed ,isn't Mac,ios?

Not many people know that Apple's products (whether Mac or iOS) are Unix-based.

… if Linux wasn't gaining substantially in popularity, there wouldn't be a Windows 10 available with an Ubuntu subsystem.

Microsoft has done a complete about-turn since changing CEO. It has boarded the Linux train. I don't know why, but I'm sure that MS has some type of plan to monetise it.

… how many Windows desktops are there running under Linux servers?

I did not realise that Windows desktops ever ran under Linux servers. This is news to me! Tell me more, please.

And then, of course, there's Ubuntu Kylin -- the official People's Republic of China operating system.

Whether or not that will catch on in a big way is anyone's guess. I think that the Chinese government wants it to, because it can control the default software installation, which is what the "average" user would install.

Linux dominates supercomputing

This is true, and has been for some time. I'm sure that it will continue; Linux is just too powerful, too reliable and too cheap for it to be passed over in the world of supercomputers.

In fact, Linux dominates computing. Desktops and laptops are just one part of the computing realm. Linux runs most of the world's smartphones (Android), web servers, IoT, car computers, and more. I wonder if it will still be around in 100 years — probably!

[ajgreeny]

i'm confuzzed ,isn't Mac,ios?

As far as I'm aware, though I could be wrong, Mac operating system, whatever it's name might be nowadays, is a forked version of BSD; Linux is often thought of as a fork of Unix.
They are therefore similar in many ways, though very different in others, perhaps the most important difference for us might be that Linux is open-source, Mac-OS is very definitely closed-source; very closed and locked away as I understand things though I've never ever used any Apple systems so have no notion of how much freedom a user has to change anything in system files.

[DuckHook]

…Linux is just too powerful, too reliable and too cheap for it to be passed over in the world of supercomputers…

All true, but the biggest reason is its openness. My nephew has a masters degree specializing in big data. This is how he explained it to me:

1. There's no supercomputer in the world that is simply off the shelf. They are all über‑customized and tweaked to the hilt. Trying to do this with a proprietary OS is like trying to terraform Venus whereas Linux has all of the foundational properties already in place to allow it to be expanded and modified at will.
2. Since Linux is built from the ground up to be open and transparent, one can peer into the guts of the thing to ultra‑maximize everything. It is illegal to do this with, say, Windows unless one goes through incredible hassles.
3. Many of the Unixes like BSD are also FOSS, but they have far smaller communities. There's a network effect in Supercomputing just like in more mundane aspects of life: scientists and techies reinforce each other's work. No point in reinventing a given wheel and the Linux community is famous for its open exchange of info and techniques.
4. It's way cooler to be a Linux geek than a Windows or Apple geek and "BSD weirdos are demented" (his words, not mine).

[remy-wehrung]

Also recurring debate on the French forums, therefore: Linux has always been a system for geek, first it is an X system, second it is Linus Torvald, not the last of us, who wrote the kernel. I have seen during these twenty years, the GUIs evolved, between bad copies of Microsoft Windows and ugly counterfeit MacOs of before eleven. For the past three years; these GUI memes are stabilized and embellished. Ubuntu has worked hard.
Students, except future DevOps and other system administrators do not want to hear about Linux, because the cli seems too hard to them, it takes a long learning, humility, stupid things done, to master the system

[QIII]

The desktop/laptop segment of computing is a fractional sliver of the world of computing. Who cares if Windows holds that tiny speck?

[remy-wehrung]

No, this segment still exists, commercially, therefore technologically speaking. Quite simply because companies have the common sense not to put everything in the cloud. It is the companies, by the volume of their purchases that make Microsoft, nvidia and AMD work, the individual is him residual and that I know, the time that the student is not an employee, is a business manager, he is an individual

[mastablasta]

I doubt that Linux will ever be a major player, unless Chrome OS or a similar competitor grows exponentially in popularity.

if they improve GPU driver support and support for windows games, then it has a real chance.

just yesterday i was watching a year old youtube video about how much ram you need. and from my experience as well 4 GB windows 10 runs really slow as soon as you open a few apps. so even in gaming and even when you have 8 GB ram or 16 Gb ram, sooner or later you will notice those 3.5 GBs missing.

aside from that windows 10 had it's own share of major bugs that were not there before. erasing user's data or some other big bugs that affected quite a bit of users.

so when you have alternative free, opensource OS, where you get less than 500 Mb at boot and have a similar user experience you might have a better alternative available.

and once gamers move or if games become OS agnostic (Stadia, Geforce now...) - linux might increase the market share.

look how many post just on this forums are from people wanting to switch but still be bale to play their MMO game. there are even more such post in linux gaming groups. directX issues are somewhat resolved, now it's the anticheat that is blocking. if they solve that and with progress of proton, you could simply tell these people to have a go. until these major bumps are resolved, i can't really warmly recommend it to "gamers". i play mostly older single player or games with LAN option, so the experience has been great so far.

[remy-wehrung]

I must admit that the management of GPUs out of box relieves part of my work, under Debian, it is not possible. Must eternally speak of Microsoft Windows? , it is certainly the biggest client OS, but that is it, yes it is affected by the "cyberpunk 2077" syndrome or the reverse or each of the patches, causes more bugs than the previous patches, but at least , it's free, always so painful

[zebra2]

It is easy to be blind to the fact the the primary driver behind the success of Linux is all of the nifty FOSS software which has been developed by corporations and governments seeking to avoid paying for individual licenses for every desktop in their network. Not to mention their contribution to the linux kernel. As already mentioned Linux runs the entire planet (and outer space). NASA has donated millions of retired lines of FOSS code to the public domain over the years and that is only where the discussion starts. Linux isn't going anywhere but forward.
PS: I would hate to imagine a federal digital currency run on anything but Linux.

[Paddy Landau]

It's way cooler to be a Linux geek than a Windows or Apple geek and "BSD weirdos are demented" (his words, not mine).

That made me laugh!

so when you have alternative free, opensource OS, where you get less than 500 Mb at boot…

Hmm, I think that most people coming to Linux come via a larger distro such as Ubuntu (for ease of use — I came via Ubuntu for that very reason). Ubuntu 20.04 takes close to 4Gb RAM on my machine, so it uses significantly more than 500Mb. But the good thing is that with modern hardware, that's satisfactory (and less than Windows).

Linux isn't going anywhere but forward.

I wish that I could see 100 years into the future to find out what happens with Linux. Is it still running computers? Are computers even recognisable? Maybe they're running AI-developed operating systems.

I would hate to imagine a federal digital currency run on anything but Linux.

Ha ha! Well, I don't know. It's a government's job to mess things up. How can a government mess things up properly if they use proper tools?