When will it "actually" happen?

[dacha]

But will we have the same pleasure in using Ubuntu if one day everyone uses it and it becomes completely mainstream?

Yes, because a high % Linux future, is not a high % Ubuntu future:

• The dominant OS suppresses all others equally. When the dominant OS weakens, all others can grow.
• Already we see many Linux distributions competing, and that will likely only increase as opportunities increase.
• FreeBSD (and possibly Redox OS) already have Linux binary compatibility layers, and can even run desktop apps built for Linux. In some cases, they run faster than on Linux.
• And the very ideology of Linux - freedom, openness and sharing - does not lock out other players, or guarantee the continued dominance of Linux or any particular distro.
• Linux implements open standards, such as POSIX, which many other operating systems also implement, so porting away from Linux is easy. The Windows API does not follow any standard, it is a de-facto standard, which is why Wine is a much harder undertaking.

Which would be great, because we could see some real innovation return to the currently stagnant OS space.

[Shibblet]

Yes, because a high % Linux future, is not a high % Ubuntu future:

• The dominant OS suppresses all others equally. When the dominant OS weakens, all others can grow.
• Already we see many Linux distributions competing, and that will likely only increase as opportunities increase.
• FreeBSD (and possibly Redox OS) already have Linux binary compatibility layers, and can even run desktop apps built for Linux. In some cases, they run faster than on Linux.
• And the very ideology of Linux - freedom, openness and sharing - does not lock out other players, or guarantee the continued dominance of Linux or any particular distro.
• Linux implements open standards, such as POSIX, which many other operating systems also implement, so porting away from Linux is easy. The Windows API does not follow any standard, it is a de-facto standard, which is why Wine is a much harder undertaking.

Which would be great, because we could see some real innovation return to the currently stagnant OS space.

I understand what you're getting at, but does any flavor of Linux "suppress" any others? I mean, we see this all the time with Ubuntu. Take Mint for example. They still use the Ubuntu Kernel for now, but will not adopt Snaps. And these are all downstream from Debian. I think one of the best things about Linux (in general) is the diversity. If there is a feature we don't want, then we don't use it, or switch to another Distro.

Ubuntu is going to move foward with Snaps. I think they should adopt FlatPak. So they are now compatible with both. And if they weren't, we could always use a distro that does.

The Windows API follows one standard, and that's Microsoft's. With a virtual "monopoly" on the industry. They have had free reign to do as they please. And businesses and users alike have no choice but to follow suit, or have to change their entire computing structure.

Microsoft knows this. They know, the same way dictators know, that if they change something, people will have no choice but to follow suit. It's sneaky too... Almost like removing one olive from a salad... https://www.forbes.com/sites/moirave...-saving-money/

Whereas American Airlines did it to save cash, tech companies make changes to implement their new ideas without the consent of their user-base.

[werewulf75]

But will we have the same pleasure in using Ubuntu if one day everyone uses it and it becomes completely mainstream?

Absofragginlutely! And possibly/probably even more so.

[werewulf75]

...
But it's hard to tell when, if ever, Linux will be the most popular desktop operating system. After all, many people - even professional IT people who should know better - see Apple as the Microsoft alternative , a company whose products cost more and who treats them even worse than Microsoft (incompatibility, lock-in, spyware, parts pairing, walled garden, etc.).

Alas and alack, they that they do as often as not or even more often than not. It's incomprehensible - any halfwit with even two functioning neurons wouldn't touch that OS, or any Apple products. Ughhhh! The mind boggles! Where privacy violation is concerned, Apple has to share top spot with Google. Then the way they completely buggered up the OS - completely emasculated.

[Shibblet]

As far as businesses are concerned, Microsoft has created a dependency. Is this not akin to a drug-addiction?

They get you hooked on using Windows... and then keep creating worse and worse versions of it... but you have to have it, because it's the only OS that runs your proprietary software and games.

When you try to leave it, you keep looking back at it with the wrong thought process. Everything was so much better under Windows... I felt better. It worked better. It IS better...

[werewulf75]

As far as businesses are concerned, Microsoft has created a dependency. Is this not akin to a drug-addiction?

They get you hooked on using Windows... and then keep creating worse and worse versions of it... but you have to have it, because it's the only OS that runs your proprietary software and games.

When you try to leave it, you keep looking back at it with the wrong thought process. Everything was so much better under Windows... I felt better. It worked better. It IS better...

Yes, I guess for a lot of people you could describe it as an analogue to a drug addiction.

Fortunately, that never was the case here. In the "modern" era of 15 and 32 bit and beyond, I skipped the primitive "IBM PC compatibles" and the equally primitive Macs entirely and went with what was de facto the first multi-media computer, the Commodore Amiga with pre-emptive multi-tasking, soon fully 32 bit, colour, and lots more. This was followed a few short years later by NeXT hardware and the fabulous NeXTSTEP OS, later OPENSTEP, a (Net)BSD - on - Mach - kernel OS with its own display system, also fully 32 bit and colour when I got it. Soon after I also gained experience with Sun hardware and SunOS, later Solaris, and SGI hardware and Irix OS - both not a whole world different from NeXT really. I loved the BSD/Unix experience! So when Windows eventually came along it didn't even get a look-in here. Not until I had a self-built PC already running NeXTStep, Solaris, and OS/2 Warp (sans Windows!). And then it was Windows NT 3.50/3.51 - crashed more than I ever saw 'Guru Meditations' on Amiga! Ugly as sin, and just plain rubbish. Had to go. Eventually got NT4 when that came along, which was OK-ish, but no cigar. Around the same time started looking into Linux, first with Slackware. What a pain setting up X Windows! And very unstable too. Kept it for a while, but, it just didn't seem ready for prime time yet and eventually it had to go. But kept an eye on Linux with various distros as and when time allowed.

Meanwhile, PCs became the must-have, and laptops and (self-built) desktops pretty much had to run Windows. But I never really "got sold" on it and kept looking into Linux (and the BSDs), until eventually I committed to Ubuntu and later additionally Debian and Fedora. Although sadly I'm still having to occasionally go into Windows 10 (I won't go beyond that, come hell or high water!) because of specialist hardware and software not supported in Linux.

So the "Windows addiction" was by no means universal.

[lammert-nijhof]

The Linux desktop will never happen. It is a development driven by far too many different distros, resulting in a huge waste of effort. The result is that the competence is thinned out too much and no distro really reaches professional standards. Too much of the work has to be done by well-meaning volunteers. A good example is the current state of Ubuntu.
I'm a special case! I use Ubuntu in VirtualBox VMs. Since 2010 I never had major issues till April 2024.

• the VM of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS gets into a boot loop and almost never reaches the login screen.
• So, I stepped back to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and that worked till they upgraded to the kernel 6.8 and now I see double the boot time and I have a black square (1 x 1 cm) as mouse pointer.
• I have the same boot problem in Ubuntu Mate 24.10 and Ubuntu Unity 24.10, they don't boot anymore normally, while Ubuntu 24.10 seems to work fine. I already deleted the Unity flavor and for the Mate flavor I might wait for kernel 6.10.
• I don't have these issues with VMs for Xubuntu 24.04 LTS, Ubuntu 16.04 ESM; Debian 12; Linux Mint 22; Zorin 17, Fedora 40; Manjaro, Peppermint, OpenSUSE Leap and Windows XP, 10 and 11.

The behavior of the system got worse every month, and my initial bug report is from 10 Aug, in which I explained that there was a timing issue in the boot process. One of the errors was the message, that I used an unknown hypervisor, while I use that hypervisor VirtualBox already since 2010. I expect the problem has been introduced during the handling of the XZ bug, because in March/April the Ubuntu update process for the development-edition was a complete chaos. I realized it, so I used an upgrade from 22.04 LTS to confirm that bug before reporting it.

I realize that I'm dealing with a compatibility issue between VirtualBox and Ubuntu, but nobody really seems to take full system responsibility, and I have the feeling, that there is a lack of well-established cooperation on these types of issues. Another example is that an Ubuntu screen freezes occasionally, and the only solution is to reboot the system. That happens on almost all distros and releases and 3d graphics is more vulnerable than normal graphics.

I tell this sad story to proof, that experience and competence in the Linux distros is lacking! If even a distro supported by a company like Canonical gets into this type of problems in this area for more advanced desktop solutions. There is no hope for the majority of the smaller distros. They probably only run reliable on off-lease Dell and HP PCs.

[donald187]

^ ^ ^ Nice argument.

[werewulf75]

The Linux desktop will never happen. It is a development driven by far too many different distros, resulting in a huge waste of effort. The result is that the competence is thinned out too much and no distro really reaches professional standards. Too much of the work has to be done by well-meaning volunteers. A good example is the current state of Ubuntu.
I'm a special case! I use Ubuntu in VirtualBox VMs. Since 2010 I never had major issues till April 2024.
...
I realize that I'm dealing with a compatibility issue between VirtualBox and Ubuntu, but nobody really seems to take full system responsibility, and I have the feeling, that there is a lack of well-established cooperation on these types of issues. Another example is that an Ubuntu screen freezes occasionally, and the only solution is to reboot the system. That happens on almost all distros and releases and 3d graphics is more vulnerable than normal graphics.

I tell this sad story to proof, that experience and competence in the Linux distros is lacking! If even a distro supported by a company like Canonical gets into this type of problems in this area for more advanced desktop solutions. There is no hope for the majority of the smaller distros. They probably only run reliable on off-lease Dell and HP PCs.

Sadly I have to agree with most of the above. Particularly that there are far too many distros. One of the best things that could happen to Linux would be for the smaller distros to die out, leaving just the four major ones! I'm sure Linus Torvalds would agree. Just maybe we could then get single standards throughout the OSes, no more multiple dependencies, multiple package/delivery standards, multiple WMs/WMEs/DEs, multiple flavours/spins/what have you, and so on... But, we probably stand a better chance of overcoming the climate catastrophe, and in the meantime, we'll end up with yet more and more piddly little distros. More and still more of them, until the whole Linux thing becomes extinct.

[davetheoldcoder]

As far as businesses are concerned, Microsoft has created a dependency. Is this not akin to a drug-addiction?...

That includes the federal government, as well as government contractors.

Microsoft jumps through all the hoops needed to get their software certified (by the DoD, for example). That's expensive and time-consuming, but they do it because they want the end result.

They have an army of customer support representatives who make sure that the upper level managers, who decide what software to buy, are happy.

Maybe someone like Elon Musk could make a dent in the MS empire by bringing Linux more into the mainstream.