When will it "actually" happen?

[werewulf75]

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.

Doubt that he still has the kind of financial resources left that this kind of 'seduction' would require. 'X' is still costing him dearly, and Tesla doesn't look in great shape exactly. And I doubt SpaceX is some great cash cow either.

[Shibblet]

Doubt that he still has the kind of financial resources left that this kind of 'seduction' would require. 'X' is still costing him dearly, and Tesla doesn't look in great shape exactly. And I doubt SpaceX is some great cash cow either.

Interestingly enough, some dude named Mark Shuttleworth is putting in a lot of money to keep one of the Linux distributions ahead of the game.

And this may be the thought process here. Is it up to Canonical to be the front-runner in the Linux market. Will Canonical be the ones to make Linux "Mainstream?"

Unity Desktop, Ubuntu Phone, PPA's, Snaps... They are innovating and trying to make their OS better.

Now, I will ask the evil question: Does that mean that "we" (the broad spectrum of Linux users) are the ones that are keeping it from happening?

Think about it for a bit. We all compare Ubuntu to other distributions. i.e. Arch is better because...
But Windows is made for the masses. If Canonical is trying to do this with Ubuntu, make it for the masses, are we the ones shooting it in the foot, because we prefer FlatPak's to Snaps. We prefer Gnome to Unity, etc.

[1fallen2]

I have begun asking this same question in all forums (New to Linux) I use: "are we the ones shooting it in the foot"

A very small amount say yes, the majority, claim it just dose not have a friendly interface, or less intuitive than say Mac or Windows. And terminal scare's them.
Fear=Mistakes, Mistakes=frustration, frustration=Abandonment.

I remember clearly my first experience with Linux (Novel Suse) and after an hour, I set back and asked myself what did I just do to myself. (Wow this ain't Windows) LOL
And 25 years later>>>It's All I use.

[werewulf75]

Interestingly enough, some dude named Mark Shuttleworth is putting in a lot of money to keep one of the Linux distributions ahead of the game.

And this may be the thought process here. Is it up to Canonical to be the front-runner in the Linux market. Will Canonical be the ones to make Linux "Mainstream?"

Canonical and Ubuntu are the de facto front-runner in the Linux market - far and away largest desktop market share.

As for your second question, it would be very hard for Canonical and that bloke Mark Shuttleworth to achieve this on their own. As I see it, the ideal situation to make Linux "mainstream" would be for Shuttleworth & Canonical to get the other two or three major distros plus Linus Torvalds to come together in some sort of loose cartel to create a unified Linux OS with an unbeatable WME, single set of dependencies, etc. etc., and strong Linux branding as well as strong branding of the three or four distros, and leave the half a gazillion other distros to flounder. (Although, with IBM owning RHEL everyone else would have to be weary - IBM has a long history of getting all enthusiastic about an OS project only to pull the rug from under its feet eventually. Best known examples were PPT - "People, Places, Things", a fully object-oriented OS that still strikes me as a fabulous concept (I had a beta running here, or rather somewhat limping along but you got the idea of the thing and it was great!), and of course there was OS/2 - if they'd added proper file system security and made it multi-user with Warp 3, Windows NT4 might never have seen the light of day.

Unity Desktop, Ubuntu Phone, PPA's, Snaps... They are innovating and trying to make their OS better.

They are indeed! Unfortunately, this generally seems to have gone - at least largely - unrecognised in the community. For my money, Ubuntu has been the one truly innovating distro. The Unity DE was - and even today still is - the most innovative DE yet. The idea and hope behind it was that it should or might become the one unitary DE across all Linux, hence its name, "Unity". I didn't like all aspects of it but got the idea, and by and large liked it a lot and still do. That's why I have Unity 22.04 multi-booting and Unity 16.04 in a newly set up VM. Phone, PPAs, great idea and great pity much abandoned. Snaps - those few I have here - work just great, no problem wrt disk space or speed. It's time to end the multiple packaging formats and the multiple dependencies especially and free up developers to concentrate on their projects without having to worry about multiple dependencies. As such, Snaps (as well as Flatpacks and Appimages) are in my view a stop-gap measure but it works for now. And Snaps are dead easy for the average desktop user.

So yes, all in all Canonical are being innovative, and I take my hat off to them for it.

Now, I will ask the evil question: Does that mean that "we" (the broad spectrum of Linux users) are the ones that are keeping it from happening?

Think about it for a bit. We all compare Ubuntu to other distributions. i.e. Arch is better because...
But Windows is made for the masses. If Canonical is trying to do this with Ubuntu, make it for the masses, are we the ones shooting it in the foot, because we prefer FlatPak's to Snaps. We prefer Gnome to Unity, etc.

No thinking about it needed here. Alas, yes, "we" are shooting Ubuntu and ourselves in the foot to a certain extent, being negative and even disparaging instead of getting behind Ubuntu and trying our damnest to help improving it and making it the best there is and at the same time attractive to the great unwashed, the masses even. Ubuntu, and Unity, should be our twin mottos, alongside Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical!

[Erik1984]

... being negative and even disparaging instead of getting behind Ubuntu ...

Agreed. The negativity regarding everything Canonical / Ubuntu in the wider Linux community (by a vocal minority) is getting old and will not help the Linux desktop.

I'm not referring to genuine discussion about Ubuntu's features or technical decisions made by Canonical. If polite and on-topic those discussions are good for the community as it shows people's voices are heard and to learn about the motivation behind certain decisions.

[Shibblet]

I'm not referring to genuine discussion about Ubuntu's features or technical decisions made by Canonical. If polite and on-topic those discussions are good for the community as it shows people's voices are heard and to learn about the motivation behind certain decisions.

I just looked into Canonical's "Ubuntu Core." And they are NOT marketing it to home desktop users. That's not to say that someone couldn't use it, "we're" just not their target market.

So, Canonical is moving forward with their OS, and their Snaps, with the full understanding of how it fits within it's own market. The Home/Desktop users may just be the test-bench.

It's kinda funny... I was having a discussion with some co-workers about Tesla. Electric Cars. Now, I live in Alaska, and in the winter months, it's not really a great idea to have an electric car. Less battery life, there is only one charging station here in Alaska (Chugiak 3-Bears, halfway point on the busiest highway between the Mat-Su Valley and Anchorage). Winters, which are long here, aren't good for battery powered vehicles. Plus, places like Fairbanks, and Valdez are a good 350 miles from Anchorage, and making that kind of trip is not really possible.

Regardless of the practicality of it, I made a comment to a couple of the ladies here in the office... I said "These concepts are similar to what horse owners said when the first Model-A Ford was released."

"What? You have to put gasoline (petrol) in it? I can just feed my horse."
"What do you do if you lose a tire?"
"There's no roads from here to there for you to drive on."
"I can't take my Model-A into the mountains..."

And stuff like that.

Canonical is more than likely pushing forward with their own ideas, and using what they find and innovate to give back to the community. The desktop community is probably not their focus, but we get benefits of what they create.

[marekduda]

Your friend makes a solid point. For most people, the "it just works" factor is huge. Windows has that convenience—no tweaking, no troubleshooting, just download and go. And yeah, gamers especially don’t care about EULAs or the data they're giving up, as long as they can get into their game faster. Linux, while awesome for those who enjoy tinkering, still requires that extra bit of effort, and that’s what holds it back from mainstream dominance. Until Linux can offer the same level of plug-and-play ease without the need for compatibility layers or workarounds, it’s hard to see it taking over anytime soon, especially in gaming.

[QIII]

This is no disparagement of Microsoft. Just a request for accuracy and completeness. The effect is the same. The Windows user says "It just works" and "Linux needs a compatibility layer for many things".

In his autobiography, Henry Ford recounted that in a sales meeting he declared "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."

With windows, you can have your OS work any way you want, so long as it's the way it was delivered. That works for Microsoft because the 800lb gorilla has trained the market to expect that the way Windows is delivered is the way they (the customers) want it to work. No tweaking is needed if it works the way you'd better like it. Redmond dictates the user experience. That said, if you happen to know how, you can tinker to some extent.

Plug 'n' Play is not something Microsoft offers. The onus is on software vendors to produce applications that work out of the box with Windows. If the app doesn't, they starve. Microsoft doesn't lift a finger to make something Plug 'n' Play. Microsoft dictates the conditions under which a software vendor can claim the characteristic. Games often don't work without some intermediate compatibility layer in Linux because game developers don't design them to work in a Linux system. They design them for Windows. If you want to use the games, you often have to write the compatibility layer or find one somebody else wrote.

All of that is to say that it will never "actually" happen. By quirk of historical happenstance, Microsoft came along at just the right time to clear the dance floor and take over. The desktop market was bent to their will. Game developers go where the money is and write their products for Windows. That isn't going to change, and It's pointless to sigh and bemoan the fact that Linux hasn't replaced Microsoft and Microsoft-compatible products ... on the desktop.

Cheer up. The desktop is but a small fraction of "computing". The lion's share of the greater computing world is owned by 'nix. Let's be content with that and spend our time contemplating ways to cure the common cold.

[Shibblet]

This is no disparagement of Microsoft. Just a request for accuracy and completeness. The effect is the same. The Windows user says "It just works" and "Linux needs a compatibility layer for many things".

No... I agree. I think we all really liked Microsoft's product until they started leeching your personal information. That happened circa Windows 8(ish?)

In his autobiography, Henry Ford recounted that in a sales meeting he declared "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."

Interesting quote... I have heard it before, but this time I am looking at it a little differently. In this particular case, it's more apparent that Mr. Ford did not have any competition. And if there was another automobile maker at that time, they could very well have taken over by having different colored vehicles.

With windows, you can have your OS work any way you want, so long as it's the way it was delivered. That works for Microsoft because the 800lb gorilla has trained the market to expect that the way Windows is delivered is the way they (the customers) want it to work. No tweaking is needed if it works the way you'd better like it. Redmond dictates the user experience. That said, if you happen to know how, you can tinker to some extent.

Even Linux users understand the benefits of a singular OS. There have been debates about why Linux has so many different Desktop Environments, Software Centers, etc. Why can't there be a singular, unified, Linux OS? At this point, there are too many derivatives to go back and quantize a singular OS experience. And, as a Linux user, why would we want that? We like our diversity and choice. A unified OS would only hold true for non-Linux users looking to switch. It's always the first question a new Linux user has... "Which distro should I pick?"

Plug 'n' Play is not something Microsoft offers. The onus is on software vendors to produce applications that work out of the box with Windows. If the app doesn't, they starve. Microsoft doesn't lift a finger to make something Plug 'n' Play. Microsoft dictates the conditions under which a software vendor can claim the characteristic. Games often don't work without some intermediate compatibility layer in Linux because game developers don't design them to work in a Linux system. They design them for Windows. If you want to use the games, you often have to write the compatibility layer or find one somebody else wrote.

Too funny!!! Microsoft actually coined the phrase "Plug 'n' Play" back in 1995. Regardless of who claims the title, you are correct. Plug 'n' Play doesn't quite work the way they want you to think that it does.

Speaking of games though, many "exclusive" titles are poised to make less money than if they can be multi-platform. When a publisher releases a title exclusively for X-Station of Play-Box, they have to wait 6 months to a year before it can be released on other platforms to make money. Case in point: GTA-5, one of the most popular games ever rejected Sony's exclusivity specifically to make more money.

All of that is to say that it will never "actually" happen. By quirk of historical happenstance, Microsoft came along at just the right time to clear the dance floor and take over. The desktop market was bent to their will. Game developers go where the money is and write their products for Windows. That isn't going to change, and It's pointless to sigh and bemoan the fact that Linux hasn't replaced Microsoft and Microsoft-compatible products ... on the desktop.

I think that was my original point. My friend "bemoans" the fact that he can't have a free OS, and have everything work the way he wants it to. And the more I think of it, the more I think that's not the target demographic of Linux users. We are making our choice to use Linux for different reasons, and that reason excludes the need to play GTA-5, or use Adobe Software.

Cheer up. The desktop is but a small fraction of "computing". The lion's share of the greater computing world is owned by 'nix. Let's be content with that and spend our time contemplating ways to cure the common cold.

I am quite happy with the Linux "landscape." I truly believe, at this point, Linux (as a general idea) is here to stay. Some companies, like Canonical, have taken the Linux desktop to a larger audience. And other distributions tend to stay in the niche market. Either way, "Linux" users are covered with whatever they need. And the more distributions we have, the more likely Linux will be sticking around for the future. If we lose a distro or two, like CentOS or Mandriva, there are always other distros that can fill that gap.

[werewulf75]

I am quite happy with the Linux "landscape." I truly believe, at this point, Linux (as a general idea) is here to stay. Some companies, like Canonical, have taken the Linux desktop to a larger audience. And other distributions tend to stay in the niche market. Either way, "Linux" users are covered with whatever they need. And the more distributions we have, the more likely Linux will be sticking around for the future. If we lose a distro or two, like CentOS or Mandriva, there are always other distros that can fill that gap.

The more distros there are, and the more continue to come along, the more fragmented Linux becomes. The more fragmented it becomes, the closer Linux moves to oblivion. Fragmentation is not what Linus Torvalds ever envisaged or intended. It is bad for Linux, and it is bad for Linux users.