Linux (as in the desktop OS) has been around since 1992 (the kernel itself was released in 1991). There has been many, many distributions based off Linux. According to this page, Linux has reached over 95% marketshare for web servers, and has been powering 85% of smartphones. And yet, according to the same page, it has a desktop market share of slightly over 2%.

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Two percent!! What has happened to cause Linux to be such a powerhouse on the servers and on mobile, but not desktop?

Well, a partial reason is the weirdly lax-yet-strict licensing terms - Linux doesn't require a single cent from you. However, it does ask something much more demanding from you if you so wish to provide your own Linux distribution - your source code.

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A metaphor of Linux licensing releasing source code out in the open

If you are planning to sell the OS or a product with the OS on it, it is a requirement under the GPLv2 license to distribute the source code of the kernel and all the source code around it (usually the rest of the OS).

This may prove to be a dealbreaker for those who plan to make money on the desktop selling a desktop OS; you can sell the OS - that is perfectly allowed under the license, you just have to provide the source code - or the recipe to your product. Some may see this as defeating the purpose of making money off the OS. On the server side? Well, you don't sell the server, then you are fine!

But I'm digressing and I am missing the real point. The reason why users haven't adopted Linux on desktop is because of the difficulty of the OS. And most of that is down to the terminal.

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The bane of most end users... the TERMINAL!

Despite my somewhat jokey tone with the caption, it is a genuine fear amongst most folks, non-technical and technical! It is basically a black box which you can write anything and something spits out. The user, if unfamiliar with the input and/or output, will be utterly bewildered with what they have done to their computer.

A graphical user interface (GUI), however? For end users who are unfamilar to an environment, a well designed GUI is the quickest way to let the user know about their options and inform them in clarity what effect their action has on their computer. So why on earth would anyone touch a terminal? Eugh?!

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Well, not quite eugh. If you know what you want the computer to do and you understand the commands, it is incredibly speedy and effective to inform a user to just run the following command and you're sorted.

For example, on online forums, if you wanted to install Google Chrome on Ubuntu, you could tell someone to:

Open the Ubuntu Software store
Search for "Google Chrome"
Click on the right entry for Google Chrome (you may get Google Chrome, Chromium, Ungoogled Chrome, Vivaldi, etc)
Where you see the "Google Chrome" header - on the right hand side there should be an "Install" button. Click it, and when prompted, enter your password.

Or you can tell someone to open the Terminal and run:

sudo apt install google-chrome

and enter your password when prompted.

One is a very laborious method for someone technical to explain and could end up producing the wrong results if enough information isn't provided (an end user could end up installing Ungoogled Chrome, which has all of Google's services ripped out, including syncing with Google) - whereas the above is incredibly direct and efficient.

But admittedly, until recent times, we in the Linux community couldn't really effectively communicate the GUI example as the desktop wasn't catered to an end user who was anti-terminal. Not only that, but there has been challenges for a developer porting their app to Linux that I won't go into, but I will say that the new distribution-indepdendent packages are doing a great job at getting software like Spotify, Discord, and Obsidian to arrive on Linux.

So... will 2025 be the year of the Linux desktop?

Sadly, I don't think so. I think Linux in its current form is nowhere near being anywhere near accessible to end users who aren't technical:

Those who don't want to touch a terminal
Those who don't want to learn about partitions
Those who just want one way of doing things (Linux offers an absolute multitude of ways of doing the simplest things)

Which is such a shame as I genuinely believe that if Linux were to crack these problems, it would offer something truly viable in this day and age of enshittification. At the very least, due to being a community approach, there is no incentive to endlessly add useless features and subscriptions to pad a company's profit margin.

For example, I don't think Windows users want to be nagged constantly to use OneDrive, nor do I think MacOS users want to be nagged to login to iCloud/Apple account if they don't have an account. No more having to pause during installation to read the world's boring legal text (and intentionally written so for users to gloss over and legally sell their soul or whatever is in those horrid things).

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At best, Linux offers users real control over their computer - their devices entirely on their own terms. If the user wants to install proprietary software like Steam, then cool beans! Coincidentally, if they want to go full tin-foil, then there is a Linux distribution that offers nothing but the finest free and open source software.

My hope is that Linux gets to that point in the next decade or so, and my secret desire is that companies start to see the potential of Linux. Thanks to the Steam Deck, a lot more end users feel comfortable dipping their toes into Linux (admittedly, these are the same end users who would probably feel at home spending tens - if not hundreds - of hours modifying their favourite games to be able to enjoy said game for about a few hours and then move on... you know who you are). I'm hoping with the influx of new Linux folks and the finessing of distribution-independent packages that potential developers see Linux as a serious platform to develop for.

Is it the year of the Linux desktop???

Let's talk about Linux and desktop marketshare...

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