Published at LXer:

Robert Strohmeyer has recently proclaimed the death of the dream of Desktop Linux, after himself being an author of one of those infamous "This is The Year of Linux Desktop" articles in 2008. Frankly, I wouldn't quite say that the dream is dead, since many people can and probably still do keep on dreaming about it, but as far as the reality goes, it probably is dead, and I wouldn't quite argue otherwise.

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Here's some advice: *NEVER* listen to the crooks at PCW. They're only out there to make $$ and criticize anything that isn't M$ or crApp£e. And they get paid good money by the crooks at M$ and crApp£e to try and attack FOSS. And yes, I *USED* to like Strohmeyer before that article. I assume he joined the bandwagon started by the evil, wicked, inhuman monster by the name of Randall C. Kennedy. I wasn't too fond of his cousins' (Robert's and John's) assassinations, but I am looking forward to his.

Of course those mags/rags depend heavily on advertising and who has the big ad budgets? Therefore they have to please M$ and crApple, even if linux desktop (or linux anything) is objectively better.
No the linux desktop won't overtake W7 any time soon but it continues to grow its user base and it continues to evolve. And remember, the desktop is only one aspect of linux. It will dominate on mobile devices (eg. Android).

To all computer magazine writers

Do you know what the term Window$ really means? It means "I can't configure linux" which also means you don't know how to use linux.

I've used linux for 15 years and very successful with the desktop.

Perhaps he is right when he says that desktop linux is dead. My favourate pc does not have hardware to boot into gui. Sometimes I forget linux has a gui. But then again I have _never_ seen a window manager like xfce4. Nothing will ever equal its simplicity and design so I would beg to differ.
BTW when someone says desktop is dead are they comparing linux to (gasp) winduhs or crapple?

What do you mean your PC "does not have hardware to boot into GUI"? You would have to have a very SLOOOW graphics card to have that problem. In that case, just install a new graphics card! There's plenty of options, and most of them cost less than $100. On top of that, they're fairly easy to install (on desktops, not on laptops).

Many people in this forum live in countries were 100$ is more than the average salary of a month, it is not so simple to just buy new hardware.

The Linux Desktop is dead? Oh no. What am I going to put on my computers. Wait, what am I using now? Oh, it is Debian "Linux" Wait, what about my old computer... Oh yeah, Xubuntu (Soon to be Lubuntu I think.)

Linux with a GUI can run on very old computers. Well I am sure an 8086 or an 8088 would be just a little too old ;-)

It all depends on what you want to do. If anything Windows would be the rough one. Think about the support for XP, it is over (I believe) and the security updates will completely end in 2014 (probably, I am sure it will be sooner knowing MS.) In order to run Windows 7 or even Vista they both take a lot more resources with hardware requirements. You don't need the latest or greatest video card to run Linux. You don't need a desktop environment either. A simple window manager could be enough. Blackbox, Fluxbox, IceWM, etc...

Linux Desktop is far from dead. It will keep an old computer running for much longer. Of course if one wants Compiz/Emerald (All the eye candy, etc.) then yes you would need a decent video card. If I threw together a computer from the mid 90's (around 1995.) I could get Linux running with a Window manager easily. Try doing that with MS Windows, lol.

Agreed. Even basic desktop environments (like Xfce and LXDE) use *so* little resources that they leave *any* Windoze version in the dust. Even a basic GNOME (without Mono) can run in 128MB of RAM. Ubuntu requires 256MB, but that's only because it has Mono, OpenOffice, Firefox, and Brasero, which are in my opinion getting really bloated. And IMHO, any distro in its right mind that comes with Mono has got to be rather dumb. Why? Because Mono is patent-crippled! Vala is a *MUCH* better choice, since it technically is *NOT* a C# clone but rather a new language altogether that takes its syntax from multiple languages. And IMHO, Vala is a compiled language and so is *MUCH* faster, even if bloated.

I don't understand why you need to have a programming language that has to be interpreted at runtime. This causes the overhead of it having to be compiled into memory instead of to your hard drive and having to be compiled each time it is run, which essentially creates an unnecessary extra step for the machine and a program that is twice as slow.

You could say the same things about Java. In fact, Java and C# (in reality their byte-code) are not really slower than C or C++, because they are not interpreted, but compiled before execution. In some benchmarks they are even faster, and running code in virtual machines has advantages too (garbage collector, security, portability, ...).
But Vala seems to be a good language, I have never tried it, may be I should have a look.

http://live.gnome.org/Vala

Have a look here.

Thanks, already found that.

Linux is here to stay and will never die.

It's interesting to me how people are always writing these false paradigm articles, either saying that desktop Linux will "blow up" and be completely adopted by the mainstream, or that it's "dead" and will soon fall out of use.

Of course, neither is ever likely to happen, or at least not for twenty years or so . . .

Linux as a desktop OS has seen the ebb and flow of . . .

DOS 5
DOS 6
Windows 3.x
OS/2
Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows NT 4
Windows 2000
Windows ME
Windows XP
BeOS
NEXTstep
Mac OS 7
Mac OS 8
Mac OS 9

. . . and that's just on desktops. And, guess what? It'll still be around when Vista, 7, Mac OS X, and their successors for several generations yet to come have joined the above in the OS install disk graveyard. Will the masses use it? Not knowingly . . . will the "elect?" Yes.

That's what makes linux users unique, we're a small group, the elite, the keyboard cowboys.