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Actually the Web killed the GNU/Linux desktop.

Thanks to the Web applications, POSIX became irrelevant for desktops, ability to run a web browser is enough regardless of the kernel.

Google can switch the kernel in ChromeOS for whatever they feel like and no one will notice.




> Actually the Web killed the GNU/Linux desktop.

The web also nurtured the GNU/Linux server. Apache on Linux slaughtered IIS on Windows and itself got killed by Nginx on Linux in turn. The web giveth, the web taketh away...

The majority of web stacks, regardless of language, run on Linux.


ISP providers choose GNU/Linux because one cannot argue against free (gratis) that works good enough.

All the programming languages I care and use for web applications have zero dependencies on OS specific APIs, some of which I can even run bare metal or on an unikernel, with zero code changes.

The cloud concept, Web APIs and serverless executions, the OS of server running my web application is irrelevant, thanks to rich runtimes.

As for Apache and IIS, they are pretty much alive outside HN bubble.

https://news.netcraft.com/archives/category/web-server-surve...


I don't think it's bad that Google, and you and I, have an easier time of switching to and from Linux kernels.


The web, specifically Electron, is why I can run a bunch of modern applications on my Linux desktop and I don't have to switch to another OS to use eg. Discord.




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