Maybe, dunno. I am a passionate Linux desktop user. I have the SwayWM configs to prove it. However, unless Apple and Microsoft really did decide to do that, I don’t see a huge likelihood that someone is gonna swoop in and start putting serious resources into fixing stuff. Stuff like Cairo being virtually unmaintained or Qt… well, being Qt and having about 5000 bugs. (Don’t kill me, I like Qt too, but it’s damn buggy.)
The point was that the year of the Linux desktop never comes, and it probably never will. If it’s good enough to act as a counterbalance against dystopian outcomes, then fine. I don’t really see it, because I suspect most people don’t really have that much of a choice, for practical reasons, about the computing environments they’re beholden to.
Linux desktop works well enough for the types of things "normal" people are allowed to do on corporate networks. Like, the ways it can break are no worse then the numerous utterly broken Windows things which Microsoft ships out of the box these days.
The Linux desktop suffers from the reality that businesses don't care about their Windows licensing costs, AD admins are a dime a dozen, but an absolute ton of very specialized - different - pieces of enterprise software work on Windows but nowhere else.
Of course this my slight bias from being a Cinnamon user, which delivers a quality useful experience - I'm bit more pessimistic the times I've had to deal with Gnome 3 default, which tries to innovate (and shouldn't - we don't need an "innovative" desktop - we need a rock-solid experience that says "what you know without ads or drama").
I say this also as a cinnamon user. It's really not there. Mint cinnamon breaks on a few basic common tasks like connecting Bluetooth headphones (and recognizing mics on even wired headphones) and connecting to business wifi networks with a preregistered username and password. Just those 2 things is enough to disregard using it entirely.
So what do you mean by 'Year of the Linux Desktop'? Because functionality-wise, the Linux desktop has been superior to all competitors since the early days of KDE3.
Even with all its problems, KDE3 kicked ass. Future KDE versions? Little bit more dubious. It’s gotten better, but I find it to be rather buggy at times.
Not a huge fan of GNOME either. It has gotten better and worse in my opinion.
Year of the Linux Desktop is when the average person can buy a Linux laptop and have a good experience out of the box doing similar things to what they could on macOS or Windows as casual users without breaking the system. When Linux is seen as another viable alternative to Windows the way macOS is. Unless you count ChromeOS or Android, which is obviously Linux based but not the same desktop we’re talking about, that’s not happened. I know someone who was a fairly technical user who got their first Linux laptop with System76 very recently and it went… OK. I definitely had to help on some stuff.
The Linus Tech Tips videos on trying Linux as a daily driver is a pretty good showcase of a lot of the problems.
OK, so for example Dell sells Linux desktop machines. And Linux laptops. They'll have a good experience out of the box. Thats pretty average. You can argue that the users lack of knowledge of the OS will mean they don't have a good experience, as you seem to be, but isnt that the same for Windows users who change to Macs? Or vice versa? Software across those two OSes is not ubiquitous either. The only difference is marketing budget, if you ask me.
As for Linus Sebastian, he threw his credibility in the dumpster with that whole clown show.
Linus Sebastian showed the world what it would look like if the average non-programmer would experience if they tried to use Desktop Linux. Love it or hate it, I’ve experienced the same shit first-hand.
Is there hope for Linux as a viable desktop for everyday users? I think so, but probably not any time soon if it continues on the same trajectory. The average person is just not going to have time to digest why screenshare doesn’t work on Zoom unless they log in via “X11 Session” instead of “Wayland Session.” Is some of the problem on Zoom? Kind of yes, kind of no. The practical result, however, is completely undetermined by who is at fault for any given issue.
I mean, I’ve been using Linux since I was 12, and I can debug my way around some ALSA driver issues, recompile kernels, tweak the pulseaudio config, set up Samba, etc. and all of those things are not necessarily great things if you wind up needing to do them to accomplish something the average user would consider “easy.”
Common, he behaved like a overly confident idiot with a chip on his shoulder and then when his ego was challenged, he tried to hide behind the veil of being a 'regular user'. It wasnt a display of anything but how a narcissist with a reputation to protect acts.
The point was that the year of the Linux desktop never comes, and it probably never will. If it’s good enough to act as a counterbalance against dystopian outcomes, then fine. I don’t really see it, because I suspect most people don’t really have that much of a choice, for practical reasons, about the computing environments they’re beholden to.