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Comment by benatkin | Hacker News Reader

I can see 2022 being another almost Year Of Linux on the Desktop. I wonder what dirty tricks big companies will pull, like Microsoft did when netbooks became a threat.

(Searching around, I see a lot of people don't get it, they say that Year of Linux on the Desktop has happened. It hasn't yet and some think it never will.)

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They don't have to sabotage Linux, Linux developers and the community does that all by itself (unwittingly).

I have your response covered under "some think it never will" :)

I agree a lot of mistakes have been made but I'm not sure Linux developers/community will continue to make big enough mistakes to stop its momentum every time it gains some.

I'm optimistic and I hope that it does. I use Linux exclusively.

Awesome. Sorry for assuming that you meant this will always be the case.

I'm not sure all sabotage it unwittingly. I think there might be some deliberate sabotage in Mozilla which gets funded by Google. A browser is a key component of a Linux desktop. I don't think we should pin our hopes entirely on Firefox, but explore all options.

It happened for me in 1994, and I think it's a case of "gradually, then all at once": Once Microsoft and Apple stop maintaining their software, people who still have computers and electricity will move to Linux.

I hope so. The thing is that we have Chromebooks, which is the Linux Kernel on the Desktop (to me, doesn't satisfy the goal of Linux on the Desktop). So we need something so compelling that Google will also not be able to keep up. Or we need Chrome and/or Android to morph into something open enough to be considered Linux on the Desktop.

Modern Chromebook with their "Linux containers" are really, really close to being a wonderful developer experience with the same level of user accessibility, support, and refinement of any of the other "major" operating systems out there. I'm surprised Google hasn't capitalized on it further.

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