Is Linux finally dead?

I really like Linux. You have to understand. When I started in IT, I'd spent a fair amount of time learning to program PCs. I could tell you from memory which was the mouse interrupt (12? wasn't it?) and how PC's allocated hard drive files. When the sat me down at my desk my first day on the job, it was in front of a brown screen wise terminal jacked into an HP Unix server. It wasn't so much a learning curve as a learning cliff. But I managed.

Over the years, I switched from HP UX to Solaris and learned how to do low-level file IO in C and how Unix/Linux/Posix does inodes. Good times. :D

At home, I've almost always run a Linux PC . I love the flexibility in XWindows. I geek out on running different desktop managers. I spent days (days!) changing my splash screen and getting fluxbox correctly configured.

I almost abandoned Linux a few years ago, but Ubuntu brought me back. What an awesome build.

So I got a really nice laptop a few months ago -- quad core, 6gb, 1/2 TB hard drive (with an open bay) and a really kickin' ATI graphics card. In many ways, it's the PC I'd always promised I'd get someday.

It came with Windows and I actually waiting for the latest rev of Ubuntu (Karmic) to set it up for dual boot.

But.... it kinda ... sucks. The audio card works great, unless you plug in the headset, then it plays sound through the headset and the speakers both. The graphics look ok, but the vendor's graphic drivers don't work. They cause the PC to do all kinds of crazy things (like the wifi card just drops when I use the vendor's drivers). I can read CD's but can't seem to burn DVD's -- and the lightscribe feature is totally unavailable because the manufacturer won't support Linux. My phone plugs in but Linux can't read it. Same with my camera.

I've read a lot online that Karmic is buggy. I can live with that. I mean, just between you and me, let's face it, Vista sucked. You upgrade and move on.

But the software for desktop Linux is disappearing. And what's left isn't working very well. Virtual Box (which is a really great product, by the way), has constant graphics issues with the new revisions of Linux. And it's crashed hard on me a few times. Rhythm box crashes if I change the volume twice (I can do it once). Google *finally* added support for Chrome, but it clearly wasn't at the top of their list.

And now I see this:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia_kills_nv&num=1

Basically NVidia is dropping open source support. That means (in effect) Linux wont' be able to really support NVidia cards anymore. As mentioned, my ATI doesn't work either. So that leaves Linux in a pretty bad place.

Add to that the fact that now Sony is dropping the option to (easily) install Linux on a PS3, and you start to see a trend.

Just about all the computer game makers have dropped their Linux support. There was a time when you could get the latest game ported to Linux, and available online or sometimes even at the local computer store. But those days are long gone.

Dell still sells Linux PCs (I think?). But last I looked they had one (count 'em ONE) latitude laptop with Linux and the not-so-stunning , bottom of the line Intel graphics card. And (I think?) Dell is about the only major manufacturer still offering Linux at all.

Does it matter? Well, here's my guess. In 5 years, no one will really own a PC -- I mean, the non-geeks (you'll have to pry my HP laptop out of my cold, dead hands, brotha!) . Everyone will have Netbooks for their day-to-day stuff, and PS3's/Wii's for their games and movies. In some ways, it's a step backward, really, since these will all use proprietary operating systems. That said, in many ways, proprietary OS's make sense. In a very theoretical sense, the one-size-fits-all PC is really a bit much. Windows has gotten pretty bloated as they've tried to put things in there that no one actually uses. Linux has too. The model of a thin client, with a hardware-tight proprietary OS makes a lot of sense, especially given the number of vendors now in the market.

The death of desktop Linux has been predicted a million times and I hate to be the million and first. But I have to say that things are looking dimmer. Sure, there will always be some government office in Botswana or something that uses it. And sure, there will always be hardcore geeks who play world of warcraft through wine.

But I look for desktop Linux to take step back out of the mainstream. Not sure if that's a good thing or not. Maybe it's where it belongs. Going mainstream has its price, too.

--kevin