[lug] Why use a Linux desktop? Was: Re: (Virtual)

[Jeffrey S. Haemer]

Rob,

This email--content + links--might be the singly most generally useful
email I've ever seen. Mazl tov and thanks.

On Sun, Apr 12, 2020 at 8:36 AM Rob Nagler <nagler at bivio.biz> wrote:

> I think there have been a few shifts that have led to the growth and
> demise of Unix on the desktop. TL;DR Vagrant, Docker, and (for non-devs)
> SPAs have made the desktop OS irrelevant.
>
> I've used Desktop Linux for some time but for a decade or so, I use a Mac.
> In the 80s and 90s I worked in a company where everybody used vi, LaTex,
> etc. on Suns. It was a lot of work, and eventually, someone got a Mac and
> an expensive printer for marketing, which really was useful, but it wasn't
> a watershed. Then I worked on Windows for a while at a couple different
> companies, and when I started Bivio, I used Linux and so did everybody
> else. It was useful to develop and our deployment platform -- and one time,
> my workstation was the deployment platform!
>
> I owned my first Mac in 2005 or so. It is Unix, and I had bash, and could
> install all GNU stuff, plus I had Photoshop, Word, etc. It was and is a
> really great combination. So the first major shift was when Mach was used
> at NeXT. It obviously took the reverse merger into Apple to make it what it
> is today, but I know many some people (non-techies) who loved their NeXT
> boxes.
>
> Around 2013 I started playing with Vagrant. That was the dawning of the
> next big shift: people using VMs for Linux development. Vagrant made it
> possible to use VirtualBox headless, easily. I do all my development in
> VMs, and so does everybody else. Very rarely do I need to use X apps, but
> it works fine when I do.
>
> Around 2013 I also started playing with Docker, which was a big shift for
> devops (about when the term was invented, I think). Docker, like Vagrant,
> enabled me to test our deployments (almost exactly) on my Mac. I do a lot
> of syadmin, and I can run multiple VMs on my Mac which are running Docker,
> and it all runs seamlessly. (Caveat: sometimes the VMs freeze so I mostly
> do devops development on servers in the same way. I rarely develop on
> native on Linux.)
>
> Some time in the 2000s, people started building single-page web apps
> (SPA). A notable SPA was IPython, developed right here at CU and released
> in 2001. Over time, websites have become the desktop, and we finally have
> X-terminals in the form of Chromebooks. I support several types of desktops
> at home and the office, and all they are is SPA devices. Sometimes they are
> actual Chromebooks, others are Windows, and some are Macs.
>
> At work, many of the scientists spend their days in JupyterLab. They love
> it. It saves them a lot of time to have everything installed already and if
> it is not, to be able to compile in a Linux shell that runs on their Macs
> (mostly).
>
> At home, the only time I run into issues is if someone tries to install
> something on Windows. Printer and scanner software, in particular, are
> still broken on Windows. It amazes me. Sometimes stuff they are broken on
> Macs, too. If they just stay in SPAs, everything works great, except for
> the quality of the software itself, which is usually pretty bad, in
> general, but that's software for you.
>
> Aside. My favorite new discovery is onetimesecret.com. Brilliant. It's
> been around a long time, but someone just introduced it to me.
>
> Pandemic Aside. Here's a curious discovery:
> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/first-in-line/opiohdgifapfffniplgmlbfdgccmhffc?h1=en
> I tried it yesterday, and it didn't work, but it is an example of something
> that builds on the SPA ecosystem, which works on any OS.
>
> The fact that almost every large SPA (GitHub, GMail, Dropbox, Slack, etc.)
> has an app store is telling. Tools like ifttt.com let ordinary folks do
> what programmers would have had to do but in any browser. Desktop apps are
> still around, but they are becoming less important. I can get (almost)
> everything I need via one SPA or another or the occasional "tiny app". (iStats
> Menus <https://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/> and Photo Crop Pro
> <http://cfxsoftware.com/products/photo-crop-pro/> are good examples of
> tiny apps I use.)
>
> Davide: pretty does matter, but I don't think that's the reason people use
> software. Rather there is some value-add that isn't in other apps. I don't
> know why people started using Slack over IRC or IM (Skype, AIM, etc.), but
> they did, and it now is a big. I know that the scientists at work like the
> ability to embed rich media and text in their conversations. I don't use
> Slack, and prefer Skype or Hangouts for chat, but these tools also allow me
> to use rich media easily than IRC and IM.
>
> Steve: It's great you are a Linux advocate Thank you.
>
> My $.02.
>
> Rob
>
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-- 
Jeffrey Haemer <jeffrey.haemer at gmail.com>
720-837-8908 [cell], @goyishekop [twitter]
*פרייהייט? דאס איז יאַנג דינען וואָרט!*
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