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

[Michael J. Hammel]

And now a view from the other side. :-)  I get a kick out of these
types of discussions because they always seem to insinuate that Linux
users need what MS and Mac users need: point and click and games. 
Bwahahahaha.  No, we really don't.  At least not those like me.  Note:
what is about to be said is ONE mans use case.  Take it with a huge
grain of salt.

On Sat, 2020-04-11 at 21:46 -0600, Maxwell Spangler wrote:
> 1. I've seen a large exodus of Linux advocate-users away from Linux
> desktops in favor of Mac (and perhaps some Windows?).

I've seen this too.  Mostly driven by IT people who have no idea how to
coral the Linux cats.  Despite their attempts, I have successfully
avoided use of MS or Mac for 25 years.  But there's more to it than
politics.  No management has needed me to move to MS or Mac to support
communication.  It's always the IT people.  

> 2. I don't see the Linux desktop market share as growing
> significantly. It has no killer app on the desktop.

What was the last native killer app on MS?  Or the Mac?  Most dev these
days is focused on the cloud (because it offers better cyclical income)
which pushes the front end into a browser (yuck).  The most recent
"killer apps" have been web based - even phone apps are mostly just
front ends to REST APIs.  That's not particularly desktop-centric.  I
think the concept of killer apps has come and gone as a reason behind
buying a specific OS/desktop.  And that's exactly what GNU was trying
to show all along, if you think about it.

> 3. I continue to see people who have strong politics choose Linux and
> continue to use Linux. This set of users is consistent, but small,
> and they don't look to spend money on commercial software.

It's not politics.  It's money.  I've made a healthy living for 25
years using Linux as my desktop.  Why?  Because I use it to build Linux
systems: cloud computing, grid computing, radars, embedded systems,
storage.  All based on Linux.  The small but consistent set of users
you mention aren't BUYING software, they're building software that is
SOLD.  We build the infrastructure.  And we need our desktops to
support construction of that infrastructure.  If you've ever tried to
do custom Linux distribution construction on Windows or Macs you know
it's not as simple as on Linux.  And that makes some sense.  You don't
use a wrench as a hammer.  You can.  But you don't.

In 25 years I've never used an IDE (well, not outside experimenting to
see if it offered any advantages).  I use cscope, even with BASH.  And
Java.  I need a command line to do my work.  The browser is there to
support interactions with the rest of the world who doesn't understand
how I need to do my work.

I don't need 3D (who has time for games?).  I use very little drag an
drop (even in the browser), though that works fine (on X, not sure what
will happen in Wayland - I've not opened that can of worms yet).  I've
written 4 books on GIMP using OpenOffice on Linux.  I use cut-n-paste
between text windows.  I have multiple workspaces supported under XFce.
In other words, I just don't have much need for a spinning box of
workspaces or a constantly changing Start menu.  I need it small,
simple and easily customizable for MY use case.  Why? So I can spend my
paid time working on products my employer can sell.  Not on trying to
tweak a OS that was not INTENDED to build other Linux systems.

> I use Chrome, Firefox, Atom, VirtualBox, Slack and Zoom

Chrome, Firefox, VirtualBox, Slack (native) and Zoom (native) all work
fine on Linux, despite reports of issues.  We used Slack and Zoom at
NetApp for a couple of years.  I'm using Teams (native) now with QSC. 
All work fine.  FWIW: I use Fedora.  Not Ubuntu.

BTW, NetApp tried to push our Linux desktops into the cloud so they
could have a single distro to manage (Ubuntu).  We were all supposed to
use Macs to login to the remote VMs.  I setup my Mac to run QEMU with
Fedora and spun up a Fedora VM in the Ubuntu VM and ssh'd between the
two Fedoras, just to mess with ITs mind.  But their "one-size-fits-all" 
didn't work because I personally needed 3x the storage available and
the network bounced like a frog in panic, keeping most of us out of the
remote VMs.  Result:  we kept our Linux desktops right up till I
bounced to a more embedded job where I won't have to give up my Linux
desktop.

I understand the outside worlds view of the Linux desktop going
nowhere.  But there are many of us (not as small a number as you might
think) who have a completely different view of what a desktop needs to
do.  So the Linux desktop will never die (okay, at least not in my
lifetime which admittedly may not be as long as I'd like).  We just
don't need the same desktop grandma or a chef or a graphic designer
needs.  Linux is not a Mac, and for me it shouldn't be.

> So in the midst of all of us discussing having a meeting using Zoom
> and whether Zoom is good or bad, I appreciate having the opportunity
> to choose or decline to use it. Not having the choice just leaves me
> out of participating from my comfortable Linux environment or forces
> me towards the other platforms.

I find the lack of choice is usually just administrative specification.
Given my dithers, I'd still be using IRC.

And that's one nuts opinion from the peanut gallery.  :-)

-- 
Michael J. Hammel
mjhammel at graphics-muse.org
michaelhammel at acm.org