The Year of Linux on My Desktop
18 December, 2020
Like many people who live and work in the free and open source software world, I keep hearing that every year is the year of Linux on the desktop. I’ve been hearing that for longer than I can remember. And each year, Linux doesn’t come close to encroaching on the market share or mindshare of macOS or Windows or even chromeOS.
That doesn’t matter. At least not to me. For me, 1999 was the year of Linux on the desktop. My desktop. That was the was year I finally had it with Windows. That was the year I first installed Linux, specifically Caldera OpenLinux, on a Pentium 300 I inherited from my wife.
Linux worked well for me then, and only got better as the years passed. I’ve used over a dozen distributions and have test driven many, many more. Linux has been running on every desktop and laptop computer I’ve owned since 1999, and I’ve doing all of my work in Linux since then. Contrary to what some people might say (and have said), I’m not missing anything.
Linux is ready for my desktop. It has been for over 20 years. In fact, Linux is my desktop. Period.
Whether or not Linux becomes mainstream isn’t important to me. Linux just works for me. That’s all that matters.