Reply to post: Re: Year Of Linux on the Desktop

Lenovo certifies all desktop and mobile workstations for Linux – and will even upstream driver updates

doublelayer Silver badge

Re: Year Of Linux on the Desktop

Because Linux on a desktop offers a lot more benefits to the user and to the community than Linux on a locked-down system. Linux on a desktop means a great deal of user choice and hardware openness. Linux on a desktop likely means you can also get BSD on that desktop, or Windows, or many other OS options because drivers are available for OS developers of most types. It also means people develop more for the Linux desktop, meaning more applications for us and more convincing arguments that it is worth the time of commercial enterprises that don't yet have good Linux functionality.

Linux on a smart oven gives us little. We almost certainly can't log in or install software or reimage it. Linux under Android is pretty much the same--it doesn't prevent locked-down phones and it doesn't give us any compatibility with desktop/server Linux. Neither encourages others to adopt the culture of open software, and neither helps the current users.

I don't support Linux out of a desire to see kernel installation numbers increase. I support Linux because it means benefits for me, people like me, and the community of computer users as a whole. Sadly, there are many places where the Linux kernel doesn't automatically mean those benefits exist, and its use there does not factor into my calculations of success.

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