Desktop Linux

I work in a few different locations these days, and each has at least one home-built computer that runs Linux for my primary work station. I also have a few laptops. The one I use the most is a Pixelbook running ChromeOS, also a Linux distribution. While I prefer Linux for my primary desktop OS, I do have a Window machine around if there is something that does not work or work well on Linux.

The first part of this article is a note to myself about the applications I use, which is handy when I need to do a new installation. The second part briefly looks at the potential of Linux for broader acceptance as a desktop OS.

Which Linux distribution?

I am not a huge experimenter of the countless distributions. I have tried maybe 20 different ones, having started with Caldera, Redhat and then Debian, and now mostly using Ubuntu, which I find easily to install and maintain. For some older machines, I have occasionally installed lightweight distributions like Lubuntu.

Methods of installation

Linux distributions permit a number of different ways to install programs, including of course through a terminal or the Ubuntu Software app (or its equivalent in other distributions). For some programs, I’ll use the Snap versions. I also like to install the Synaptic Package Manager, which is a graphical user interface for the APT package manager, and is particularly useful for applications that have a variety of extensions or programs that you won’t get from the Ubuntu Software app.

Linux Apps I install

I began using Linux in 1997. Back then, Linux desktop applications were sometimes not great, but manageable. They have steadily improved, although today I increasingly rely on cloud based services, such as Google’s Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Calendar and Meet, a variety of video conferencing or messaging services such as Slack, Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, various music streaming services, and cloud based services to run R or Python scripts.

I once had a fairly long list of programs I would install to supplement the programs included by default in a given distribution. Today, it is a shorter list.

Browsers. I install Google’s Chrome Browser, and the more lightweight Brave. Sometimes I install Tor.

Text editors. My goto text editor these days is Caret, which does what I need most of the time. Occasionally Bluefish.

Package Manager: As noted, I install the Synaptic Package Manager

Graphics editors: I always install GIMP, from a package manager, not the Snap version, so I can install and use the Gimp plugin registry. Sometimes I install Inkscape.

Audio and video: I typically install Audacity and VLC. When in the mood to organize my countless (and rarely used) MP3 files, I like to install MusicBrainz Picard, a meta data audio tagger. In the past I have used OpenShot to edit videos, as I remember as an adequate but buggy program. I have not done much video editing lately.

Statistics. If working from the desktop, I run R, usually from RStudio. Sometimes I use Python, for example, for scripts to produce graphics.

Messaging and video conferencing. I do most of my messaging with programs that run in a browser, relying on the ability of Whatsapp, or my phone text messaging app to link to a browser tab. I do install the Linux desktop versions of Signal and Telegram, and Slack. I install the Linux client for Zoom and Skype, but run Teams in a browser. I find it hard to keep up with email plus all of these and more messaging apps.

Utilities. I like to install canonical-livepatch, lm-sensors (to run sensors to monitor the CPU temperature), the disk tool partitioning tool GParted, the ftp client sFTP, ubuntu restricted extras, for a number of codecs and the core Microsoft true type fonts, the file renaming program Szyszka, and Simplenote, which syncs notes with a web page and other computers.

Time wasting games. I keep the AisleRiot version of Freecell as one of my favorite programs, which is probably a bad idea.

Will Desktop Linux ever become mainstream?

When I first started using Linux, in the late 1990s, it was relatively difficult for many people to use, and it lacked the broad driver support found in Microsoft Windows. Today, several distributions are easy to install, and indeed, depending on the hardware, easier to install than a recent version of Windows.

In our office, everyone works on some version of Linux, and for new users, there is not much of a learning curve. This partly because most of what everyone in our office is doing involves email, writing, using spreadsheets, creating presentation slides and editing web pages, and all of these are done through a browser. Applications like Zoom or Slack work fine.

What holds Linux back in terms of a wide audience is its great fragmentation of distributions. The proliferation of distributions is not in itself a bad thing, there is a lot of innovation and creative ways to implement a desktop OS. But the problem, as highlighted by Linus Torvalds, is that the diversity of Linux desktop distributions makes it harder, and more labor intensive, to write programs that work across distributions. This recent talk by Linus explains the the problem.

“because making binaries for Linux Desktop applications is a major fucking pain in the ass.” Linus Torvalds

There are projects to make it easier to support binaries across different distributions and versions of those distributions, such as Flatpak or Snap.

The shrinking importance of Microsoft’s Office Suite.

Google’s suite of Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Calendar, Meet, Photos, and other services that run in a browser are all very capable, doing almost everything that most users need. Google Drive is a very good and competitively priced cloud storage option. Microsoft never ported Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint to the Linux Desktop. For years, this was a significant problem for many users. Now that seems increasingly unimportant.

Chrome OS

Google’s Chrome OS was initially dismissed as too dependent on live internet connectivity, and for having too limited functionality. Over time, the Chrome OS platform has gotten more capable and popular. In 2020, Chromebooks outsold Apple’s Mac computers for the first time, and according to some reports, is now the second most common desktop operating system. Google has steadily increased the functionality of the Chrome OS, making it easier to work offline and connect to scanners and printers.

If early Linux distributions were considered hard to use, Chrome OS is the opposite. It is an exceptionally easy to use OS, one that people purchase for young children or their grandparents. It is exceptionally secure. Unlike other Linux distributions, Chrome OS comes preinstalled on a diverse set of laptops and desktop machines. A Chromebook is typically cheaper than comparable performing machines running Windows or Mac OS.