Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
To give you some background, I have been using Ubuntu since before it was Ubuntu. That's correct, since the beta of IMPI linux. IMPI Linux was the first time I wanted to move away from what I knew at that stage. It was the first time I did not have to do a lot of work from my side. The company I worked for tried to make us all into Novell engineers, as they saw it as the future. I ended up with the local municipality as my client. They were using Sinix Z at the time, and I was sent to Siemens for Linux training. Though I saw Linux as powerful! (it certainly was, compared to some of the other stuff I worked on like WANG systems), I did not expect it ever to make it to the desktop. More exciting things were on the way from IBM, like OS/2. Remember the phrase: “No one ever got fired for buying an IBM”?
Compared to Windows 95 and OS/2, the Unices were as ancient as the Burroughs systems I worked on, you could not even stop and start your printing yourself. Red Hat was the only pseudo desktop OS around. I say pseudo as you could do more with your little green desktop on an Atari from the eighties than those. RPM commands were cryptic in comparison with other operating systems. You could not even play music. You had to enable extra repositories that would break your system the first chance they got. No thank you, Linux desktop sucked!
The late 80s, early 90s, was an exciting time for operating systems. How Linux grew amid so many better operating systems failing, is beyond me. One day, a friend introduced me to Debian. The deb package commands were a lot simpler than rpm, and it kindled my interest in Linux again. KDE desktop was by far the most useful desktop. Then Gnome2 arrived. A combination of Gnome2 and Debian actually made for something useable. BeOS also looked very promising as a business desktop. Still, I did not really consider Linux on the desktop. Too many things did not work, and the amount of available software was tiny. Windows seemed to be the future as the pricing was so much better than Apple or IBM. I mean Linux could not even run Lotus 123. What kind of operating system can't run Lotus 123? Lotus 123 was what all the businesses were using. *big smile*
So I only experimented with Linux as a desktop OS on the side every now and then. The friend, who introduced me to Linux as a desktop OS, came over one day and asked me what was on my Pentium II. I told him Xandros, but it was slow. I had a brief fling with Gentoo, and saw how fast Linux as a desktop OS can be, but it was so much work and took so long to install (3days), that Gentoo fell by the wayside. It was not until I was handed a copy of IMPI Linux that I actually considered Linux as a desktop OS. When IMPI Linux 2 was released 6 months later, I signed up for a CD and it was mailed to me. I installed it and was surprised at how much I liked it. Impi became Ubuntu, and, for the first time, everything worked on my desktop and laptop. Internet connection was still a bit of an issue as dial-up and ISDN fell by the wayside, but I was up and running with my PCMCIA card in no time. Looking back at that ugly brown Ubuntu now, and comparing it to my slick install of Ubuntu 18.04 this year, with modern applications like Onlyoffice, I can only say it has come a long way. Is it the year of Linux on the desktop? No, not as long as people fear Linux as the evil hacker operating system. Not as long as OEMs put Linux on inferior machines that would not even run Windows, just to get stock out the door. Not as long as Windows execs tell old fuddy-duddy CEOs that only Windows provides support for their operating systems and Linux has no “owner” thus no free support, (Not that you get free Windows support anyway) or that using Linux opens you to litigation.
I think Linux IS ready for the desktop, the only thing still keeping it back is support by the productivity companies. People need their Photoshop, their affinity, their outlook, their games. Yes, games are important as it will pique the interest of the next generation - and if Linux cannot deliver, they will stick with proprietary operating systems and carry that into the workplace with them one day.
The good: It boots faster. It feels snappier.
The bad: Snaps are incorporated, whether you want it or not (cryptomining scares). Settings are hidden from the user.
The Ugly: Gnome3 feature creep. Easy customizing removed.