“Changing from your browser -> Firefox = most websites will still work, no additional effort on anyone.”

Now.

When Firefox v1.0 was released in 2004, 8 years ago, that was not so, and early adopters who were thinking about recommending Firefox had to consider two important issues:

First, compatibility.

Second, the fact that the idea that you would install a third-party program to browse the web seemed strange, even pointless, to people.

Yet, Firefox was so good already by that time, and it held so much promise, that those who already knew about it did recommend it. As a result, within one year it had 15% market share—an impressive achievement—, and webmasters had to start doing something about browsers that were not Internet Explorer. Today the compatibility problems are largely confined within intranets, and the idea that you would need one particular browser to browse the web seems strange.

Let’s compare that with where desktop Linux is today. What is the promise it helds? Which are its redeeming virtues that would make me and you recommend it to other people?

I have Linux installed on my auxiliary desktop system since 2004 — either Ubuntu or Debian Sid. The main issue that prevented me from switching when I was more enthusiastic was this:

I like to have two sound cards on my desktop systems: The on-board one, which I don’t care about, and a good one with a good DAC. The music I listen to is fed to the good card, which then feeds the amplifier. All other sound generated by the system goes to the on-board card. In 2004, and also in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, there was only one—I repeat, one—audio player that allowed you to select a non-default sound card for its output and at the same time met some basic requirements like proper gapless playback and good UTF-8 support. That was Quod Libet. The option was not exposed in Quod Libet’s GUI; you had to search for it, and then pass it to the program as a command-line argument. But at least there was one program that supported this simple thing. However there was another issue: Because of a bug in ALSA or the kernel (don’t remember which any more) the sound devices of the system were enumerated at random upon booting, with the result that 50% of the times the audo player had the wrong card selected upon starting! :-) So, after some time I got tired of struggling with the system in order to listen to music and abandoned the idea that I would use Linux as my main desktop system. I don’t know how much better things are today, but I would not be surprised if such problems remain.

I still use Linux today but only on my auxiliary desktop system (Debian Sid). I also use Debian on my laptop for a simple reason: I use the laptop for about 5 to 10 hours a week for a narrower set of tasks, and the high maintenance requirements of Windows seem to me too much for that. Debian, even Debian Sid with its occasional hiccups, is MUCH easier to maintain.

Now, one could say that the one issue I say prevented me from switching to desktop Linux is an edge case. It may be. But I am afraid it is only one of the many edge cases that are frought with problems on desktop Linux. Desktop Linux in my eyes is a heap of edge case problems. Not everyone is affected by every problem, by everyone is bound to hit upon a serious one at some time or other. The two exceptions I know are folks who use their machines mainly for developing for the vibrant Linux web ecosystem, and folks who need their desktop/laptop systems for a narrow set of basic tasks.