When did you start to realize Linux will never become the future of desktop computing?

[cbraxton]

I have two netbooks still working OK, one is an Asus the other a Samsung. It's been a while but as I recall they came with Windows XP out of the box. (That got blown away immediately in favor of Debian Linux.) They are slow of course but I found replacing their sluggish spinning disks with SSDs made them tolerable for light use.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I have two netbooks still working OK, one is an Asus the other a Samsung. It's been a while but as I recall they came with Windows XP out of the box. (That got blown away immediately in favor of Debian Linux.) They are slow of course but I found replacing their sluggish spinning disks with SSDs made them tolerable for light use.

The one I had that developed bad screen wires was an ASUS; I had to position the screen just right to get a display. The two that permanently blackscreened were my first two netbooks: Acers. I've never owned anything from Acer that wasn't meh to total garbage. All three developed keyboard bounce (pressing a key caused its character to print more than once) not too long after I got them.

Netbooks weren't intended for use beyond internet surfing, hence the name. They were just able to handle XP and couldn't handle Vista very well, which helped lead to their demise (which was kinda stupid since manufactures could have just upped their specs and the quality of the builds). Mine didn't get heavy use since I used them only when away from the house. At home, I used a desktop machine.

I switched to an El Cheapo Lenovo 15", my first Win 7 machine, after I got fed up with the constant fiddling needed with the angle of the screen on my last netbook—the ASUS—just to get the display to show up, not to mention the problems caused by the keyboard bounce.

[cbraxton]

The one I had that developed bad screen wires was an ASUS; I had to position the screen just right to get a display. The two that permanently blackscreened were my first two netbooks: Acers. I've never owned anything from Acer that wasn't meh to total garbage. All three developed keyboard bounce (pressing a key caused its character to print more than once) not too long after I got them.

My Asus netbook is a fairly early "Eee PC" model with a 32-bit dual-core Atom N270 CPU. I did max it out to 2GB memory and added an SSD so it's usable, just barely. It's currently running Debian 11 with LXDE desktop. This thing really cannot keep up with playing videos but is OK playing audio and working from a terminal emulator is fine.

The Samsung netbook is slightly newer and has a 64-bit dual-core Atom N450 CPU, and is also maxed out to 2GB memory and an SSD. It's running Debian 12 with LXDE. Although still a slug it is noticeably faster than the Asus Eee. Just for grins I have a youtube video playing on it as I type this, though you have to drop down to low resolution and use the miniplayer to make it tolerable. As with the Asus it's no problem playing audio or using the terminal. Firefox is not too bad as long as the site being loaded is not too "busy". (The linuxmint.com site loads in about 10 seconds.)

These netbooks are not really useful in today's environment aside maybe as terminal emulators. They're just something to play around with. I have a lot of obsolete electronics here, including some tube equipment.

[Pepi]

Sure is for me ever since retiring from that God awful Microsoft server farm I took care of

[BG405]

I have several netbooks up here, unfortunately the batteries in two of them are now useless but I find the Acer D255E quite usable, especially with an SSD in it; resume from hibernate in less than 34 seconds and reasonably responsive for what it is. It's a dual-core N570 (many of the D255E series had single core N550(?) or similar processors).

New keyboard, due to a beer spill down the Pub. Apart from the screw pillars on the left hinge having broken (need to fix that) it's a great little machine to carry about. Runs LM21.3 Xfce.

The biggest hurdle is the RAM limitation, thanks MS for enforcing that.

[rick gen]

This question is for those of you who honestly thought Linux would be the future of desktop.

I was so excited when I tried Linux for the first time in 2016. It made my very old laptops work again and even made them perform faster than Win XP. After using it for 2 years, I noticed improvements in user-friendliness, software apps getting updated fast and modernized, and new distros were coming out (I wish I had the time to try all the existing distributions). I was very sure Linux would be the future of desktop computing and I was not alone (apparently).

Then for what ever reasons, Linux started getting less user-friendly. I now have to figure out missing packages and install them, or find and learn next-level config settings to make things work like they used to. Flatpak and similar bloatware are now getting pushed. Installs now tend to fail or won't start at all.

At first, I enjoyed reading technical arguments on things like sytemd for the sake of learning from the Linux experts and knowing how they think. Nowadays, all I want is to make my installation to work with less hassle.

I no longer think Linux will take the top spot in desktop computing anytime in the future.

What am I missing? Would be more interesting if you can be more specific. What applications are you using?

In my case I didn't think about the future. I was thinking about my immediate needs and so far my needs were met and still are.

[Neophyte]

I think it is already up to 4% on Steam, which already puts it ahead of Macs.