this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Half of the success of Windows and macOS is the fact that they provide solid and stable APIs and development tools that "makes it easy" to develop to those platforms. Linux is very bad at that. If major pieces of an OS are constantly changing and it requires large re-works of the applications then developers are less likely to support it. To be fair the Linux situation might be even harder than that - there are no distribution "sponsored" IDE (like Visual Studio or Xcode) and userland API documentation, frameworks etc.
Yep, this is one of the most common disadvantage of Linux ecosystem. Unless using something like Debian, but then comes (a little, but still existing) fragmentation.
My comment is about proprietary apps here. The biggest roadblockers with any change to next-gen technologies in the stack like Flatpak, Pipewire, Wayland, etc. are always them. Because with FOSS when someone create a new store or tech, they can be the ones doing ports of common apps, but with locked down software all he can do is please the original developers - the only ones able to do what they want with the program.
Yes, but those proprietary apps provide good features, support and have tons of hours of dev time and continuous updates that the FOSS alternatives can't just match. We need that software as much as we need FOSS.
This isn't true. Linux was the worst track ever of supporting old software, even worse than Apple. Rewriting applications for the latest version of GNOME doesn't count as "support older software", counts only as a pain in the ass that makes Linux unattractive to professionally developed / non FOSS software - after all who wants to constantly spend time updating an app just because the GNOME team decided to reinvent the wheel again to no marginal gain?
There unfortunetly is something to it, like shown by some game developers dropping Linux port when Proton got good enough and just officially supporting the game to work with Proton.