It’s the year of Linux on the desktop! Thirty years into the life of Linux, it seems like people have said that every year. But now it’s really true, and it’s true because Linux found its real niche—not as a political statement about “free software,” but as a practical way to enable capable, low-cost machines for millions.
Linux was founded on the desktop, as one man’s project to create an alternative OS for his Intel-based PC. So it’s understandable that Linux fans have been focused on desktops and laptops as a sign of success—and not, say, servers, or IoT, or drones. They can finally rest easy. Walk into any school now, and you’ll see millions of Linux machines. They’re called Chromebooks.
Chrome OS and Android are both based on the Linux kernel. They don’t have the extra GNU software that distributions like Ubuntu have, but they’re descended from Linus Torvalds’ original work. Chromebooks are the fastest growing segment of the traditional PC market, according to Canalys. IDC points out that Canalys’ estimates of 12 million Chromebooks shipped in Q1 2021 are only a fraction of the 63 million notebooks sold that quarter, but once again, they’re where the growth is. Much of that is driven by schools, where Chromebooks dominate now.
Schoolkids don’t generally need a million apps’ worth of generic computing power. They need inexpensive, rugged ways to log into Google Classroom. Linux came to the rescue, enabling cheap, light, easy-to-manage PCs that don’t have the Swiss Army Knife cruft of Windows or the premium price of Macs.
But Are They Really Linux?
There’s a difference between Linux the technology and “Linux” the political movement, and the political side of Linux has always obscured the practical. Listen to Linux fans all the way back to the 90s, and you hear at worst a mashup of “fight the power” free software advocacy and triumphalist hacker manifestos. But most buyers rank philosophy really low in their purchase choices, behind things like price, ease of use, and software availability.
I get the desire to Keep Linux Weird. It really was a bottom-up project, originally designed for hackers. Back in ’91, Linus Torvalds said:
“This is a program for hackers by a hacker. I’ve enjoyed doing it, and somebody might enjoy looking at it and even modifying it for their own needs. It is still small enough to understand, use and modify, and I’m looking forward to any comments you might have.”
One great thing about open-source hacker projects is that they can be taken in unexpected directions. Linux isn’t controlled, so it can adapt, Darwinian-style. It was a little scurrying mammal in the time of the dinosaurs, and then the mobile-computing asteroid hit. Linux could evolve. Windows couldn’t.
When you’re building something that fits in your hand and has to sip battery, you can’t just keep throwing processors and storage at it. Microsoft had a tough time adapting its monstrous megakernel OS to the new, tiny world. But *nix platforms thrive there: Android (based on Linux) and iOS.
Android and Chrome water down the Linux philosophy, but they are Linux, and they teeter on the balance of open-source and corporate-friendly. Most people running Android in the US are running the Google version. That’s fine. They want that level of support, protection, and assurance. But AOSP and the kernel are still open to flexibility.
That’s where the political becomes the practical. Open-source projects like Linux allow for change in a way proprietary software doesn’t—even if the change goes in a direction that older fans might not applaud.
A Little Linux Goes a Long Way
Handhelds aren’t desktops. But they are PCs. Part of the problem is that we call small computers “smartphones,” when nobody under 40 really cares about the “phone” part.
Like it or not, for many people these are primary computing devices. I’ve been seeing kids logging into my daughter’s classes from inexpensive Motorola Android devices all year, and in many countries outside the US, a desktop PC market never really developed. In those nations, Linux—the Android form—rules computing.
If you’re an older PC user who is still focused on the desktop, it’s hard to even comprehend how huge Android is. Android has 85% of the world’s handheld computing market, according to IDC, with Android vendors shipping about 266 million devices in Q2 2021 alone, triple the size of the desktop and notebook PC market. Between Android and Chromebooks, I’d bet almost every member of Gen Z has now used Linux for critical, personal computing.
Most people don’t want to be hackers. They want turnkey computing solutions that are compatible with what other people own. Linux was started by hackers, for hackers, but it has evolved. That’s not a bad thing. Its open-source flexibility let it power new solutions for new times. It’s brought computing to hundreds of millions of people who would otherwise be offline. For a free project started by one man in his spare time, that’s an amazing feat.
