Comment by palata
2 months ago
I agree with your points, except this:
> thanks to the Steam Deck [...] but I would be reluctant to call that Linux Desktop anymore than I would call Android an uptick for Linux.
The Steam Deck very much runs Linux Desktop. Android runs the Linux kernel, but everything else is different. SteamOS is a Linux distribution based on Arch. If you run your Steam Deck in "desktop mode", it is very much a Linux Desktop (with a read-only system and A/B updates etc, but still).
Android systems don't even run the linux kernel in any real sense, pretty much every downstream kernel has millions of lines of patched code that will never make it upstream in their current form. Of course, that's no different from mostly any other "Linux" embedded device, but it's very different indeed from what's standard on desktop systems.
I would still count it as the Linux kernel. They don't change the syscall API, it's really mostly at the BSP level, right?
Said differently: if manufacturers cared to mainstream their changes, they could. And we would all be better for it.
Equating sub-desktop (based on typical use) Linux device instances, with desktop instances, would be similar to counting iOS, iPadOS and Vision OS instances with macOS instances.
It would change the graph quite a bit to include all sub-desktop devices. Although that would also be an interesting comparison.
> I would still count it as the Linux kernel.
This may be technically true, except it has no single meaningful implication, like no Linux software works there.
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Android is Linux
Android is not GNU/Linux.
Article talks about GNU/Linux clearly. There is a point to the whole "I'd like to interject for a moment..." copypasta and Android's situation is the clearest illustration of it.
The article talks about browsers that use Linux in the user agent. This includes Alpine Linux - which is not GNU/Linux. It also splits out Chrome OS which is pretty much GNU/Linux.
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> Article talks about GNU/Linux clearly.
There are Linux distributions that don't use the GNU userland. Should we start being pedantic about that? And say Busybox/Linux or MyCustomThingy/Linux etc?
And actually, were you talking about GNU/Linux/Xorg, or GNU/Linux/Wayland? Can I also ask people to mention which libc they use? Alpine is OpenRC/Busybox/musl/Linux, which is not systemd/GNU/glibc/Linux.
So yeah... Desktop Linux is not worse a way to describe an OS than GNU/Linux.
> There is a point to the whole "I'd like to interject for a moment..." copypasta and Android's situation is the clearest illustration of it.
Well… :-)
With you in spirit, but to add to the mess, one could argue Alpine (and Postmarket OS) is a standard Linux distro, but non GNU.
"GNU/" cannot be used for clarifying things anymore.
This has been repeated for so long that in the meantime enough of the changes have been upstreamed such that Android has been able to run with the upstream kernel since 6 years ago.
> The Steam Deck very much runs Linux Desktop. Android runs the Linux kernel, but everything else is different.
Linux is a kernel.
Seeing how the Linux name is used in practice, it's useful to clarify.
A distinction without a difference. The point of this subthread is that the term Linux is overloaded to mean two things: a kernel and also an OS that has certain assumptions (usually glibc and some unix userspace stuff).
The point being that “Linux Desktop” means something more than “runs the Linux kernel”.
There is not even one common "the Linux kernel".
"IT'S GNU/LINUX!" ~ rms
Which is exactly why people here talk about "Linux Desktop". Linux is a kernel, Linux Desktop is some flavour of a full OS made to run on a PC, as opposed to e.g. embedded Linux or a Linux server.
Not sure what your point is?
There are no 'Linux desktops'.
Yeah, but ChromeOS is just as much "Desktop Linux" as Fedora Workstation.
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So anyone saying "the Windows operating system" is doing wrong?
Windows is/was actually a classification of a graphical OS based on a windows-metaphor. What you are talking about is probably MS Windows.
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Windows 11 is an operating system that runs the Windows NT kernel.
The Steam Deck is absolutely a full blown Linux. But it's not a desktop. It's a handheld.
Well, unless you hook a screen and keyboard to it, I suppose. No idea how many people do that. But if you do that, phones and tablets also become desktops.
> unless you hook a screen and keyboard to it, I suppose.
You can run Steam Deck in "Desktop mode" without hooking a screen and keyboard to it, and it will be running a full Desktop Linux environment.
If I plug a screen and keyboard to my Android, it's still a mobile OS (e.g. made to run with a touch screen). Samsung has apparently "dex" and Google is working on convergence as well, but this is not yet a thing.
I'm looking forward to being able to hook a screen and keyboard to an Android phone and have it behave like a Desktop Android, though :-).
I attach screen + keyboard to it often. It has an official dock to facilitate this. In my mind, it's a device that can function as both desktop and hand-held.
It is very visible that Desktop mode is not primary function of Steam Deck, though. Some weird behavior here and there, reboot always goes into gaming mode and so on. It's a gaming handheld first, desktop second.
I mean, a keyboard on iPad is way less powerful than a keyboard on steam deck. The steam deck can plug into a monitor and runs Plasma out of the box, which is a full blown desktop environment
Typing this from my Steam Deck, its the best Linux desktop I've ever had. It's awesome to have my PC also be a handheld when laying in bed. I hope the Deckard has M+KB support too.
Admittedly yeah SteamOS does walk that line, and I guess technically given that I think these numbers are based on browser data it would only be capturing the people that actually go into desktop mode (maybe?).
But, I think there is a conversation around this to ask how many of the people using a Steam Deck actually go into desktop mode or care that it is Linux (or even understand that it is Linux) vs would switch to a Windows version if it worked as well.
Even in the "normal mode", I would argue that it is still Linux Desktop. A Linux Desktop init system, with a Linux Desktop userspace, with a Linux Desktop libc, with the Linux Desktop security model, a Linux Desktop package manager, a Linux Desktop compositor (it uses something based on Wayland, right?), etc.
If you open a terminal (or SSH into it), you're on Linux. It's very, very different on Android.
> how many of the people using a Steam Deck [...] care that it is Linux
Probably most don't. But that's a goal. If corporate employees could use a Linux Desktop without caring that it is Linux, it would mean that the corporation can move to Linux, and that would be big.
I think it might be good to stand back a bit and think through what we are actually excited for. Because:
1. if someone uses Linux Desktop without caring about that it is Linux, why is that different from them using Windows? 2. why do we say SteamOS count as Linux Desktop but Android doesn't? is it really because how much of it is "Linux"?
For me, I think what matters to me is who has control over it. SteamOS is based on Arch, so the community has a say over where it will go, and Valve will have to work with the community. Android/Windows are fully controlled Google/Microsoft, doesn't matter that Android is Open Source.
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It is an interesting distinction, unlike Android I do admit that SteamOS is obviously contributing to Linux Desktop market share. I just think it is a complicated situation.
From my understanding Xbox is running a version of Windows on their consoles (not talking about the new handhelds) tailor made for Xbox. But I would not call that adding to the Windows marketshare.
iOS and iPadOS were started with versions of OSX and then modified (and clearly share some pieces) but we would not call either of those as contributing to Mac's marketshare.
Obviously yes neither of those let you go into the traditional Mac or Windows desktop unlike SteamOS. But how the users perceive it is still important.
> Probably most don't. But that's a goal. If corporate employees could use a Linux Desktop without caring that it is Linux, it would mean that the corporation can move to Linux, and that would be big.
The problem is this works the other way also. If most users of the Steam Deck don't care or really know that it is Linux there is not much getting in the way of Microsoft coming in with their new handheld/OS and eating up that market if they can get the OS to perform as well.
Put another way, if Valve decided (not saying they would, just asking a hypothetical) to either write their own OS or switch the underlying OS to Windows but kept the look of SteamOS as it behaved now and performance was the same. Would most users of the Steam Deck know or care?
Personally I think for claims about the "linux desktop" to really matter, there has to be a conscious desire and care that it is Linux or it could disappear.
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I would agree on most points regarding SteamOS except for package manager: there are really two on the system — base one and Steam itself.
Users generally only care about the latter.
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There is no "Desktop Linux init system" etc. There are init systems built for/on Linux.
> how many of the people using a Steam Deck actually go into desktop mode or care that it is Linux
How many Windows users care that it is Windows? They just want to click on the Internet icon.
One way to think about it is what APIs application developers are using. If most of the code running on a Steam Deck is Windows code running under a compatibility layer, it probably doesn’t help the larger Linux community in the same way that, say, iOS popularity has helped ensure that many libraries have excellent macOS support.
> But, I think there is a conversation around this to ask how many of the people using a Steam Deck actually go into desktop mode or care that it is Linux
If Linux adoption is to increase significantly (and I guess I'm of the opinion that would be a positive thing), then at some point that can only be done by acquiring users who don't care particularly deeply or understand much about their OS. That is, the vast majority of people. And that's probably not going to happen by converting that demographic to true believers.
Some of those people might decide they want to dig deeper later, and that's great. Most won't and that's fine too.
It would be a bit asymmetrical to restrict the definition of "Linux user" to folk who really care what Linux is or know their way around coreutils.
Think about it from a brand perspective. If you were microsoft and some flavor of windows were running on people's phone and game station, would you claim this market share? I'm sure they would.
I guess the parent discussion is partly about whether the GNU/Linux desktop experience is getting popular, & if no one is using desktop mode in practice then this is not super informative, though good to know
Totally agree. It's what finally got me to commit to a linux machine for my recent desktop build!
What even is "Linux Desktop" and why does Android not qualify as one? Many Android tablets (especially those with Samsung Dex) can certainly double up as desktops if its users were so willing, at least a lot more so than the Steam Deck.
Linux Desktop is something else. When Adobe considers if it's worth to port Photoshop to run on the Linux Desktop they don't include the market share of Android devices in that calculation. It's two completely different markets: desktop Linux apps and Android apps.
> What even is "Linux Desktop" and why does Android not qualify as one?
A desktop is a computer that sits on your desk, as opposed to being held in your hand. In concrete terms, you can install Android Firefox on ChromeOS, and it runs fine. But it is near unusable because it turns out how people interact with desktops is very different to how people interact with phones.
Also, desktop window managers tend to look like a protocol, rather than a library. That because every language can speak a protocol, but a library is written in one language and if you are lucky, someone many have provided bindings to that library to the language you are using.
Android's display is effectively a Java library. If you want to talk to it from C or Python, you have to FFI to Java, which sucks from a number of perspectives. It's not how you would implement a general purpose desktop environment, and I've never met anyone who considers it to be one.
That lack of flexibility shows up in a number of other ways. For example it's not difficult to implement an phone OS interface using XWindows or Wayland. Neither particularly care what window manager is running on top of them them. The reverse isn't true. You can't provide a the multi-window desktop environment on Android as it stands.
None of this is true for ChromeOS. It uses Wayland under the hood, and so you can install and run Debian GUI apps on it. In fact I do that, and it mostly works as you would expect. Thus I consider ChromeOS to be true Linux Desktop environment, and it should be counted as one. It isn't mind you - but I think should be.
Google seems to be in the process of replacing ChromeOS with Android, and as part of that process ChromeOS's ability to run Linux desktop apps is being ported to Android. If and when that happens, then I'd consider Android to be Linux desktop too.
Sounds like a ton of arbitrary gatekeeping. If it is a computer I can use on my desk, it is a desktop to me. Why should a user bother about what window manager or whatever is being used when he gets to use the computer as he wants? I still fail to see why Android can't be counted as among those plug-and-play immutable Linux distros.
Market share only matters to geeks and commercial software vendors when deciding the total addressable market. A “Linux desktop” that is connected to a TV used to play games is not part of the market they care about.
You are being obtuse.
99% of Steam Deck users won't ever use the desktop mode except for maybe setting up emulation or Discord.
In general, that makes Steam Deck users no more Linux users than people that use Android.
Where does that 99% number come from?
The very reason why I bought a Steam Deck is because it is both a handheld and a Linux Desktop.
While I don't have data to support the number, I would say that it's a pretty safe bet to say that majority of Steam Deck owners do not use the desktop mode on regular basis, they might check out what it is, but the majority probably stays in the game mode.
Regarding your point, do realise that just by being a NH reader, you're in the 1%, not to mention all the other delineations that are commonly attributed to the HN crowd.
We are not the majority.
Android users are Linux users. So are Nintendo Switch users, the whole "can Linux game/be used for mobile" question is already answered.
They aren't. Or not in the sense that it matters for traditional Linux desktop users, which is pretty much the only reason the metric gets brought up.
Following your logic, people using the old TiVo setop boxes were also Linux users.
Active Linux desktop adoption rates matter because it means companies will put money into ensuring their product works well on it. 1Password or Telegram is not going to meaningfully care about Steam Deck users. Or Android users vis a vis the Linux desktop client, because Android can't readily run Linux GUI applications :)
It's honestly kind of nuts no one here is getting that.
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Errr, isn’t the Switch BSD based? Or am I confusing it with the PS5?
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You would be correct if steam deck users were in line with the average computer user, but they definitely skew more towards the tech savvy crowd - the crowd that would be interested in desktop/emulation.
Part of this is in order to use a steam deck, unless you want to be very limited, you kind of have to be a little more tech savvy. I love my deck, but it is definitely not plug and play/turn key like a switch is for instance. Hell until a year or so ago swapping between gaming and desktop mode resulted in a total crash like 30% of the time. It still doesn’t dock and undock seamlessly, you get all kinds of wild behavior with standard TVs still, and if you’re off your home network and it tries to update it can still lock you out. It’s not as bad as it used to be, but it’s still a distinct possibility.
I love it and frankly the machine is a marvel, especially at its price point. But I still struggle to recommend it to people.
If your belief is that Steam Deck is Linux Desktop then you need to count Switch/PS5/Xbox as desktops as well and take those into account with the OS percentages.
Steam Deck has (accessible in menu by default) desktop mode that is just KDE with desktop icons and everything.
I don't think his point was that it's not linux but rather that it's not a desktop, and if it counts as a desktop, then so do the rest of the gaming consoles runnining non-linux, which probably didn't get counted so the 5% would be lower.
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Wow, I did not know this. Does anyone know the history behind why they chose KDE over GNOME? I promise: I am not picking a fight over those two.
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By picking a standard menu option I can go to a traditional desktop and use Libre Office and Firefox.
Can I so that with a Switch?
I can plug in a USB dock, with a monitor, mouse and keyboard and edit images with GIMP.
Can I do that with a PS5?
If I like the Steam Deck UI, I can install a package on my desktop and pick it on login, thus gaining basically all of this functionality. I in fact do have the SteamOS 3 UI installed on a gaming PC, and it works really well.
Can I install the PS5 UI and the ability to play PlayStation games on a BSD box?
> Can I do that with a Switch?
You can install Ubuntu on a Nintendo switch by using a paperclip so yes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SwitchHacks/comments/8f0ugz/hardwar...
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I can't use a Switch as a Desktop Linux, I can use my Steam Deck as a Desktop Linux.
It's not exactly a belief, it's my experience.