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Even though my goto operating system for servers is Red Hat Enterprise Linux, lately I have been working with Canonical’s Ubuntu Server 10.04 and I will admit that it has so far been a great experience. Just like what is expected of a server operating system, it is not intended for the general user base and focused more toward an experience Linux user; especially when by default there exists no GUI. That is one of the best parts in my personal opinions. Another great thing about the OS relates to its simplified installation process and how everything is automatically installed and to an extent configured should you choose to configure the server as a LAMP, DNS, etc.  A couple of years ago, I had reviewed an older 8.10 release here and here and wasn’t impressed. Now, I can see things have changed for the better. Unfortunately I will not be discussing this. But before I get any deeper into this article, I wish to share my experiences with 10.04.

I am currently using Ubuntu Server 10.04 in two ways:

1. Development platform in VirtualBox - The simplified installer allows me to get a base system up and running in a VM guest. I usually decline to install any additional packages but the base and when I am up and running, I will invoke apt-get to grab anything else I was too lazy to customize from the installer. The advantages are that I have a very light weight system. No GUI, just CLI and all the standard packages I need to test my developed device drivers and applications.
2. To host my much needed services - I had an older Dell PC collecting dust in my office. So I decided to revive it and install Ubuntu Server 10.04 on it. It is currently configured to run and host Apache (Bugzilla), MySQL, a git repository, FTP and a bit more. After spending some time to secure MySQL, Bugzilla, ssh and my iptables firewall rules, the PC has been up since and I am able to function more productively; especially since I enabled the node to be accessible outside of my local network.

In both scenarios, the operating system has been a pleasure to work with. Although I do have one complaint and that is when you get to the point of package selection during the installation process, the interface kind of sucks. I am sure that I am not the only one who feels that way but it is what it is.

Now that I finished sharing my personal experiences with the operating system I will continue on to the main topic of this article and that relates to Canonical’s release cycles for their server catered OS. I for one know from experience that the IT industry doesn’t like change. That includes operating systems. The mentality is always that “if it ain’t broke, why fix it.” With that in mind I can see why Red Hat takes many years to release a new official stable release of their flagship OS while continuing to support the current with almost service pack like updates (via a new release such as 5.x or through yum). Truth be told, when a facility deploys and manages an operating system, they usually get comfortable with the release and do not want to stray far off it until one of three conditions are met:

1. It is not supported anymore and they are forced to move on.
2. A new release comes out and it introduces [a] much needed feature(s).
3. Or new hardware is acquired.

So…why do I mention this? I understand the concept of 6 month release cycles and an LTS release every two years. Ideally, you would want to attract potential customers at every LTS release; but those inbetween releases seem like a waste of time and effort ONLY for the server series. Let me explain.

A lot of the general public are still somewhat confused by the whole Long Term Support (LTS) concept and what that truly means. For both desktop and server operating systems, with Canonical, everything inbetween is considered a concept or feature testing release in preparation for the next LTS OS. While this may not be an official explanation coming from Canonical, it has always been general perception. In a non-LTS release you saw the introduction of the Software Center, Upstart, Plymouth, etc. (as is evident with 8.10, 9.04 and 9.10) and now btrfs support is planned for 10.10 (also a non-LTS release) among other features.

For the desktop OS, this is all fine but when we get to the server side of things, why is it still necessary to maintain the same release cycle? Nobody wants to deploy a non-LTS release in a production environment. Especially when the support for that release is not as long as an LTS one. And if something needs to be tested, it can always be tested in the desktop non-LTS releases. This is where I feel that companies such as Red Hat, Novell, Sun/Oracle to even Microsoft got it right. The server editions of their operating system are not meant to see dramatic changes and or additions so often. This is why it is easy for a system administrator to transition from Microsoft Server 2000 to Server 2003 and again 2008. Don’t misunderstand me, I know from experience that a Microsoft Service Pack or upgrade can cause some damage but generally the operating system are focused on stability and standardizing the environment until the next major release.

If I were to suggest a recommendation for Canonical, it would be: “Maintain the 6 month release cycle for the desktop (and netbook) releases with an LTS appearing every two years but as for the server OS, drop the 6 month cycle and adopt an every two year LTS release.“

I have been thinking about this for a short time now. I have been spending some time studying the computing market at various levels and across varying technologies; most recently the focus was more on the mobile computing industry. But before I dive into some of my personal opinions I want to revisit some brief events throughout history:

From the late 70’s to the 80’s Apple markets personal computers with a proprietary operating system tied to its proprietary hardware. They charge high prices in exchange for a feature rich and an evolving simplified UI. During this time period Microsoft is providing their software solutions as a software only company.

Originally built on MS-DOS (with the first stable release in 1985), Microsoft distributes Windows for the Intel architecture. Over time, they pushed a radical idea of providing an operating system that was not tied to specific proprietary hardware. This enabled many hardware manufacturers to install and distribute licensed copies of the operating system. Although not as advanced as Apple’s OS UI, it was just good enough to get most people to become more productive.

Cheaper hardware + Hardware independent software = Cheaper PCs = Microsoft’s success of the desktop market

Truth be told. You did (and still do) get what you pay for. Microsoft’s applications and series of operating systems were never necessarily well known for stability and security. Overall, their approach to business made sense for its time.

But what do you have now? The focus has shifted to mobility. A lot of applications are now provided services over the web (i.e. the cloud) and our mobile devices provide us access to these services. For the past decade Apple has made a huge comeback and found itself a market which has been leading to its recent success. Although, they continue to push their proprietary model on all their products.

While other companies are competing with Apple, the most noteworthy is Google (indirectly via its ad-based model) and specifically the Android operating system. Google has taken more of an open approach to how Android is presented but in the end, similar to Microsoft with Windows, it is designed to run on varying hardware platforms. With a nice UI (maybe not always as crisp and clean as the iPhone’s OS) and a constantly growing Market with tens of thousands of applications to choose from, Android has proven itself to be a very worthy competitor. Its market growth numbers have reflected this and Android is significantly catching up to the power players of the smart phone industry.

My question is: Is Apple doomed to repeat its own history? Should we continue to expect Apple market share growth? Or will this plateau as more and more Android devices flood the market offering more affordable and feature rich mobile computing experiences?

Earlier this morning I was reading this article from the author (Garett Rogers) and it just seemed to me that the author is a bit confused about Chrome OS and its purpose alongside the audience it caters to. The same could be said with some of the people responding to his post. Note I am not attacking anyone here, just merely writing my view on what Chrome OS intends to deliver.

Extract from article:

“Google’s idea of an operating system that consists of only a web browser sounds interesting, and unfortunately, very restrictive. There are a staggering number of applications out there that people use on Windows/Mac/Linux machines — any of which would give enough reason to avoid switching operating systems.“

He goes on to explain a feature Google is designing into the Chrome OS that functions similar to a remote desktop.

It just seems that through all this hype of Google’s much anticipated release of its Chrome OS, many look to it as Google’s replacement to all competing Operating System when the reality shows that this will not be the case.

First of all, let us look at the audience this new OS is catering to: someone who pretty much uses the web for everything (i.e. entertainment, productivity, communications, etc.). Someone like my wife would fall under this category. For the past 2-3 years I have had my wife using a Linux-based operating system. She is no different than your traditional PC user. Except for a few rare cases in which she would need to rely on a local application, everything else she does is accomplished on the web: Facebook, e-mails, e-Bay, Amazon, streaming music/videos, chatting, online banking, etc. If she needed to word processor or spreadsheet, I am sure I can help her configure a Google Docs account but for now, she uses OpenOffice.org. I can see someone like my wife utilize the Chrome OS with no issues. It will do everything that she needs to do.

As for me on the other hand, it is a bit too limited and restrictive. I also feel the same way about Microsoft Windows, but that is another story. The point I am trying to make is that there are many people like my wife out there who would be just fine with a setup like the Chrome OS. It will not be for everyone.

Second, let us look at packaging. Do we know how this new OS will be packaged onto the netbook, tablet, or other mobile device? Again, the OS will be installed on mobile devices. That means, it is not intended for intense workload. If you are a casual user then this would not be a problem.

Also relating to packaging, I remember reading in early reports about the Chrome OS that it will be delivered as a dual-booted system alongside another full-blown operating system (insert Microsoft Windows, Ubuntu Linux, etc.). Chrome OS is an instant on with quick access to the internet solution. Within seconds you are up and running and should have access to your local drive(s). If that is the case, then the concern for using special purpose applications means nothing here; as you could reboot into the other operating system and do what you need to do.

Third, let us look at its limitations. We know that it will look to the web for web-based services and solutions to work with and utilize. At least to my knowledge and at this point it will not allow the user to install any applications. Files on the other hand (i.e. images, music, etc.) are a different story. These limitations and restrictions is what will increase the security of the OS. Without the ability to install potentially malware infected programs, the threats of the Internet are much less. But this goes back to my discussion of the intended audience. People like my wife will not need to install anything. Everything will already be available to them.

What Chrome OS is not:

• It was never intended to be a replacement for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, or any of the Linux/UNIX -based distributions.
• It is not going to cater to everybody’s style in computing.
• It will not necessarily bring everything that you are looking for in an OS (see previous statement).

Chrome OS is a solution, but a solution that will not be intended for everyone. It may succeed. It may fail. Who knows? This is why we have choices. If this operating system does not meet your requirements, then you will find something else. I just don’t understand why we keep on comparing this solution to others that are drastically different.

I don’t get it. Or maybe I am not expected to understand it. Yesterday I went to a local Best Buy retail store to pick up a USB Flash Drive. After doing a quick price comparison I ended up purchasing the Geek Squad (the Best Buy) branded product. The next day I took the device into work and just as I was about to open it I quickly glanced at the back of the package and noticed:

“Compatible with Windows 2000 SP4/Windows XP/Windows Vista/ Windows 7, Mac OS 10.x and above.“

What about Linux? Coincidentally this device was getting plugged into and used only by a Fedora Linux system. Now I know that this would have worked (despite the package’s information) and not have any problems with ANY Linux and for the most part almost all UNIX -based operating systems. The device (as all other USB Flash Drives) are labeled with a FAT32 file system and Linux, like any other OS kernel can read a FAT32 labeled volume with no problems. On top of that, most mainstream distributions (if not all) enable automount and an auto open of USB storage devices. The user doesn’t need to do it themselves, similar to Windows and the Mac OS. So what is the problem? Why couldn’t the package say “Linux 2.6 and above” or something to that extent?

You would think from a marketing point-of-view it would have been wise to place this on the package for individuals new to the world of Linux and unsure about a few things. Maybe someone new to Ubuntu or Mint or even SUSE just got a netbook with a preloaded Linux-based image on it. They are looking to find some hardware compatible with it and wait a minute the Geek Squad USB Flash Drives sold at Best Buy do not say that they will work. There is a lost sale.

Some of you may think that this is not such a big deal and that I am thinking too deep into this. I don’t disagree. I am thinking too deep into this, but it is only because I am still surprised when I come across things like this. For instance, not too long ago I was looking at laser printers and guess what some said on it (I specifically remember Lexmark):

“…compatible with Linux“

I remember buying a pack of labels to print names and addresses, guess what the package of labels said on the back:

“…compatible with Linux“

The list goes on. Whether end-user market share for Linux is 1%, 0.01% or 100%, manufacturers need to get used to the fact that its market share is creeping up especially with the huge influence Linux holds on mobile devices. For instance, when the Android-based tablets come out, people are going to be looking for:

“…compatible with Linux” or “…compatible with Android“

In recent Linux related news I have been reading about the Ubuntu Control Center (UCC) and the Ubuntu Application Menu (Global Menu). The projects looked extremely interesting so I decided to install them and give them a try. Note that directions for download and installation are provided in the links above.

Ubuntu Control Center (UCC)

In the GNOME desktop environment, most of us have become familiar with the gnome-control-center. The gnome-control-center provided a centralized interface to access various components and elements of your GNOME desktop environment to your general computing experience. This included shortcuts to network configuration tools, disk management tools, display and screensaver related tools, power management and more.

UCC is not that much different. The way in which it stands out is that it is a little more visually appealing to the eye and continues to maintain the new style and themes presented by Canonical for Ubuntu. It is also simplified in presentation and organization. I can see it to be less intimidating to a lesser experienced Ubuntu Linux user. It is my opinion that this is a great step into the right direction. It is these little things that help one distribution stand out over the others. In the open source world we call this differentiation (a topic I will write about in my next post). Although I don’t see myself using it that much, as I usually know which commands to invoke from the command line or which files to modify instead, I can see someone like my wife utilizing this interface and actually be somewhat comfortable with it.

Also note that when it is installed, the application can be launched from Applications > System Tools > UCC.

Global Menu

While this is not an Ubuntu original project, it is one that Canonical desires to use in their distributions intended for smaller devices (i.e. netbooks). At least for now, it is planned to have this feature implemented in the future release of Ubuntu Network Edition (UNE).

The interface reminds one of the similar feature in the Mac OS series of operating systems. Instead of wasting LCD  space for every open application by dropping a File, Edit, etc. menu system, Global Menu will integrate it into the top GNOME panel. This is very desirable for the netbook devices with smaller screens (i.e. 1024×600).

I actually like this. Truth be told, I grew up on Macs, so I am very familiar with this setup and while it is going to take a little bit of getting used to, I have decided to keep it installed with my 10.04 installation on my everyday notebook. Here you can see it in action when a terminal is open:

There are a few drawbacks to this though. It would seem that this feature is only fully functional for GTK+ developed applications. Or at least something to that extent. Certain applications such as Firefox, OpenOffice.org to even VirtualBox will only result in the name of the application to show up in the global menu with options to show the desktop or maximize/minimize the current application. Instead you will find that the generic menu interface will still be presented in the application’s window. Despite this, I still do look forward to seeing what this project grows into.

For the past week I have been attempting to build the oprofile profiling suite for the ARM architecture to a specific vanilla kernel my current employer is utilizing for their embedded Linux framework. It has been quite an interesting week overall.

Oprofile is built around the autotools framework which is a great method by which one can create a portable application for multiple architectures. For the most part it works great, that is until you are building for a platform and environment that is built from the ground up to serve only the company’s purposes and in turn will contain the bare essentials for features and functionality ensuring a lightweight core OS for embedded architectures. This is where we start getting into dependency hell: rebuilding binutils (specifically libbfd) for the ARM and pointing the configure script to look at libbfd alongside some headerfiles.

After resolving that, I then coming across compilation errors specific to C++. Let it be known for the record: I do not like C++. Being a kernel and device driver developer, I have always been entrenched within C and when I need to get into Object Oriented Programming, I would prefer Python and in the rarest of cases, Java. It is just much cleaner and easier to work with. Usually Python best fits my needs especially when it comes to graphical development and I write GNOME based applications with pyGTK. C++ was a good concept and major stepping stone in the programming world but it is just sloppy. Even when you come across an error, a lot of times it is just too cryptic. In my most recent situation though, it seemed that it was a stdlibc++ issue built into the GCC toolchain used.

I will save you from the nasty details. To conclude, it was an unsuccessful effort. The module built (written in C) and was loadable with no problems. The only problems that existed were around the user-land tools alone. A whole week spent on something that could not be used in the end; at least until we have more time to invest in addressing the obvious issues. But I guess it was a learning experience nonetheless.

Some additional excitement came when I saw that Bruce Perens has been consulting our group for the past few days to ensure that we are complying with all used open source licenses. Yesterday, he took the time to give a very interesting 2 hour lecture about companies and their uses of open source license. Some of you may recognize that name, if not then you should read more on the open source movement. I found it humorous to observe that his character in person was no different then what I would see in video and documentaries such as Revolution OS.

So, I just got my Android upgrade for my HTC Droid Eris phone. It upgraded from 1.5 (Cupcake) to 2.1 (Eclair). I must say that I am happy with the update. Although there were a couple of annoyances that had to be dealt with.

1. For instance, the update loses all your contact information. You needed to resynchronize it from your Gmail account. A good thing to do is to occasionally export your contact information from Gmail into vCard format. This way you can hold a backup copy just incase of failure. The Android OS reads the file format and can re-import the contact list from the local SD Card with no problems.
2. A second annoyance was that all of your widgets were defaulted to the default HTC setup. Whatever. It took 5-10 minutes of my time to lay everything out and download some newly 2.1 available widgets from HTC.

All of this was not preserved and yet I was surprised to find that all of my e-mail accounts were intact. I guess this was saved on the SD Card. Go figure.

Other than that, all seems to work great. There are a lot of great new features and the appearances (including icons) look sharper and cleaner. Also I noticed that the phone (tuned to my liking with Advanced Task Killer) consumes less battery power with this update.

While HTC had always supported multitouch capabilities, they expanded on it in the 2.1 release. For instance, in the HTC phone, I have 7 desktops which I can slide side-to-side to get to. They have a new feature where I can do a multitouch pinch at the center of any desktop screen and it zooms out to view all 7 of my desktops. I can then select one to zoom back into.

Also with this release, there is support for animated backgrounds. HTC added some neat looking animation to the Sense UI. For instance, the weather applet will animate on update by showing transparent sun rays, clouds moving to even rain on the screen. It looks nice but I am sure it will get old after some time.

The Android Market Place has a nicer and cleaner look and feel and the new HTC provided widgets are also kind of neat (i.e. for quick not taking among other things).

The only problem that I did notice was when I upgraded my wife’s phone to 2.1 (she has the same HTC Droid Eris phone). The HTC Weather applet would error everytime it was launched and do a force close. This was easily resolved by going into all of the weather related applications (Menu > Settings > Applications > Manage applications) and clearing all cached data contents.

With Android 2.1, I finally had the opportunity to play around with applications such as Google Goggles, which works great in limited use (so far). Now as I am finally playing with Android 2.1, I am hoping that 2.2 will make its way to the Droid Eris as it supports Wi-Fi tethering.

As long as I can remember I had been using the Netscape web browser which evolved to Mozilla and now Firefox. I still use Firefox and have grown so comfortable with it that I don’t really desire to move onto anything else. Needless to say, Mozilla’s products are not perfect and there is always room for additional features and what I believe to be necessities in order to function in today’s world of computing.

For instance, I wish there was more of a concentrated effort to bring additional usability and manageability of these same Mozilla products (i.e. Firefox, Thunderbird, to even the SeaMonkey suite) where it can truly compete with Microsoft to even IBM’s Lotus in the professional world.

In this initial example I will choose to focus Lotus Notes and SameTime. This application was built around enterprise productivity. Everything is integrated in such a way where I do not only have the ability to work from my e-mail but through SameTime I can easily connect to the same directory of individuals for instant IM messaging. Google saw an advantage to such an approach and had it integrated into their GMAIL web client. So how difficult would it be to have Thunderbird do the same thing? Now, SeaMonkey may be a better candidate for this integration (as it resembles more of what Netscape used to be) but nobody really knows of its existence.

Another example is the way Microsoft integrates all of its products together to provide a complete solution. If I am using Internet Explorer and I click on something that requires Powerpoint, Excel or something else Microsoft developed, there are no problems in opening up those files and working with them in a new tab of my web browser. It could be beneficial for Mozilla to partner up with Oracle and provide similar transparent integration into their products with Star Office and OpenOffice.org. In fact, what is stopping Red Hat, Canonical, Novell or even Oracle from developing such integration modules in their workstation solutions? I always found it annoying that when I click on a PDF file to open it up in a new tab, it runs outside of the browser instead (unless I were to install a third party developed plug-in most of which are written for Microsoft Windows anyways).

Other things that I would like to see Mozilla work on is better management for corporate environments. Internet Explorer has a centralized managed infrastructure in that it can be controlled using Group Policies across an entire network emphasizing consistency. If you need to change the settings across all web browsers in your network, IE makes that easy and realistic. It is not realistic to e-mail co-worker HOWTOs (especially if they do not have the required permissions) nor is it realistic to visit or remote into every node to address those same changes. This form of management also includes patching/upgrading the browser/e-mail clients. Sometimes this needs to be controlled on a corporate basis as opposed to an individual user.

Mozilla has been doing an excellent job in conquering their fair percentage of market share. All without the billions of dollars dumped into marketing (as seen by their competitors). They are a known household name. A lot of end users know what Firefox is. To move on to the next best thing, I feel they need to start concentrating more on the corporate world.

So, I finally did it. Two days ago I installed Canonical’s latest release Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on my main computing laptop. Just to give you a brief history, since 2001 I have been a Red Hat Linux user. And even when they decided to go enterprise, I decided to stick with the community driven solution, Fedora. Up until two days ago, I had always been running Fedora on my laptop. Although I had been using Ubuntu since their Hardy Heron release (8.04 LTS). In fact, that is what I had the wife work on when it was released and my exposure to Ubuntu was with her using 8.04, 8.10 and 9.10. I was also using 9.04 on my netbook for a short while, at least until I over wrote it with OpenSolaris (currently running b134 of the 2010.03 release candidate) and have also been running it in VirtualBox and one or two servers for development and testing purposes. The reason why I am mentioning this is because I had noticed a lot of great changes with each release. The integration of Upstart, Plymouth, etc. has made a user friendly and beautiful looking computing environment. Wanting to give the latest LTS release a whirl, I decided to do away with my Fedora installation.

First things first, the installation was beyond simple. Answer a couple of questions and just sit back while the installer handles everything else. Once my OS was installed, the PC rebooted and in 10 seconds (possibly less), I was at the log in screen. Note that I am running on a 2 year old Lenovo R61i Thinkpad with 3GB of RAM, 1.8 GHz Intel Dual Core processor and a standard SATA 2.5″ hard drive. Nothing out of the ordinary. It is amazing what can be achieved when you get rid of the traditional init daemon and replace it with Upstart.

So I log in and start to disable the login sounds. I couldn’t stand it in Microsoft Windows, so I would not tolerate it in Ubuntu. After that I began to install all of my software. I had a huge list that I had to go through; software and packages that were in my previous Fedora installation. For the most part I was in the command line invoking aptitude unless I came a across a package that I couldn’t find (not knowing the string name of the package). So I would then navigate to Applications > Ubuntu Software Center and start searching through there. It is an extremely user friendly and amazing way to install, manage and uninstall your applications.

I then set up my e-mail accounts, configured conky, customized the Avant-Window-Navigator and even tuned Firefox to run its cache entirely out of RAM through a local tmpfs  mount. Overall, a pleasant experience.

The only downside was attempting to figure out why network manager was not enabling my wireless card. I have an Atheros wireless card:

Its driver was also installed and fully functional:

But after some playing around with iwconfig, I was able to get it working and tuned to how I wish to enable/disable it with local hotkeys and alias commands pointing to customized scripts.

The reason for this problem is…who cares. I read many blogs complaining how Linux is not ready for desktop use. Blah blah blah. Neither is Microsoft Windows, if you choose to complain for the same reasons. Often the complaint is about wireless cards. How many fresh Windows installations will have a wireless driver (or graphics and anything else) to your device(s)? Not many if at all. Fortunately enough OEM distributors provide the user with a driver resource CD or you may have to dig up the device driver from the collection of CDs or somehow get on the Internet and obtain it from the manufacturer’s website. I never saw this as a problem. As long as Canonical does an excellent job in working with OEM providers, then this should never be seen. 95% of Windows users never have to install Windows from a CD. And if a Ubuntu imaged PC is bought from Dell or <insert other OEM distributor here>, chances are they would never have to install Ubuntu from a CD and all their devices would be working out-of-box.

All in all, this has so far been a very pleasant experience. I even took the time to upgrade my wife’s 9.10 installation to the latest. The upgrade, while taking 1.5 hours, went smoothly. No problems seen. Great job Canonical!

UPDATE 27Jun10: I ended up finding out of a great fix for the wireless driver problem I had been seeing during and after installation. Note that I was able to get it functional but it was not operating as fast as I would have liked it. So I found this blog posting with a great fix for the AR5212 Atheros card and it seemed to have resolved those issues.

Last week I finally dumped my Blackberry smartphone and got myself one of the Verizon Droid phones; specifically the Droid Eris. I was waiting for the Nexus One to come to Verizon Wireless for quite some time and when I read that it was to be offered through Google only (unlocked and without a contract deal) for $530, I said forget about it. I will go to the store instead and get one of the Droid phones (Motorola Droid & HTC Droid Eris).

Although it is the slightly outdated version 1.5 of the Android OS, I have been spending the past 2 weeks enjoying my new phone and looking forward to the 2.1 upgrade expected by the end of the month. I will admit that during this period, the coolest application I found on the Android Market was the Google Sky Map which I recommend to anyone and everyone.

Anyways, back to the main point of this post, the past weeks gave me much to think about with regards to the future of Linux. Every year we always hear that “this is the year of Linux Desktop” and yet are surprised that nothing has changed from the years prior. Sure Linux is growing on the end user base but it is a very small growth; almost unnoticeable. Looking at it from a positive angle, portions of this growth is a result of the efforts from such identities like Canonical, with their Ubuntu distribution to even the re-spins like Linux Mint, etc. making it more user friendly for Linux newbies. It is also worth noting that distributions like Fedora (Red Hat based) to even openSUSE have also done excellent work in increasing usability on top of performance and appearance. But my question is, where do they stand in the grand scheme of things? Sure these distributions have a future and a strong one at that. I won’t stop using Fedora, Debian or Ubuntu. But deep down, do I believe that they will get the huge market share that they rightfully deserve? No. At least not in the very near future.

What I do see is a trend started by companies like Google and Apple. The trend focus on mobility and portability. Less and less users are running out and buying desktop machines. This idea seemed to have died rendering the concept of a desktop to become obsolete years ago. The focus has been more on the low-cost laptop and netbook devices. On top of that Google does something that they are well known for and it is the idea of creating and promoting a name. For instance, Google is used everywhere to reference the company, their products and even in the form of a verb to search for information. I feel that the same thing may happen with the Android Operating System. The end user market knows what the Android is; not necessarily caring what exists under the hood (i.e the Linux kernel). Android usage has been growing at a rapid rate and provides the majority of functionality that a standard end-user needs with a huge listing of applications offered. Here is an interesting fact: Android enabled phones have jumped from 2% market share in February 2009 to 24% market share of February 2010 (of smartphones).

As of the past 6 months or so, Google has been hyping up their new Chrome OS to be used on low-powered mobile internet device (MID) such as netbooks and possibly lightweight tablet PCs. For those who do not know the details, it is basically a browser running on top of the Linux kernel. The browser desktop environment provides some interesting concepts but will it ever captivate the end user audience enough to dump the one over the other or will it be, at the most, a dual boot option for a quick boot to the Internet?

I for one see a lot more potential with the Android. Maybe customize the desktop to cater to a netbook or tablet PC. Port the Google Chrome web browser over to the OS. Add quick launch apps for Google Docs and then call it a day. I do see success of Linux at the end user market. I feel confident that they will leave Microsoft behind in a cloud of smoke; seeing how Microsoft still focuses on the obsolete desktop environment with some efforts moving slowly toward the cloud. Slowly the “year of the Linux desktop” idea will disappear as more and more individuals focus more on mobility and begin to use web enabled devices and eventually bring on the “year of the Linux MID”.

My question to everyone is: Do you still think Linux has a chance (moving away from the idea of the desktop and focus more on the MID)?