I believe the first Linux "distros" (HJ Lu's boot/root, MCC Interim Linux) were released a few weeks before 386BSD, but it hardly matters.

Before that, a bunch of fly-by-night outfits briefly offered commercial SVR4 "distros" for 386 PCs. The cheapest, most vanilla of these started around $500, and I bought one. As cool as it was to run real Unix on my cheap 386SX, it was a disappointment. SVR4 was buggy and unoptimized on PCs, and at those prices, SVR4 distro hopping wasn't an option.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, came Linux – cost-free, full-featured, rock-solid, and running like a bat out of hell on cheap PCs. I couldn't believe what I was witnessing. Truly, it was one of the most mind-blowing moments I've experienced in this industry.

The timing was perfect too, though Linus probably never planned it that way. After a bit of refinement, Linux was easily as good as commercial Unix, at least for bread-and-butter server work. At the same time, x86 caught up with what Sun et al were offering, and the internet revolution created a lot of new demand for cheap Unix-compatible servers.

Meanwhile, Sun was busy trying to kill Microsoft with the JavaStation, and the other Unix vendors were similarly asleep at the wheel. They failed to recognize the PC/Linux threat and quickly ran the entire Unix workstation/server market into the ground.

A search for "crash" on r/SteamDeck suggests otherwise.

Exactly. The EU can fine you billions for anything they deem anticompetitive, be it action, inaction, thought, dream, etc.

It's completely consistent with the EU's well-established MO. They define what it means to be competitive retroactively on a case-by-case basis. And then they get to enforce this "law" with billion-dollar fines. Nice work if you can get it.

When exactly was "the start"? Windows 9x/Me was the final form of 16-bit MS-DOS-based Windows, a line whose development had started in the early 1980s and far predated PCs capable of running NT.

On NT's release, it was too large to run on the majority of PCs out there, even ones with 386 CPUs. It also didn't support a lot of common hardware that only had 16-bit drivers available. It wasn't until a decade later that the general PC-buying public was ready to migrate to NT.

Yep, you get it. Preloads are the only way to advance Linux on the desktop. And preloads won't happen until Linux is officially supported by the ISVs that build popular PC applications.

Nah. It's the preloads. Normal people don't install operating systems and never will. And OEMs won't preload Linux broadly until it's supported by ISVs.

Normal people don't install operating systems and never will. If there's a public outcry, Microsoft will either extend support or offer some other option. They've caved to such pressure before.

Sure, and Altair people might enjoy using toggle switches to input machine instructions

The desktop isn't going away anytime soon. Millions will continue to use it for business applications, software development, content creation, etc. But BILLIONS are already using mobile exclusively.

The mid-1970s Apple-Microsoft vision of a computer on every desk is obsolete. Computers are now in our pockets, running apps powered by the cloud. Apple is focusing on mobile, and Microsoft on datacenter. The desktop will remain important, but it's no longer worth pursuing. Its glory days are gone, and it's dominated by players that are very deeply entrenched.

The Linux development community should instead focus on the growing markets. Its server dominance is probably safe, but mobile? I'm not so sure. Google seems to be gradually setting the stage for its replacement.

Unless you wrote the software, in no sense did you ever own it. You either purchased or were granted permission to use it according to a stated set of rules.

What's "a significant number"? I suspect that, whatever it is, a much larger group has already abandoned the proprietary desktop for something even more proprietary– mobile. It seems to me that the vast majority of consumers couldn't care less about open source, telemetry, software patents, hardware control, etc.

I think Linux will eventually dominate the shrinking niche that is the desktop, but only because Apple and Microsoft are increasingly apathetic about desktop market share, whereas the Linux development community remains obsessed with it. And it'll take a very long time, during which desktop Linux will become much more Windows/macOS-like than software freedom advocates are comfortable with.

Ages ago I bought a laptop for the same purpose but found that, even relative to my full-size PC, the difference in form factor neutralized my noob pwning ability. Pwning noobs with a game controller on a tiny screen would have been ludicrous. But that's just me and the games I was into back then. YMMV.

I find this fascinating.

The thing is, Fuchsia is a big bet, no? It must have one or more goals in mind, right? If so, is replacing Linux in Android a goal? A non-goal? A happy result if it happens? As an outsider, I'm just so curious about this!

Do you think Google plans to replace Linux with Fuchsia in Android? That's been my assumption, but I haven't seen much corroboration either way.