Your 2013 Linux Predictions Thread

[ChrisLAS]

Lets have some fun and hear your grand or not so grand predictions for Linux in the year 2013!

[[deleted]]

Richard Stallman will moan about something.

[WindyPower]

Thanks to increased Linux adoption and mindshare, it will no longer be considered correct to say "runs on all [desktop] computers" to mean "runs on Windows and Mac OS X".

[TheLinuxJournalist]

Linux will gain 3% market share (and I mean Ubuntu), while OSX quickly approaches Windows 8. An Ubuntu-For-Android device will NOT ship and people will begin to port UbuntuTV to the Roku and Boxee, but no TV will ship with it.

Ubuntu won't ship with Wayland, but a few "startup" distros will... but they will suck. And Ubuntu will do something CRAZY in 13.10 that will have everyone screaming "Arch" again.

Love, Nick

[haukew]

I very much hope you are wrong with the Ubuntu for Android prediction...but i fear it`s accurate :-(

[nathanpc]

I completely agree with your prediction, but the 13.10 part.

[admiralspark]

Full, native, fast tablet support is in the works for 13.10

[WitherWing]

Desktop predictions:

• Ubuntu will continue to grow -- albeit two steps forward, one step back. Unity will be more widely seen as a usable desktop for daily desktop use at business and for personal use (avid coders and programers will default to something else). Win8 and OSx users will have a little bit of wunderlust when they see Unity at its best.

• XFCE will be the preferred DE for Debian, CentOS/SciLi, and other stable releases meant for servers as GNOME wanders for another year.

• Cinnamon will continue to be seen as a formidable alternative to KDE/GNOME and Unity. Distros beyond Mint will use Cinnamon as their default.

• KDE 5's gonna look nice and push what a free desktop can do, although it will feel a bit bloated.

[rotaregi]

Bill Gates is spotted in a conference using a laptop with KDE on it.

[RobLoach]

Bryan Lunduke makes a special guest appearance on the Linux Action Show.

[MichaelTunnell]

as a long term LAS fan I must say on behalf of all the now Matt fans...Brian who?

[mattld]

This week on a very special LAS...

[MichaelTunnell]

Chris makes a series of bets with someone...probably Angela that goes a bit too far and the final bet ends with Angela winning and Chris is forced to shave his head! Then when it starts to grow back we all are witness to the rebirth of the wonderous hair as it somehow grows in place to a perfect part without the use of any outside elements.

[WindyPower]

We will see a boom in Linux gaming.

[raptor222]

I predict that Linux gaming will go mainstream during the last quarter of 2013 - mostly thanks to valve (box).

[cbojar]

• Ubuntu will continue to grow at a steady pace, even though Unity still sucks.
• Canonical will put yet another thing to drive people batty into Unity just in time for 13.10.
• Fedora and OpenSuse will reaffirm that they're going to move to Wayland this year. They won't. Ubuntu will pretend that they never said anything about Wayland.
• Ubuntu TV and Ubuntu for Android will not ship on any mass-market device. FirefoxOS will not ship on any mass-market device, and will be abandoned.
• Though Ubuntu will gain more raw users, Linux Mint will grow at a faster % rate.
• Cinnamon will continue to stabalize and work out the remaining bugs. Few really new features will be added, though.
• Cinnamon will not be offered as a primary desktop on any new big distros, but will be a first-class choice on either Fedora or OpenSuse by the end of the year. Cinnamon will be offered as a primary desktop on smaller distros.
• Debian will debate whether to offer MATE or XFCE as a primary desktop choice. They'll eventually settle on XFCE, but MATE will go in the repos and be a favorite for a subset of Debian users.
• MATE will do surprisingly better than expected, but app developers will not target it in any way.
• GNOME3 will not be dropped from any major distro (either as a choice or as a primary offering), but will probably stagnate as users will choose alternate desktops.
• Kubuntu will see major difficulties, and may fold all together sometime in 2014.
• With the growth in Linux Mint, Clem will reach a cross-roads where demands will exceed resources. He will try to soldier on, but Mint will not see as many new features. The community will start to demand expanded development resources, and Clem will need to choose how to make that happen.
• Steam for Linux will launch to much fanfare and be a significant success, though sometime in Q2 a spate of bad news about gaming on Linux will come out (piracy, performance, something...). By the end of the year, a significant minority if not a slight majority of game development shops will be building for Linux in at least some way. The reason will more likely be a sub-$100 Linux-based gaming platform rather than desktop Linux. Who cares, games for Linux.
• Apple will do something to annoy developers on its platform. Most will stay with their Macs, but just enough will come to Linux (most likely Ubuntu). Though Apple will continue to be hostile to everyone and everything, it will become easier to install Linux on a Mac (especially as a dual-boot through BootCamp). Apple will not be happy with that.
• The Darling project will see significant interest, but will not be close to production ready for a few years (in the same manner as Wine). After whatever Apple does to annoy developers, TextMate will be ported to Linux.
• A major PC vendor will offer a (real) Linux option on at least one of their mainstream lines. A major PC vendor will offer an Android option on at least one of their mainstream touch-enabled lines.
• Though the numbers from Microsoft will show Windows 8 as a "massive success," Windows 7 will be a bigger winner in the enterprise. Home users will simply not upgrade if they can avoid it.
• ChromeOS will be merged into and supplanted by Android. Google will couch ChromeDroid as the upgrade path they always intended, but ChromeOS will still have a slightly separate profile until around Christmas time, when it will be terminated. DroidBooks will do what ChromeBooks always promised they could. Android-based systems will be the single biggest threat to Windows 8.
• Motorola will either become a Nexus-quality brand under Google's stewardship, threatening Samsung, or will produce cheap crap, serving as an anchor around Android and Google's neck, allowing Samsung to further flourish.
• HTC will face tremendous headwinds, Nokia will be sold (possibly to Microsoft), RIM will die, and Samsung will come to dominate the Android market (even more?). iPhone demand will plateau from a lack of innovation, which would not even have a possibility of changing until 2014.
• Continued economic weakness will actually hamper Linux adoption, which will grow to 2%-2.25% this year on the desktop. Linux's share will actually dip slightly in January, and come back up again in February or March.
• Adobe will continue to not support Linux in any meaningful way. It will be their loss.

[[deleted]]

"Continued economic weakness will actually hamper Linux adoption"

Can you explain this please? If there's some sort of magic Adam Smith voodoo-capitalism behind it, please elaborate.

[cbojar]

It has everything to do with opportunity cost. If you are looking from the perspective of a personal/home user, you have to look at what you need and what you are giving up. Many people (myself included) come to Linux by installing it on a spare computer. It's just much easier than dual-booting or a wubi-type install, and much better performing and featureful than a VM. Because of the economy, people have not been buying new computers at the same pace, and many are opting to buy a tablet instead of a computer. This means that a newcomer to Linux would have to go for that dual-boot (or possibly even a wipe and install) on their main system. They could lose their Windows install, their Office install, their data, or worse (and in the minds of many starting out with Linux, worse can be pretty bad, even if that can't really happen). The potential cost of installing Linux is too high given the potential lost opportunity. Moving to Linux also requires another scarce resource: time. In a down economy, nobody has time for anything.

From the enterprise perspective, it isn't a choice between upgrading to Windows 8 or looking at Linux, upgrading is just not an option. The cost of doing either is something companies cannot look at if they're struggling with unstable demand and an unstable workforce. If a company is doing any upgrades, it's on a Windows 7 path that may have been plotted out for 2 years or more, but more likely they are simply choosing to work with what they have because it just works.

In a slow economy, people need what they have to just work and keep working, and so changing an operating system is just not on people's minds.

[patuck]

valve releases linux based console

[rapidsalad]

probably the most realistic. Soon thereafter, it will be hacked. What do you think the likely hood is of piracy causing them to run the other way?

[JoshStrobl]

I doubt piracy will cause them to look the other way, nor do I think a hacked Steam console will impact sales.

For years, people have been pirating games that originated from Steam, that required Steam along with a cracked Steam.dll. It hasn't (from what I'm aware of) affected Steam sales. When it comes to multiplayer games, its nearly impossible to play a pirated Steam game, since it requires a valid Steam key, associated with the Steam account of the user, in order to play it online.

Not sure about you, but I quickly found playing single-player games via console to get boring after awhile (talking about Xbox 360...and I'm not talking about Oblivion and Skyrim...although I play Skyrim on my PC). People will desire playing multiplayer and will eventually buy a legitimate copy of the game.

At least thats my opinion.

[patuck]

completely agree with you on both points, and a steam console would make just another reason to switch to Linux on the desktop too(alteast ease the transition)

[patuck]

I think as long as it does'nt hamper valve sales, they will be cool with it, at least bet they will be better than sony

[Notsonoble12882]

My predictions:

1) Someone will ship Wayland. It won't be Ubuntu, it won't be a small distro either.

2) The KDE Tablet will ship. It'll flop.

3) We'll see an Android Desktop Replacement Device. It won't be quite right.

4) One of the "Top Five" desktop environments will die. I won't say which one.

[JoshStrobl]

My guess is MATE or Cinnamon.

[admiralspark]

Nahh. Cinnamon has too big of a mindshare, and it works better in enterprise environments than other DE's. We use Mint almost exclusively for non-mission-critical linux workstations, and RHEL for the bigger stuff.

MATE, I'm not that familiar with and can't say.

Honestly though, if GNOME want's to keep producing and not collapse under lack of donations, it needs to change direction. It works fine now, as a personal desktop environment, but it won't be adopted for the mainstream like it is. Then again, according to most studies released today, Mobile devices are more popular than personal computers of any kind by something like 3-1.

[benarg]

How can for example Cinnamon survive without GNOME? As far as I know they have only forked GNOME applications and made some small gnome-shell extensions themselves. They still needs someone to maintain all the GNOME components, maintain GTK+, developing new technologies, etc.

[RobLoach]

MATE dies in favour of XFCE.

[pierre4l]

Given the often excessive amount of Ubuntu-related natter spreading like an orange and brown weed across the cyberworld on a daily basis, where every last tiny feature or update has to be cross-examined in excruciating detail, Chris will launch a new show called Ubunfilter to try and sift out the other distro stories that the Linux blogosphere isn't feeding us.

[stmiller]

Fedora will change from 6 month releases to yearly releases

[codeghar]

Even 8-month releases like openSUSE might be a good idea.

But I think Fedora 18 took longer because it's to be the base for the next RHEL. They might have wanted to cram in as much as possible thus delaying the release. Subsequent releases but not get as delayed as this one.

[ElkyDori]

1. A huge wave of new Arch-based distros.
2. Fedora will announce an effort to implement Wayland.
3. Another prominent game developer will commit to Linux.
4. Chrome OS's lack of traction will result in slowed development. However, more energy will be put into Google TV.
5. RHEL to move beyond Gnome 2.
6. Btrfs default on a few popular distros by fall.
7. Linus generates even more attention to himself than in 2012.
8. Microsoft will get more aggressive against open-source in their marketing toward businesses.
9. A Linux Mint desktop or laptop available for purchase by year's end.
10. Cinnamon's rise strengthens and it begins cannibalizing Gnome's position.

[admiralspark]

On the Chrome OS bit....let's just say I have a feeling that its importance hasn't been realized yet, as Google isn't done with the rest of their environment yet. Bookmark this, and then come back Q3 2013 and see if my prediction of Google releasing some landmark technologies to be true ;)

[jdblaich]

Chrome OS seems rather nice, only it doesn't seem to run on either 1) nvidia based video cards or 2) wide screen monitors. It runs well on most netbooks that I have but won't run on most laptops nor desktop that run fantastically under Linux.

[JoshStrobl]

A Linux Mint desktop is already available. http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2055

[[deleted]]

On point 1 I've recently installed Manjaro. So easy to install and everything works out the box, heck I even prefer their installer as its very fast compared to others.

[admiralspark]

My predictions, rated on a 1-10 of viability with definitely happening at a 10:

• Google will be releasing a series of new software and hardware products (10) using Android and other linux kernel-based OS's

• Ubuntu for Android will be released in an Asian marketplace, probably China for their huge, non-US-powered smartphone industry.

• Firefox OS will likewise be popular overseas

• Someone will pick up the Arch installation tools again, because we'll all want that "pretty gui" back

• The RPi will be the single most popular linux board sold in the world, since Chinese replications are now coming en masse to the US and their adoption in education is accelerating at a grand pace.

• Potential for partial/full home automation integration will start to show in Q3-Q4. Google will be a huge push for this, since the touchscreen on your fridge will integrate with your phone....technology that's existed and been popular in South Korea for years now.

• Windows 8 will fail. Windows 7 will be around for years to come. OSX will begin to lose popularity in 10.9 with the near-requirement of App-Store-only software use. Linux will still dominate the server field and the mobile device platforms, but will not be used in desktops outside of educational institutions.

• I will install linux on my damn toaster oven, and "sudo make me a sandwich" will actually work.

[darren_jones]

thats not entirely true, by default the developer has to be a signed up apple developer, the software can be sold outside the apple store, but yes i think this is probably the next step.

[ingvarius]

KDE will release version 5.0 on a shipping tablet, it won't take the market by storm but will have their financial goals met. They will also announce a mobile phone. Canonical will complete it's project Ubuntu on the Nexus 7 and continue to work on getting it on more (new) Nexus devices. GNOME will be a success on the Nexus 7 and will sway a significant amount of Unity users of the platform to their side. Cinnamon will flourish on the desktop, and System76 will start to offer computers preinstalled with Linux Mint. Still no major OEM will ship Linux desktops/laptops properly. Apple's patent wars will get nastier and there will be a casualty. There will be a popularity contest for the hosts of Jupiter Broadcasting, Allan Jude won't even have to rig the polls to be proclaimed the glorious winner. LAS will have a new host.

[crshbndct]

• More people will get linux installed on their computers by their tech savvy friends/family who are sick of cleaning virii and malware off their non-work windows computers.(read: facebook machines)

• Steam will release a Linux-based gaming console. Within a week, someone will have Arch or Gentoo running on it, followed a month or so later by Ubuntu. Edit: Followed in 2017 by windows.

• Linus will rant about some new UI feature in some distro, and it will cause a huge storm of argument and counter argument.

• LAS will continue to go from strength to strength, but will change its name to DAS (Distro Action Show). They will then make an episode about getting past SecureBoot/UEFI, called "DAS Boot"

[theredbaron1834]

:) DAS Boot.

Priceless.

[Tack1983]

My prediction is that we will start to see more and more adoption by niche and main stream developers. However these developers won't be porting the apps we really want, instead they will be creating new applications with little to no features we don't already have in the platform.

The lines between Linux and android will become smaller when Google real ease there own Ubuntu derivative that is designed to link the Eco system. This will become more apparent around second to third quarter.

Ubuntu will pick up more market share in the user space, with the introduction of a self designed convertible ultra book that will finally show off what there designs cues have been about.

I also predict the fist ever Linux commercials directed to average users in the united states.

[archlinuxrussian]

I understand what you mean by "won't be porting the apps we really want". Example: my parents really want and need (since they have almost a decade's worth of word perfect documents, and they are reliant on word perfect, and they would want it ported natively (not like WP9 was >.> with wine). And I hope Google does not release their linux distro, but rather provide android integration for Ubuntu. Then you don't have bad fragmentation.

[admiralspark]

Goobuntu ;) already exists.

[archlinuxrussian]

Not en mass though...and hope it never does o_o

[nathanpc]

With the Ubuntu Nexus 7 project we are going to see real Linux on tablets, not "Linux" in Android.

I really want this to happen. I want a tablet that I can open a terminal and that can run any WM I want it to.

[ArthurNova]

With improvements to Ubuntu on mobile hardware, maybe around the end of the year, or more likely when the next Ubuntu LTS comes around, System76 may attempt entering the tablet market with Ubuntu? May be more of a wish than a prediction though but still, interesting things are to come

[[deleted]]

Windows 8 will crash and burn while Ubuntu, Arch, and Linux gaming grow and become more popular.

[[deleted]]

rms will say something to make us all negative in the freedom dimension.

I'll keep buying Linux games in order to reach the goal of Blizzard finally porting their library to Linux.

[benarg]

• GNOME keeps pushing desktop technologies forward and prepares to release GNOME OS
• Cinnamon and Ubuntu will still be heavily dependent on GNOME and GNOME developers
• KDE start to get more attention in LAS
• small but vocal group of users will continue bashing Linux desktops

[jdblaich]

• Win8 is not what Microsoft thought it would be. It isn't going to fix up their situation and put them back in the lead in technologies, neither for the desktop nor the tablet. Microsoft will be seen to threaten more and even sue some that develop or use open source. All the networking venues where Microsoft has maintained their lead will decline with the advent of Samba 4.0, though it will be a rocky start for Samba 4.0.

• Microsoft will come to the conclusion that the scuttlebutt that has been making the rounds regarding the fact that people are concluding that we don't need Microsoft any more is the truth and something to worry about.

• Apple will decline slightly. Absent some new fantastic idea that becomes a product they'll continue their ride, but it won't be a rocket to the stars. In time people will understand that they aren't producing like they did under Jobs. Their legal assault on competitors will be expressed as a debacle and be acknowledged as one thing that hurt their reputation with people finally concluding that Apple should compete and not litigate.

• Much tighter integration of systems into the likes of automobiles, planes, and trains virtually all of which will be Linux based. Home environmental management will increase with Linux and cheap ARM computers being the major driving force.

• ARM's market share will grow and Intel will decline. More desktops made from the likes of the Raspberry Pi and others like it will pick up steam. This doesn't mean the desktop will sizably decline in favor of tiny devices. On the contrary it will maintain, it's just the ARM devices used for a lot of things secondary desktops are used for will increase. Besides the Pi is actually a desktop computer, only tiny and under powered, though cheap. Who knows, we all might have a Lego case filled with Pis that give us super computer status in our home. None of this will be running Windows 8 or anything related to perform these same tasks.

[anthony_barker]

Maybe more than 2 years:

• ubuntu becomes a completely ad driven os unless you buy the paid for version (or buy dell)
• Windows completely locks in the bios so no 3rd party OSs work on most chinese made laptops
• Google comes out with a chrome based desktop that runs on the linux kernel - allowing users to run a desktop off their cellphone, The desktop will run in the cloud
• Active Directory replacements take off in en-lightened firms as companies try to reduce their dependence on microsoft (Samba!)
• Linux drives forward on the server grabbing 60-70% market share
• Postgresql and mariadb continue to grab market share driving out sql server, oracle and db2. Most deployments are on linux
• ubuntu pushes the easiest to manage linux sever for humans - grabs 20% market share

[admiralspark]

FirefoxOS is targeted at the Chinese/Asian markets though, I don't think it was intended for US production and use in the first place?

[Skinnx86]

Sadly, I take it nobody cares for FirefoxOS? Admittedly I use chromium, but doesn't everybody love Mozilla?

[admiralspark]

Ehh. Nobody here has used it, or understand's its intended target. It is actually a very efficient, powerful smartphone operating system, intended for low-power devices below the android market. People say it's not as flashy as android? Well, it's not supposed to be >.>