They didn't say Linux in isolation, they said it on a comment on a story that mentions two Linux non-conventional distributions and has no mention of conventional Linux. Therefore the presumption is that they're referring to the Linuxes in the article.
That is not how anyone uses that term. For starters, Linux is also GPL licensed, so if it was like that then we wouldn't bother calling it GNU/Linux, we could just call it GNU. More to the point though, being GPL-licensed doesn't make something part of the GNU project.
GrapheneOS-style sand-boxing for every app is long overdue in Linux. I'd love to have it's granular permissions for every single service. I'd love to have the battery management, the unified settings UI, the effortless disk encryption UX and key management.
Could you build it with SE Linux and a lot of glue? Yes, but nobody has. And doing it well, everywhere, would take a lot of hours.
You will never have a UI capable of encompassing all the settings available in Linux. You will only have a UI capable of configuring your desktop experience, which is just a small subset of the full Linux experience.
Is it unreasonable to ask "why not"? I like the state of Android's (as packaged by GrapheneOS) settings UI much better than any other settings system, period.
It's all in one place - I can't think of a single thing I would want to configure that isn't found in that one dialog. It doesn't always make sense, but it's searchable, and the search works.
Unfortunately, not even close to being as comfortable to use as GrapheneOS, and still significantly less secure than it - even if we completely disregard the sad situation of hardware security on x86 (but can't blame QubesOS for that one).
Those semantics hide that game studios keep using Windows workstations, developing Windows games, creating kernel drivers, targeting Windows users as customers, and it is up to Valve to make those games run on SteamOS.
Seems like you moved the goalposts pretty far... Consumers using Linux has shot up pretty dramatically this year, at least in my social circles. I count at least a dozen, non technical friends who decided to drop windows. That number has been zero a year for decades.
Game devs working in Linux is always a lagging indicator. Once there's a market share, they'll go there. Once it's the preferred os for people, you'll be able to develop on it. Games is already an incredibly risky market sector.
Instead, I encourage you to look at blender. It's gone through a "cute hobbyist/prosumer tool" phase and is now in the mega million dollar movies and games use it as their primary tool. Desktop Linux is on a similar curve thanks to Valve. If enough people start using it at home, industry will flip over.
Nope, they are still on the same spot, Proton isn't Linux gaming, is making Windows ecosystem available on Linux, because Valve has failed to provide enough value for game studios to target SteamOS natively.
Blender was a commercial product that became FOSS, with an existing customer base.
People using Linux as their desktop OS are using desktop Linux. What binaries they run on that OS doesn't change what OS they are running.
You've developed a "No true Scotsman" definition for desktop Linux that seems far from the common understanding that "if you use Linux as your OS on your desktop, you are a desktop Linux user".
If you feel your definition of purity tested "only Linux binaries or it doesn't count as a Linux desktop" is better, I'm not going to tell you you are wrong, just expect that you have a definition significantly out of the norm and will have a challenging uphill battle in getting others to adopt it.
Does most of the work to keep a Linux desktop developed? That's an incredible claim and needs a source. You might be able to convince me that most kernel developer impact comes from that community, but not the OS.
Except being able to buy GNU/Linux laptops from known brands, the same that sell Android and Chromebooks with 100% supported hardware, at FNAC, Worten, Saturn, MediaMarkt, Publico, Dixon, CoolBlue,....
It would be great, however it died alongside netbooks.
Only the first netbook came with Linux. The Asus EEEPC 701. This was mainly because it was so underpowered it couldn't run windows (and some nonresizable dialogue boxes didn't even fit on screen). But they dropped it with later models.
As owner of an Asus 1215B, that lasted from 2009 until last year, having gotten disk and memory upgrades during its lifetime, going through all Ubuntu LTS upgrades, bought with it pre-installed, that is certainly not true.
Ah ok, here they were all windows in the shops after the first one.
I can imagine also because Asus' distro was pretty terrible, it probably gave some backlash against Linux. I think the only reason they made it was to make it work on that tiny screen.
I spent ages at the time trying to make macOS work. I had it booting but due to the CPU being below 1 Ghz the timing screwed up and timing related actions happened in slow motion (this was a timing divider issue not sure to the slowness itself). I even messed with the kernel code trying to get it to work.
On a later Acer netbook I got it running perfectly though.
They hated him because he spoke the truth. An up to date ChromeOS is extremly secure compared to the non-existant security model of the linux desktop. Only Secureblue or QubesOS come even close.
Android is open source; MacOS and Windows aren’t. This gives me more control over my computer, especially since this means LineageOS and GrapheneOS for the desktop soon.
