The biggest push may indeed come from the Steam Deck. A PC in a handheld form factor, that allows you to hook it up to a monitor for a full KDE Plasma desktop experience. Very exciting. If we see a lot of people enjoy it and the Steam Deck is a success, you can be almost guaranteed that more devices will come along and slap SteamOS 3 on it and then also have a KDE Plasma desktop available.
Desktop usage is only kept afloat by their use in business. When you sit down in front of a desk at work, there’s a computer on it.
That also doesn’t bode well for linux, even if people could become familiar with it and comfortable with it, it’s doubtful that anyone in charge of computers in the office would be comfortable having those be linux desktops.
The age of the desktop really is over. Linux didn’t become mainstream, and now it’s completely moot. Even if you want to disagree with me emotionally, surely you see the writing on the wall? Everything I’ve said only becomes more true 5 years from now, 20 years from now. Not less.
That’s like saying accounting software is only “kept afloat” by its use in business. Sure, there’s more business use than personal use, but it’s business use will continue to grow.
Do you seriously think there were more desktop users in 2006 than there are now ?
You seem to think I’m pining for some kind of linux-desktop utopia, which isn’t the case at all. I’m not saying I want linux to conquer the desktop, just that the desktop isn’t dead.
Personally I think the last 20 years in computing has demonstrated that opensource is the best model for server software, while proprietary is the best model for desktop software. If linux desktops were a better product (in ways that matter to most users) then it would have gotten more traction.