The future of Linux

[Senile Animal]

I know that Linux seems to me at least, to be getting more popular everyday. Do you guys think that:

1. Linux will ever offer the gaming possibilities that windows does? I mean the best Linux game I have found so far seems to be Super Tux... I don't want to have to run a virtual machine forever and I would like to ditch windows altogether.

2. Will Linux users ever become so mainsteam that viruses become more and more frequent, despite the open source community trying to stop them?

 

[Reckless]

Gaming has started.

Steam for Linux

It will eventually come to it.

I do believe having to pay for a game on an open source platform is BS.

 

[Senile Animal]

I agree. That is kind of the foot in the door for putting a price tag on and eventually doing away with open source. It is a slippery slope as they say.

 

[Yami]

1. Yes, eventually. Every year is the year of Linux, but these next few - given the release of Steam for Linux and the advent of Steamboxes - could finally be the time where it starts pushing Windows out (that and the awfulness of Windows 8).

2. I'm saying this as someone doing a degree in Ethical Hacking and Network Security - the answer is... ish. Not necessarily viruses, but there's plenty of malware around already. Linux has a biiig bonus as far as security goes because it's open-source, meaning anyone can look over and try to find vulnerabilities in the source code. It'll never be as bad as any Windows OS, but it's not necessarily impenetrable either.

 

[Joe C]

You need to be running in root in order to get a *nix box infected. *nix by default does not run in root. You would have to open your root account (that has a password) and then running in that mode install a malicious program that can run in *nix. There are vulnerabilities in *nix but they do get patched before you even know there was a vulnerability. This is unlike M$ that usually waits to the second tuesday of the month to come out with a security patch...depending if M$ feels it might be worth their while to fix a flaw during that month, and sometimes they don't fix known flaws

 

[office politics]

keep in mind, there is a very large group of non technical people using linux. How many people use android phones?

I wouldn't be surprised to start seeing android start to become more and more popular on other devices. This would get the devs to write software for those devices.

I'm quite surprised i havent heard of more virus outbreaks hit the news for ios and android. prolly because both run limited privledges out of the box.

 

[Joe C]

It's out there...Android is not immune either
https://www.google.com/search?q=and...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

ios
https://www.google.com/search?num=1..._timediscountb..0.0...1.1.16.serp.fw2VGcugaBI



.

 

[Yami]

I'm quite surprised i havent heard of more virus outbreaks hit the news for ios and android. prolly because both run limited privledges out of the box.

If you're in various security circles you see these things discovered every day.

 

[Jayce]

The future of Linux is a bright one indeed. Gaming has always kind of been that one key component that has kept a lot of people from adopting Linux full time, but that's beginning to change as Steam has invested a truckload of interest in Linux in recent months - even more interest than Windows 8. It's getting easier and easier to use, run, and maintain. My wife, mother, aunt, and several other family members use Ubuntu on their machines. I've heard of no problems from them. They just seem to keep running and doing their job.

I've used it for years now. It's been remarkable to see just how much further that Linux has evolved and progressed than other operating systems. Sometimes I have a hard time believing that five years ago I had to do so many things in Ubuntu manually, whereas today it's significantly easier.

 

[Senile Animal]

but with the increase in popularity do you think major distros like ubuntu will sell out, for lack of a better word, and bring in advertisements on the desktop programs or commercialize some of the programs and features. I know the Kernal is safe and will always be free and open source but what of the desktops and other user features?