Whatever philosophic thoughts I have about life and future personal goals, became specific enough to be moved here.
           
            The original Idea of this page was to promote the use of Linux on the desktop. That is still the goal relative to desktop computing, using an X86 PC for the short term future.
    However, For most people, the use of Linux on the desktop will always be a future metaphor of use or may never occur, because most people are going into the use of mobile devices and in that realm, Android flat out won... (70% of global market share for Smart phones and 48% of Tablets).
        Android *IS* the Linux Kernel with modifications, all of the rest is the User Space Interface specifically designed for Android.- See Note **
        For the time being since it is not specific to the  "Linux Desktop" relating to performance computing, "Android" will not be covered here, just mentioned from time to time.

However this is not a "lets watch the big ship desktop computing sink into the past" because if you need to use complex applications like a word processor or do image manipulation or want comprehensive control of web based applications and build websites... or even printing with control... the Desktop Computer as workstation IS how it is done.  This is how we do it today... Android Computers on something other than X86 PC will be the future to be sure... but for now we will stick with pure Linux desktop computers and experiment with Android on the desktop as appropriate until it manifests itself as a desktop equal.

        By the way, congratulations go to Linus Torvalds who won the  Millennium Technology award.

Our distribution of choice is aptosid Linux, based on Debian unstable, it is our main system for all of our computers.
My current aptosid Linux system of this day 04-21-13:
.
It is a function first build with an emphasis on productivity.  Global 3D simulation mapping, Graphics and Image manipulation, internet and e-mail power applications ( FTP upload/http creation with powerful wysiwyg capability) multimedia video editing and word processing with color printing... That is a lot to ask from a single computer.
So it is an eight core 64 bit CPU from AMD using an AMD64 based Linux system that is way out front of many types of Linux.
Host/Kernel/OS  "Eyland0" running Linux 3.9-2.slh.2-aptosid-amd64 x86_64 [ aptosid 2012-01  "Θάνατος - kde-lite - ( 201212010120 ) ]
CPU Info        8x AMD FX-8120 Eight-Core 2048 KB cache flags( sse3 ht nx lm svm ) clocked at [ 1400.000 MHz ]
Videocard       NVIDIA G86 [GeForce 8500 GT]  X.Org 1.12.4  [ 1920x1080@60.0hz ]
Network cards   D-Link System Inc DGE-560T PCI Express Gigabit
Processes 177 | Uptime 9:04 | Memory 460.1/7973.9MB | HDD WDC WD6000HLHX-0,ST3500418AS,AS2105 Size 1420GB (35%used) | GLX Renderer Gallium 0.4 on NV86 | GLX Version Yes | Client Shell | Infobash v3.46

It is a hybrid Linux with many pure high integrity applications that subscribe to the goals of Debian {(as many as possible) - The Social Contract} but I do have many proprietary drivers and some applications that just get the job done with a more pragmatic real dirt world of the real world... The world is the way it is, get over it and get on with it.
  Note **    {Yes, I do seek honest high level integrity...
    ...However I am also a bit pragmatic and face the reality that I will be long gone*  before the war over mathematics and who controls it is resolved. (pure software patents without a real machine tied to it is like saying... Only I can say 2+2=4 And I will sue you for saying it, unless you pay me..)}
  "Welcome to the real world, Neo"  Of course in the end it all works out the right way, just like attempts to control the idea of the printing press failed, humanity wins in the end.
It may be 500 years from now... but in the end the humanity will win over the age of corporations (have faith and hope real hard). Patents were never conceived as weapons to prevent progress by denying the ability to innovate and in the world of software that is often how they are used.  I am even a part of one, however the patent was part of a specific type of machine, and not pure mathamatics for its own sake... that is the difference.  Copyrights, yes, for pure software and patents of limited time for Machines and their specific software needed to run. Massive difference.

*
  


  There are many hundreds of "distros"
 
Why is both simple and complex. Let me show you why...  Too many types of Linux to ever become like the dictatorial One Way of Windows® It is never going to become universal as to manor of build or the system of compiling the software because there is no central agency controlling it.  Want proof... Try to take this in. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Gldt1009.svg
    What does this mean is the simple part,  There will never be a single Distribution of Linux... The proverbial one ring to rule them all.  Simple, it won't happen.
   
Linux was created basically on the internet and lives on it, and runs with it. In a manor of speaking, Linux is becoming the backbone of the world at the non desktop level.     
        
  Also it will run Google Earth as a separate build on the same machine
Google Earth 6, a good example of a collaborative software being used between a computer and a server out in cyberspace. 
I run it at my local Machine but it lives on the web.
 
Note: Slightly out dated images 11-25-2011: 

Google Earth   6.0.3.2197
Build Date        11-1-2011
Build Time        5:16:07 pm
Renderer         OpenGL
Operating System  Linux 3.1-2.slh.3-aptosid-amd64 x86_64
Video Driver   nouveau
Max Texture Size   4096x4096  
Server             kh.google.com

.
Portland, OR. in simulated 3D is dynamic as one "flying" over it.  The whole world is there to look at and study. From the smallest little island to some of the more hidden places on Earth.
Right down to street level for many. 
Here is a sideways view of a street. As one can see it is a mixture of satellite imaging and a database of known data of an area.  This shot is not quite fully completed in this picture as I caught it mid processing and the texture maps are visible here.
This is powerful technology.
.
The house is accurate as it is on a street I know well... soon the whole street will be in 3D.  It is the future of things to come.

How accurate is it... Google Earth that is.
.
This was made with the previous version G.E. 5.0 - not bad, one is a picture from the top of the WTC (1985) with Ektachrome and the other is Google Earth a year ago.

About Linux (not just the kernel but the entire immense  project in its entirety mostly made up of open source software.  by design and necessity of perfected growth, a meritocracy. 
The benefit to humanity is beginning to be seen in Mobile (Android), Also in  Supercomputers, Intelligence, defense, NASA and Open Source Software
 (apache) powers most of the internet itself.

Knowledge is power,  truth (wisdom) clears the fog of ignorance or misinformation.

Linux will not be stopped.
             Fact is Linux is of Strategic importance to the US and the rest of the world now.   So Say the DoD and DoJ as well many other countries.
            http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/April/11-at-491.html 

    This is important information that indicates how the world is changing.  It use to be that the kernel of Linux was about 80-90% individual private hobby code contributions.... That was a long time ago... Now in the year 2013 it is the other way around, 89% of the kernel is big gun corporations and powerful companies paying for it to be the heavy 800lb Gorilla in the room and 11% private code contributions.
    This is how it will be, Linux runs the world now... going into the past is Unix and that other Operating System that breaks when a rock is thrown though it, so to speak, because mobile waits for no one. 

Linux is a right now thing if you want it to be so...
aptosid -(lowercase is correct) Linux is the opposite of Enterprise grade Linux. (so stable it is dead) that is what Enterprise means.  Super Reliable but dead as a doornail.  Look, many people need that. That is why it is that way, it is bug free because it is locked into itself and nobody touches the code, ipso facto OLD but very very reliable.  Here is an example of a Enterprise Grade Linux

So in the opposite direction of enterprise Linux is something like aptosid...
      What is a rolling release?  Short answer... Instead of testing or release "versions" the distribution, it is built to a live CD or DVD that you make... more like the entrance to a freeway. Once your system is running on your Hard Disk, it gets updated whenever you wish to go through the process of updating it, from the network, with as many of the applications and programs you are running in total. different days different programs and applications as they occur in the real world right now. 
    Both ways of running a Linux are valid and serve different needs or desires. and these are the extremes of the world in desktop computers.


Time to explain the number of Linux distributions...  and why this makes Linux so powerful and in the viral sense essentially indefeasible.
Its all tied together at the core and that is just about all that is tied together....  http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/forking.html
But wait... you think Linux XYZ is a fork of something called Linux ZYX or something implying a mess of unrelated Linux's cluttering up the universe.  > 400 plus distros and counting...  well these are versions of.. or specialized variations of ONE Linux standard base...

To this day (yes)  not one virus or malware has survived in the wild with any Linux as a social event.  goes to:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware
Period, not one.  I could go on and on about it but what would the point be.   security is very much in the minds of those who code for Linux and it is always in the forefront of seriousness but there is also the aforementioned inherent fact of its reality.  Linux is very secure  So say the NSA and I as well,  even as a desktop user, more so because my desktop Linux makes a statement, even slightly with what is possible.
--------

Current file managerdate4-6-13:
KDE
Dolphin
Version 4.8.4
Using KDE Platform 4.8.4
screenshot below.



.
A good distro of Linux will have many good applications...
aptosid based on Debian will have about 40,000...  programs and applications that provide all of the things one might want a computer to do.
Currently my computer has 1,756 applications and programs installed to make it rock.

40,844 --  think I am joking... I am not... http://packages.debian.org/unstable/allpackages?format=txt.gz

The trick is to know what you need and what you do not need.
------------------------------------

    aptosid upgrade in progress:
    Photo of this process which is done below the use of a GUI ( KDE ) which means ( command line is your friend when its needed ).
    .  old picture from about a two? years ago. 2.6 Linux Kernel was a long time ago
    Thats right... you log out of the high level system (KDE) Log in with the command line (bash) as root and shut the KDE process down (leave the GUI not running -- init 3 ) then start the upgrade process by getting updates relevant to your individual system.  Once the updates are loaded you compile them to your machine... actually the machine does this compiling task.
 I have about 1500 applications installed - that is every process that this computer uses to do its running state as a desktop computer.  It just runs.  I do this three times a week.
What is special to Linux is the ability to do this, including the heart of the system (the Kernel) while it is running. This is some powerful stuff.  This is Linux.
  
    aptosid user/member # is 97 ( Not a power number or anything other than I was there when sidux changed to aptosid and logged in early and re-registered as one of the members of the forum, I don't post much. )
    . This is my avatar,  was made from a frame of film  Lord of the Ring's using the GIMP  as it appears at left, it was never in any film  it just looks like it might have.

     I have been a serious Linux user ever since working at Intel in the mid-late 1997 were I was a configuration guru at MD6 Jones farm, Hillsboro, OR.
    Strangely enough I was hired as something of an expert at Windows® configurations, having worked for a local custom microcomputer configuration company for several years Win95 then Win98 at Intel it was NT3.51 and NT4. and after 18 months plus a few weeks, I left believing that Microsoft was history and Linux was going to master the world.  I still think that is inevitable. We made crash test dummy's of windows computers and recorded the last moments of life as they were stressed to death.
(not that hard to do) Intel made special instructions to the core of their processors that made Windows run better than it otherwise could.  Errata corrections in firmware.

I also was someone who installed many different operating systems for testing... all of them that were usable at that time in an X86 environment.
The Engineers at Intel pointed me in the direction of Linux as something of interest with a real potential future (Red hat Linux 4.x and 5.x) I was hooked good, even though it was not that easy to use *then* but it was reliable.

I taught computer configuration at a local College for a short time afterward.  By then though our electronics company was standing on its own.
And from before, long ago, I share a patent in computing/video technologies from the early 1990's http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?WO=1996008108  When I was with Unilearn and the related company Foresight before that.
  . .(More details  http://www.patents.com/us-5576844.html ) 

Actually I go back to the days of ECM3 and Watkins Johnson Co from 1971,  a world of physics and microwave antennas.

above:  I am working the Anechoic chamber test station at WJ 1976ish.  Watkins-Jonson Co. {(Palo Alto and San Jose, CA) and Gaithersburg, Maryland}

I have built thousands of computers and this is were I am, mostly now as a hobby and for our company and friends... I have no commercial interest in computers... we manufacture AC power products, audio and video related electronics and stereo interconnects and speakers.
 
Also spent much time as a film fanatic playing, teaching and doing old school motion picture optical FX while attempting to be an associate producer.
     In a way I think film is a great way to teach because it reaches out to the imaginations of millions.
Picture credit: Todd A. Marks - Computer/Video Playback Supervisor
    Above: Yours truly in the early 1980's, I really miss those days... I would do it differently but it is always true that hindsight is 20-20

    

The real power of Linux rises to the top of its capabilities with supercomputers and yet it is fantastic if configured well with a desktop that need flexibility, yet with reliability.
IBM supercomputer means a future Linux Super Computer.

In this realm it has no peer or even faint competition. See this graphic from the BBC {(select OS type (Operating System)} and every one of the top 500 supercomputers around the world is listed.
and almost all will be running Linux or... in decline now, is its predecessor relative, UNIX (takes a while to load... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10187248  )

Other popular Operating Systems for Personal Computer types are essentially a no show...  You see Linux can operate on a PC but that is not were the effort resides... its a supercomputer operating system. 
And it should also come as no surprise that its other broad sweep is into all of the other widgets of popular demand like mobile phones, tablets and hand held devices.
this Linux in those markets I think is number one in growth:
 Android, Here is a visual from youtube about activations around the world - nicely done - Droid  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqFpq9WXbJo&feature=player_embedded
 The list is long, go here and see, its easer http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/Linux-For-Devices-Articles/Linux-Mobile-Phones/

I am not an expert in those markets so you might, if you have an interest, is to see this for more information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMo_Foundation

Such that as this is being written... The Kernel of Linux ( just the Kernel ) is the largest, fastest moving, computer software project on Earth...
Still true in 2013
Linux Kernel development:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2SED6sewRw

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel

A good distro of Linux including its applications can easily go over 200 million lines of code. Remember as a desktop, has to do everything you can imagine.

Now about the relevance of Desktop Computers...
The demise of the PC desktop at the entry level of computing... and that will be the eventual end of the road for those companies that can't adapt or offer something genuinely innovative and high end at the workstation level.

It is not the main focus of the developers of Linux nor has it had significant market share. Something between 1.5 and 5 percent depending on which voodoo you use to calculate something that is not able to be calculated.  And in the future, the PC is likely to go into decline for the average person.

More of the general population are using laptops and mobile devices today, actually having a fixed location Personal Computer is as a ratio of those who have a computing device is beginning to decline... barely noticeable but the trend is there.

Open Source Software defines the world of the server... http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/201208/index.html ...  it is happening, look at the trends... Linux and Open source software is the future and is dominant now...   Learn Linux and join the future.  Become powerful and control your own destiny by knowledge of what is real.

  

  Caught while switching desktops... I know, this is conservative stuff for a Linux computer.
    maybe someday I will try some of the really pretty bling...  See just below, the you tube video from NixiePixel.

Above:  This system has many desktops as a potential workspaces... caught in mid switch. just a plan cube, nothing fancy... see the video.
More here from YouTube (the cube better than mine) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGY9cwSjZsU&feature=channel

NixiePixel Linux Channel - just because she's cool.
  

 
    . Clickable for more info.
  


    Dennis Ritchie  Died Oct 12- 2011.
    Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (b. September 9, 1941; found dead October 12, 2011)
              One of the creators of Unix Worked for Bell Labs when Unix was created in 1969.
           At the white house  receiving National Technology Medals.  In memory of   A BBC tribute
  

 
           ©2013 Jennifer Crock and Michael Crock LLC.  .