Sad story. Best OS I ever run was around 2002 NetBSD on a desktop. It is quite bad that Linux is the only viable player for an operating system on desktops/laptops. (With viable I mean has drivers for all of my my hardware and runs the software I need for personal and professional life.)
It’s amazing. No fragmentation means more standardization. And Linux is Open Source.
That’s not really true. Without some fragmentation there is no need for standards
With the same logic, Microsoft’s dominance also helps the user in not having to choose between multiple types of systems.
According to your logic we should all use Google Chrome. ;-)
Comparing Linux with the BSDs is really apples and oranges. The BSDs have a very nicely integrated base system, everything just works™ and everything works together. When you only ever used Linux or Apple with homebrew, you never experienced a system where all basic tools really fit and work together.
Linux is a pragmatic choice, but it is an Unix-clone made by PC people. The BSDs are a Unix operating system for PCs made by Unix people. We loose something very important if the BSDs get totally out of style/forgotten.
You make a very good point about Chrome. If Google was not the lord of development I might actually have nodded along with that as well.
My BSD experience comes from Truenas core which did not play nice with docker and needed a ton of custom work with jails. They have since moved to Linux with scale and suddenly everything integrates a lot more nicely.
Though there are multiple Linux versions as well maintained by different companies. But the altruistic dictator still plays a key role. I’m not sure what my opinion is now.
Redox looks like it’s up and coming, hopefully something useable pans out from it once cosmic is rolled out of alpha.
Microkernel is an uptime and security benefit on modern hardware.
I would be happy if something usable comes out of it. OTOH, the classical problem is and has always been driver support. I am not sure I like the plan of running a complete Linux as a subsystem for driver support, and I have doubts Redox will have native drivers for all hardware within the next decade.
