10 (probably wrong) Linux Predictions for 2019
487With the new year, comes a new set of unrealistic predictions. Here are my 10 predictions for Linux in 2019, probably too late, and totally wrong, but it's still worth a try !
Link to GNOME's new adwaita theme screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/J9sLlky
More AAA games
Proton and steamplay improvements, coupled with Vulkan and DXVK support will probably drive a lot more games to our Linux machines. Steam already has greatly expanded its official support list, and new games are made compatible every month. With these advances, I feel we'll see better driver support for Linux, a lot more AAA games available on release day through SteamPlay, and performance that gets closer to native windows.
Big names proprietary software
While the gaming industry is generally the first one to blaze trends, they are usually followed by other industries. I think this means that more publishers will try their hand à Linux support. With the likes of Adobe redoing market share analysis for the viability of a Linux version, I think more publishers will also look at porting their software to Linux.
Probably still no Adobe Creative Cloud, but I think we'll see some more proprietary software being developed for the platform.
More computers will ship with Linux
As games and software become available, I would expect some manufacturers to take notice, and offer Linux computers to buy. Dell already has a strong offering with its XPS line, which is widely acclaimed as one of the best laptops out there, and I would expect more manufacturers to try their hand at Linux computers. Whether they'll sell or not is a different story, since history shows that these companies usually do a terrible job at marketing and promoting these offerings.
Still no phone and mobile market share
Apart from Android, that is. I don't think we'll see mobile efforts reach a large audience. While I salute the efforts of the Librem phone, and as much as I would love having a full Linux phone synced with my desktop, I feel that no large phone manufacturer or mobile carrier will embrace Linux as a mobile platform this year. These efforts are still in their infancy, despite being worked on for years now.
More desktop market share
With all the improvements above, it would be strange if we didn't see the Linux desktop market share grow. With more games, more publisher support, and more manufacturers shipping Linux desktops and laptops, I feel like more people will try their hand at Linux, and, hopefully, stick with it. Windows 10 being the mess we all know about, and Macs having jumped way over the acceptable budget threshold, Linux computers could be an appealing solution.
Display scaling perfected
DIsplay scaling is still a bit of a problem on linux, especially fractional scaling, and I expect 2019 to be the year it finally gets done right. While scaling to round numbers, such as 2x is now pretty much OK for every major DE, fractional scaling is not up to par, or unsupported altogether. I think we will see a full, complete implementation in 2019.
Ubuntu will not change its course on the desktop
With the move to GNOME, with very little customization added to the desktop apart from the theme, I feel Ubuntu will not bring more focus to the desktop experience, apart from a few improvements. Canonical's focus is obviously on the server side of things, especially now that Red Hat has been bought, and they probably won't allocate too much resources to the desktop with a future IPO looming in the distance.
Wayland still won't be the default for most distros
Wayland, as good as it looks on paper, is still not ready for prime time if you use proprietary graphics drivers. As such, I would expect it to still not be shipped as a default solution on most distributions. While Xorg is old, it's stable enough and works okay, and I would be surprised if major distros shifted their entire user base to Wayland overnight.
App distribution
Flatpaks and Snaps are all the rage these days, with the AppImage format looming in the background. While I'm not a strong proponent of these formats, since they introduce all the cruft and that we're used to on Windows, with duplicate versions of libraries, unpatched security flaws, and such, I feel they are the way forward to finally get rid of all the dependencies issues and complications. I would expect these formats to become standard and ship by default on most major distributions, with a lot of refinement in the "App Store" side of things, to better manage these programs.
Better looks
Whith GNOME actively working on improving its default look and feel, I think we'll see more attractive desktop environments by default. The new GNOME redesign is stated to be flatter, more modern, with more vivid colors, and I would expect other DE's to follow suit with a bit of theme tweaking here and there to better match the new icons and new looks.
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