Innovation

In 1991, a student called Linus Torvalds changed the world by creating a free operating system inspired by Unix. A staff member at the University of Helsinki named it by accident, combining the two names to create a project folder called Linux. In 1995, Qt provided a C++ framework to develop desktop interfaces, and in 1996, Matthias Ettrich announced Kool Desktop Environment (KDE), a graphical interface for Unix systems. Two years later, KDE 1.0 launched for Unix systems, including Linux.

Since then, fans have anticipated Linux becoming a viable desktop rival to Windows, perpetually declaring that the year of desktop Linux has arrived, their enthusiasm colliding with perpetually low adoption figures. According to StatCounter, Linux desktop had 0.64% market share at the start of 2009, took four years to reach 1% and another eight to pass 2%. This is despite, or perhaps because of, many excellent Linux desktop choices, such as Ubuntu, Mint, and Zorin OS.