There's a limited number of apps optimized for DeX and others don't always work properly on the big screen. [...] Ultimately, DeX blurs the line between smartphone and PC better than any other attempt we've seen -- we're just not convinced many people will find it genuinely useful.Samsung, apparently, agreed with this assessment, and decided to do something about it. They decided that what DeX really needs is Linux.
From The Reg:
Samsung has announced it will soon become possible to run actual proper Linux on its Note8, Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones – and even Linux desktops.
Yeah, yeah, we know Android is built on Linux, but you know what we mean. Samsung said it's working on an app called “Linux on Galaxy” that will let users “run their preferred Linux distribution on their smartphones utilizing the same Linux kernel that powers the Android OS.”
“Whenever they need to use a function that is not available on the smartphone OS, users can simply switch to the app and run any program they need to in a Linux OS environment,” Samsung says. The app also allows multiple OSes to run on a device.
[...]
Samsung thinks developers are the market for Linux on Galaxy, as it means they “can now set up a fully functional development environment with all the advantages of a desktop setting that is accessible anytime, anywhere”. Samsung's announcement suggests developers will “code using their mobile on-the-go and with Samsung DeX, and can seamlessly continue the task on a larger display.”We keep creeping closer to the day when you really can do all of your personal computing, productivity and mobile, with a single device that fits in your pocket. With Microsoft giving up on Windows 10 mobile, and HP putting a bullet in Continuum, it's looking more and more like that truly-all-in-one PC will be Linux-powered, and not Windows-powered.
And it's at this point that I'll point to the Linux Shift, which is already underway:
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| Data from NetMarketShare - Includes monthly OS market share at the end of each indicated month for Windows 7, Windows 10, MacOS, and Linux/Other, both as 1st reported by NMS (1st), and as later revised (rev). |
Windows is looking less and less like the future of computing all the time now, and more and more like a lingering old guard. It'll be a while yet before PC gaming starts to embrace Linux in any big way, of course, and larger organizations and corporations will probably stay with Windows for a few years yet, but there does seem to be a viable contender in the desktop OS market. With Windows 7 finally showing signs of decline, and Windows 10 still looking pretty flat (the trend lines don't lie, folks), the fact that Linux is showing the most rapid growth could combine rather neatly with the fact that Linux spans the gap between desktops and mobile, resulting in a true paradigm shift in personal computing.
Paradigm shifts don't happen very often. Even the explosive growth of smartphones wasn't enough to change the paradigm of desktop computing. But we really could be on the edge of another fundamental shift in the way we use technology, and I, for one, find that prospect to be very exciting. It's a bit of a pity that Microsoft don't seem to want to be part of it, but I guess that goes hand in hand with being the status quo; ironically, it may be MS's insistence that Windows users abandon their old ways of doing things, the better to embrace the new, which may have jump-started the very shift in technology usage that will render Windows, and Microsoft, obsolete.