Forum Discussion
Edge on Linux
I thought MS was ditching Edge for a more chrome type browser. I could be mistaken however if MS does go with a chrome engine behind its browser then the support across platforms becomes much easier. The main issues as I see it is Private code vs Public. Will have to wait and see.
Robert_Golobek Edge Chromium (the browser under development to replace Edge Classic, the current built-in Edge) is based on a Chromium/Blink/V8 platform, the same platform on which Chrome, Vivaldi and a number of other browsers are based.
If that were all Microsoft was doing with Edge Chromium, it would be a simple task to prepare Edge Chromium for use on Linux as a Snap or Flatpak.
But Microsoft, as I am coming to understand it, is not simply building a Chromium/Blink/V8 browser, more or less vanilla, with a Edge-like UI.
Instead, Microsoft is porting over many/most/all of the features/functions that distinquished Edge Classic, tightly integrating Edge Chromium into the Windows and deploying enhanced/different video/streaming protocols, enhanced security, and so on.
I suspect that doing that will complicate Microsoft's path to porting Edge Chromium over to Linux, for obvious reasons. However, to my mind anyway, Microsoft should port Edge Chromium to Linux (preferably as a Snap or Flatpak so that the port can be installed on particular distros without additional modification), just as it developed and deployed an Android browser for Android tablets/smartphones.
I realize that Linux desktop is a marginal OS, deployed on only 2% or so of desktop/laptop computers, and that so long as the energy in Linux desktop is https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-linux-desktop-is-in-trouble/, that is unlikely to change. But many Windows 10 users also use Linux desktop (most for work-related reasons, others just for recreation) and deploying Edge Chromium as a Windows/Linux/Android cross-platform browser would increase Edge Chromium's market share, it seems to me, and better align Edge Chromium with Microsoft's move toward open source and Linux support.
Hey I still use Linux for most of my networking and back office coding. Not to shabby an OS that has been around since DOS and is still free and publicly supported.
Robert_Golobek I use Linux desktop, too, deployed on a dedicated desktop (recreational, testing Solus Budgie) and a dedicated laptop (work-related for network diagnostics/maintenance at a railroad museum where I volunteer). Linux is a great OS, with some limitations.
The primary limitation -- focus on creating endless distros instead of creating an environment in which applications will be more widely developed) is identified by the author of the article I linked in the previous post. I note that Linus Torvalds said the same thing recently, at some length (for him).
I don't expect the perennially predicted "Year of the Linux Desktop" to materialize in my lifetime. Of course, I'm in my mid-seventies, so that's not a high bar to cross.
I prefer FOSS, using Libre Office, Gimp and so on, and my comments about Linux's problems were not intended to trash either Linux or FOSS.
