The Linux desktop has changed quite a lot in all of the time I have been using it. Since I first tried out Red Hat Linux 6.2 with Gnome 1.0, I was amazed that a free operating system came with so much software.I have installed it in a Virtual Machine and tried it out recently, but I was unable to get the desktop running. Then I tried Debian 3.1 on a Pentium II 350 MMX with 192 MiB of RAM. That ran very well indeed, here is a screenshot of my desktop environment. https://securitronlinux.com/linux/maps/debian2.jpg. This is KDE 2.2. A desktop environment that should come back. I know we have KDE 5, but I prefer KDE 2. Someone has updated the code and posted it online, but it would be great if someone put KDE 2.2 into a modern Debian/Ubuntu respin and uploaded it to the Internet. That would be very nice to use indeed. Especially with the old themes like RiscOS and the marble themes that are gone now. Here is more information on the KDE code update: https://securitronlinux.com/debian-testing/kde-1-now-available-on-modern-linux-distros/. This is very exciting. Good to know that a classic desktop will be coming back to Linux. Just as the proprietary CDE desktop is now available on a modern Linux distribution.
The Sparky Linux distribution now offers CDE, this is one way to enjoy this very old UNIX desktop on a modern Linux distribution. The Gnome desktop has changed a lot since the first release. It used to be like Windows in appearance and use Sawfish as a WM, now it is composited and bloated. But many people use it and create many addons to customize the desktop environment. I would rather use MATE, it is just like the classic Gnome 2 environment. Red Hat used that a lot. The Xerox Star computer system in 1981 use this desktop interface: http://toastytech.com/guis/starbitmap2.gif. It would be awesome if this desktop interface was replicated on a modern Linux computer, with the addition of color obviously. It would be something different. But if we had this technology in 1981, why were we using DOS in 1993? What happened to computing in the mean time? Was Microsoft responsible for a backwards step in computing? Was it Microsoft that brought us backwards in time when choosing DOS as their operating system? If Xerox had dominated instead of Microsoft, where would we be now in computing technology? That is a good point, I think that computing would be very different, but exciting as well.
The Xerox Star system was ahead of it`s time, as well as the demonstration of video conferencing on December 9, 1968. Douglas C. Englebart and the group of 17 researchers working with him demonstrated a system they named NLS, something they had worked on since 1962. The public presentation demonstrated the computer mouse for the first time, but the day also revealed hypertext, object addressing and dynamic file linking as well as shared-screen collaboration by two people at different workstations separated by a distance communicating over a network with a video and audio interface! And all of this in 1968, before the Moon landing when most computers where clunky beasts. This is incredible. Why are we so backwards in technology if they had this ability before the moon landing? The Xerox Star computer system from 1981 had a mouse and keyboard and a monochrome screen, but it did not have Skype styled videoconferencing like the NLS system did in 1968. Have computers gone backwards since then? With the rate of progression in technological advancement we should have far better infrastructure and computers by now but we have most computers running Windows, which does not bode well for the future of humanity. Especially Windows 10, which is horrendous.
At least we still have the same utilities we have always had, like Xterm, Xeyes and many other applications that have evolved into very powerful desktop apps such as the Gimp, Kdenlive, and the ability to run Steam on Linux and plethora of games natively running on Linux, such as Arma 3. That means that the Linux distributions of the future will have even more software available. That can only be a good thing, if the Adobe Creative suite of applications was also available to run natively on Linux, that would also be a very good thing for Linux users.