It was back in 2002, according to Sam Trenholme, the creator of the secure DNS server software MaraDNS.

Posted by Serdar Yegulalp, May 14, 2009 11:45 AM

That was the year that forces conspired to make sure Linux on the desktop would never become a reality. Linux as a server was another matter entirely, but to him the "Linux desktop" is as dead as the Amiga.

How did this happen? Sam cites three things.

 * Mac OS X was out and getting application support; UNIX was finally on the desktop (and it wasn't Linux).
 * Windows XP came out: Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) finally had an OS for end-user desktops with server-level stability. [I question whether XP's stability is "server-level"; that to me would imply being able to hot-add memory or do other things that are way out of XP's league. "Suitably stable" is more like it.]
 * Loki games, a company that made games for Linux, went out of business. This was the final nail in the coffin for commercial desktop applications for Linux...[Information Weekly...]    [Comments...]