Adoption of Linux on desktop (again!)

[80-watt Hamster]

So, this should have been a response in a different thread, but these thoughts came to me a ways after reading it, and I can't find said thread now. One participant was quite adamant that the broader adoption of Linux was contingent on unification of distributions; if not universally, then at least of the leading few. The argument is that Windows and OS X can build momentum because the UI and UX are very consistent across versions and releases, while there are dozens of well-developed Linux distributions and nearly as many desktop environments, and it's too confusing for Joe Public.

There's merit to that argument, but it's not as strong as it seems on the surface, IMO. One of Linux's great strengths is in modularity. You can build the surface in almost any way you like but the bones are broadly the same. Jumping to Mint is pretty easy even if you learned on Kubuntu, and that's true of nearly all the well-developed distros. (I started on Red Hat in '99 or so, and wended my way through several others before landing on Gentoo. Then I decided that games were more important than Linux, and have been living in Winland for the last decade and a half.)

Unifying desktop Linux would also destroy one of Linux's other great strengths: Flexibility. If you don't like how the Windows UI works, it's either time to download a bunch of unofficial and possibly dodgy hacks, or live with the continually decreasing customization Microsoft sees fit to grant us. If there's not a Linux-compatible desktop environment that suits you, you must want something really niche.

Another comment made was how Linux advocates have been predicting that Linux will overtake Windows on desktop within 10 years for the past 30 years. Now, I don't recall whether I ever said or believed that, but there was a point in time where I sure wanted that to happen. But a funny thing happened in the past two decades: Consumer Windows got good. XP changed everything. When first experiencing Linux, I kept thinking to myself, "Now this is how an OS should behave." Nigh-eternal stability. A truly useful command line. Genuinely attractive desktop environments. Robust automated software management*. Microsoft solved stability and command line with XP (well, with NT 4.0 and 2K, but those weren't rolled out to consumers). Attractiveness is harder to judge, but Vista looked reasonably nice, IMO. And by W7, auto update had been vastly improved, and was nigh-solved with 10. I can probably count the number of W10 drivers I've needed to manually install on my fingers without running short of digits.

Desktop Linux can seem as to not present as compelling a case as it used to, despite improving drastically, because it's biggest competitor has improved to an arguably even greater degree. What it does retain is openness, flexibility, and freedom from built-in advertising and whatever other incitements MS includes toward its SaaS products. I've been content on W10. Modern Windows is genuinely a stunning technological achievement. With the ever-declining user/consumer-friendliness of Windows, though, Linux and I will be having a serious conversation when W10 reaches end-of-support.

 

[R-T-B]

Funny you should mention Gentoo, I switched to it from 11 a few weekends ago.

I pretty much agree 100% with what you have written so not much to say.

 

[Solaris17]

There's merit to that argument, but it's not as strong as it seems on the surface, IMO. One of Linux's great strengths is in modularity.

oof I would have to disagree. Especially when it comes to "Joe public" I happen to like the flavors, but Joe public likes consistency. You might think that its a shallow argument, but im willing to bet some random person you quizzed at the grocery store would tell you they would like there computers to "look the same".

With that said, I kind of agree. I think the unification of say a DE and a distro are different though, and to play the otherside of the fence, the "big 3" Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse already exist and you can just stick to them if you dont want to explore.

This is a really sound argument over all and I love your post.

I use linux everyday for servers and my test machine currently has linux on it to test ARC. My laptop which I use all the time has linux on it full time.

In time I hope to actually switch and over the years I have thought about it. Part of it was being young and not knowing anyone platform well and feeling like I should "decide" over the years though I have had to use administer or engineer with all of them. So now its as if im just changing the color of my socks.

Now its not about the OS but what I /want/ my current dream. Is that office and no I dont mean wine/proton emulation. comes to linux. With MS so friendly to open source now maybe it will be a reality. maybe not. The new thunderbird looks nice, but you know the only thing really keeping me on Windows is probably the office suite. I am married to outlook and my wife, and there just isnt a replacement no matter how many advocate for it, and im an advocate for linux for sure.

Gaming im not worried about at all. I will be able to play what I want.

My issues bring me to my next epiphany. Its daily drivability. The thing is. Most people go home, watch TV, play with there kids, mow there lawn. Your parents, the mcdonalds cashiers parents, arent going home and game, or using the terminal. They want to check there email. watch amazon prime video and window shop for things there office job wont let them buy.

IMO libre office, open office, mailspring, the new thunderbird (DOES look hella swanky) just arent there. People want the functionality of the things they use at work, because thats all they need and understand. Accountants are not the kind of people that are going home and try to learn linux in there early 60's.

Until Linux or the "everyday" software can provide this kind of experience. IMO the adoption rate will be low.

Even if people like us love it, we as the market share shows. Are an infinitesimally small amount of the global PC userbase.

BONUS RANT: I AM fucking MAD that middle click on my damn mouse does not open the scroll function like windows and I am furious that pretty much no DE lets you apply different wallpapers to each of your monitors without downloading and installing some x11/xorg/waylend/gnome extension. Listen. I want different pictures of fucking SPACE on my monitors. Let me do what I have been able to do on every other OS since like 2007. wtf are you thinking????

Anyway. Imma go test Kena bridge of spirits now on an ARC 770 in ubuntu 23.04 on 6.5-rc2.

Also I love budgie, and KDE but Cosmic looks nice, I hope its more easily installable on debian based distros soon, because im not fond of pop being a year behind.

 

[80-watt Hamster]

Funny you should mention Gentoo, I switched to it from 11 a few weekends ago.

I pretty much agree 100% with what you have written so not much to say.

How's Gentoo these days / been for you? I'd initially chosen it on the recommendation of a friend, and liked the compile-customized-at-installation strategy. It was a bigger pain to get going than RH, but easier that Slackware. But once it was set up.... basically didn't have to touch it. Though that tends to be true of Linux in general IME.

oof I would have to disagree. Especially when it comes to "Joe public" I happen to like the flavors, but Joe public likes consistency. You might think that its a shallow argument, but im willing to bet some random person you quizzed at the grocery store would tell you they would like there computers to "look the same".

With that said, I kind of agree. I think the unification of say a DE and a distro are different though, and to play the otherside of the fence, the "big 3" Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse already exist and you can just stick to them if you dont want to explore.

This is a really sound argument over all and I love your post.

I use linux everyday for servers and my test machine currently has linux on it to test ARC. My laptop which I use all the time has linux on it full time.

In time I hope to actually switch and over the years I have thought about it. Part of it was being young and not knowing anyone platform well and feeling like I should "decide" over the years though I have had to use administer or engineer with all of them. So now its as if im just changing the color of my socks.

Now its not about the OS but what I /want/ my current dream. Is that office and no I dont mean wine/proton emulation. comes to linux. With MS so friendly to open source now maybe it will be a reality. maybe not. The new thunderbird looks nice, but you know the only thing really keeping me on Windows is probably the office suite. I am married to outlook and my wife, and there just isnt a replacement no matter how many advocate for it, and im an advocate for linux for sure.

Gaming im not worried about at all. I will be able to play what I want.

My issues bring me to my next epiphany. Its daily drivability. The thing is. Most people go home, watch TV, play with there kids, mow there lawn. Your parents, the mcdonalds cashiers parents, arent going home and game, or using the terminal. They want to check there email. watch amazon prime video and window shop for things there office job wont let them buy.

IMO libre office, open office, mailspring, the new thunderbird (DOES look hella swanky) just arent there. People want the functionality of the things they use at work, because thats all they need and understand. Accountants are not the kind of people that are going home and try to learn linux in there early 60's.

Until Linux or the "everyday" software can provide this kind of experience. IMO the adoption rate will be low.

Even if people like us love it, we as the market share shows. Are an infinitesimally small amount of the global PC userbase.

BONUS RANT: I AM fucking MAD that middle click on my damn mouse does not open the scroll function like windows and I am furious that pretty much no DE lets you apply different wallpapers to each of your monitors without downloading and installing some x11/xorg/waylend/gnome extension. Listen. I want different pictures of fucking SPACE on my monitors. Let me do what I have been able to do on every other OS since like 2007. wtf are you thinking????

Anyway. Imma go test Kena bridge of spirits now on an ARC 770 in ubuntu 23.04 on 6.5-rc2.

Also I love budgie, and KDE but Cosmic looks nice, I hope its more easily installable on debian based distros soon, because im not fond of pop being a year behind.

It's such a deceptively simple (complex?) question. From a pure observational or intuitive perspective, one can point at any number of obvious reasons for Windows' dominance or obstacles to Linux's proliferation. First is entrenchment. How do you even attempt to dislodge a boulder the size of Windows? Running with that metaphor, Linux is shooting a bunch of small arms fire (distros) at the boulder, when what's needed is explosives (unification). Or a really long lever and a firm place to stand. Maybe that's MacOS? It kind of feels like the big opportunities are gone. The PC revolution is over; 90% of people can do 90-100% of their "computing" on a phone or tablet. Now, if you consider Android as Linux, then Linux has clearly won. But that's not really what we're talking about here, is it?

You mentioned Office, and that's something I completely neglected to address or consider. If Windows is Apocalypse, Office is Galactus. The daily driver thing is well-solved by Linux, IMO. Outlook is a truly great piece of software, but unless you have Exchange or 365 email, it doesn't do anything special that another of the major MUA's don't. Well, not from memory, anyway. What percent of "regular people" (I really don't like that term, but can't think of a better ATM) even use a client over the web interface? I'd imagine most (including me!) just logon to gmail.com or live.com and go about their business.

That does leave games and Office, though. I've only ever used the word processor portions of Libre or Open, but don't recall missing anything crucial from Word. Now that Office file formats are open and XML, one even gets interoperability. Gaming's much better, or so I've heard, but until it's pretty close to 100% with solid driver support for all cards, that's going to continue to be a colossal uphill battle. I will say that you're on point about UI/UX. Weirdly enough, or maybe not so, that seems to be the hardest problem to solve in software. How many huge applications can you think of, from gigantic tech firms, that have a UI that makes you want to smash your screen? I'll highlight one: Facebook mobile. It's so bad that it's a non-trivial contributor to my abandoning the platform. Meta has legions of talented, paid developers working on their crap, but it's still not sorted. Makes you wonder if the (mostly) volunteer devs behind the open-source alts have any hope of catching up. I read somewhere back in the day that this is in part a side effect of the inmates running the asylum. Hackers (in the programming, not security sense; ref. The Jargon File) thrive on interesting problems to solve. That tends to be the programming and functionality side of things. UI design and refinement tends to be pretty boring, tedious work to that kind of brain. Plus the kind of brain that enjoys that sort of thing can get paid, and well, for doing it at Microsoft, Apple, Meta or Adobe. I assume.

We may have arrived to the furthest point that the Bazaar can take us, desktop-wise. The Cathedral has its many and serious flaws (not that the Bazaar doesn't), but man does it produce some impressive architecture.

 

[R-T-B]

How's Gentoo these days / been for you?

Same as ever. 2-day setup but smooth sailing after that.

 

[Easy Rhino]

GNU/Linux does not need any standards for the UI or UX. If people want that and want to use linux they can use PopOS or Ubuntu or any of the other company backed linux distributions. Nothing is stopping the commonors from using PopOS. It is a fine OS will all the bells and whistles. It is nearly as easy to get Steam installed on PopOS as it is Windows. And you don't get spyed on by Bill Gates as he trains his AI to take over the world. So the adoption of the linux desktop will happen as more people understand just what they are giving up when they use something like Microsoft Windows as their OS.

 

[silentbogo]

I guess someone hasn't heard of Bryan Lunduke
Haven't watched the last years rand, but I guess I'll enjoy it after work with all of you

Linux Sucks 2022

"This time it's personal."

lunduke.substack.com

It's a deep rabbit hole of a topic... But for me UI/UX inconsistency(or more properly - variety) is not an issue, or at least not a significant one.
The biggest one is still drivers(though it's getting much better, even to the point of me being able to have GPU acceleration on most of my ARM boxes).
Packaging is a mess, and as a consequence - adds a myriad of other QoL issues (and I don't think it will change any time soon).

 

[SchumannFrequency]

Nigh-eternal stability.

Linux is more stable than windows10/11 but still not as stable as the BSD systems. To give an example, take this test:

Dromaeo: Mozilla JavaScript performance test suite.

Visiting the main Dromaeo page you are given a collection of tests which can be run.

dromaeo.com

If you run those specifically with Firefox and the nouveau drivers on Linux, (but I think also with the Nvidia proprietary driver) then most Linux systems are going to crash completely and become completely unresponsive, with the only solution being to interrupt the power supply (and possible data loss). On BSD with proprietary Nvidia driver, Firefox just crashes and that's all.

Memory: RAM usage of windows11 is higher than all previous versions. Compare this to the RAM usage of Alpine Linux which has around 30 MB of active RAM usage when you combine it with a window manager. That is literally only 1% of windows11's RAM usage.

Stability: One of the most important parts of an operating system is the file system. But windows and macOS don't have a file system that is reliable-competitive with OpenZFS or most other file systems developed for Unix-like systems. It has also been shown many times that popular open source software has fewer bugs on average than popular proprietary software, which means that popular open source software is more stable.

Security: Proprietary software cannot be audited by security specialists and is therefore inherently unsafe. Furthermore, the fact that porprietary software has more bugs also means that it has an additional security risk.

Functionality: open source software evolves much faster than proprietary software and therefore also offers more functionality and more advanced tech. Certain apps and software exist for BSD and/or Linux, but not for Windows and macOS.

Freedom of choice: proprietary software always prevents your choice to change things or often prevents you from doing many things that are easily possible in open source software. For example, think of the many windows managers and desktop environments that exist for Linux and BSD, but are missing in windows and macOS.

Ease of use: updating and installing software or apps is often much easier in open source systems than in windows/macOS.

Privacy: Apple and Microsoft have an extensive history of abusing their users' privacy, something you don't see with most BSD and Linux systems.

Performance: There are always differences in performance between different operating systems.

Support: Open source systems such as Linux and BSD often offer longer and better hardware support than proprietary systems such as windows and macOS.

Audio quality: I know a lot of people who use windows and it always strikes me how terrible the audio sounds when they play music. It's not even close to how some other operating systems play sound.

What you see is that quality of a product does not mean that the product becomes more popular, for the average person it is rather the opposite, the less quality, the more popular it will be:
1. https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/report-consumers-say-mcdonalds-has-the-worst-quality-fast-food
2. https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-least-reliable-ev-brand-uk-survey-2022-3?r=US&IR=T

 

[Assimilator]

And you don't get spyed on by Bill Gates as he trains his AI to take over the world. So the adoption of the linux desktop will happen as more people understand just what they are giving up when they use something like Microsoft Windows as their OS.

Stupid tinfoil hat s**t like this is why desktop Linux will never take over. People don't care about ideology, they care about IT JUST WORKS. And Linux, for most people, still doesn't; @Solaris17 's rant about mouse middle scroll and desktop wallpaper not working are precisely the kind of things that turn away people who want IT JUST WORKS. I count myself among their number; while I'm certainly capable of setting up and configuring a Linux distro to behave the way I want it, I can't be a***d to bugger around doing it.

I'm not saying that Linux on the desktop hasn't made massive strides, but as the OP noted Windows has arguably made bigger ones. Whether MS will throw it all away with the dumbing-down of Win11 and the cloud push remains to be seen.

 

[gurusmi]

From a professional prospective:

I had to install Win11 for the first time. Because of a hell of BSOD's in Win10 i used Linux for a while. I examined the followign items:

1. The Win11 sucks in the way of professionally using the desktop. This might be a personell view. When i had seen the desktop for the first time i instinctively installed linux again. I did not wnt to get eye cancer. But i had to install Win11 anyway. I need that Win11 because some programs charge to have it. I had to configure and work for a couple of hours till the desktop looks that way I can work on it. Nevertheless there are still things i cannot change. The Taskbar is at the bottom of the screen. It has been there at Win10. Why i have to have it now on the bottom? I have to get comfortable with any new Version of the OS with the new view of the desktop again. Introduced at Win 10 the whole Startmenu changed. Now this item has changed again. It seems to me that it changes as otherwise there would not be the need for that big amount of developers.

2. A hell of Linux Distros are not supported by companies and projects. If one want's to use steam and do have anything aside debian he lost. Even when using debian sometimes libraries are requested who are not a part of that certain distribution.

3. Some programs crashes frequently or take a hell of time till they are finishing. I tried mainly Linux Mint. Whem using a 3D Slicer names Lychee he crashed. With that also there where other tasks hanging like Nemo. I was not able to open a folder at the GUI. I had to reboot after each trouble. That is not a professional way of using an OS at desktop-level.

4. LibreOffice also takes a hell of time when using makros. Autosaves did take some minutes. And they came just before i did want to add/change something in a workbook. I wasn't able to work andf had to wait. A real waste of time aind pain in the a**.

Both OSses have issues. No doubt. The quality also in software development is general lower than ever before. This mainly belongs to the use of libraries in development. Everybody uses libraries instead of coding some things on his own. Just take a look at the dotNet-World. Same in Java,... Often the question is "Why should i code a sorting algoritm or whatever when i can use one of Library ''blablabla?". But exactly that leads to problems. In runtime because false routines are selected. Yes! There are several routines for sorting. Each has different runtimes, memory usage etc. But that are general problems at all the software projects right now.

I on my own will write my own companies software as much as i can. I will have a low usage on external libraries. And i will use a language that will really compile to machine code. DotNET i.e. compiles to a low level code that will be interpreted after. It is useless to discuss what OS is better as all have problems.

 

[bug]

Security: Proprietary software cannot be audited by security specialists and is therefore inherently unsafe.

Proprietary software can be and is audited. It's just that 3rd party auditors have to sign an NDA first, so that work goes mostly unnoticed. Furthermore, certain software types (e.g. banking) is required to undergo audits all the time, otherwise other parties won't want to talk to it.

Furthermore, the fact that porprietary software has more bugs also means that it has an additional security risk.

That's just an opinion. I tend to agree, but neither you nor I have any numbers to back that up.

Functionality: open source software evolves much faster than proprietary software and therefore also offers more functionality and more advanced tech. Certain apps and software exist for BSD and/or Linux, but not for Windows and macOS.

Really? Then how come there's no open source Google? How come after all this time, nobody has beaten Office or Photoshop?
Open source can and does receive more contributions. But steering an open source project is usually harder. So there's no clear win there.

The reason I prefer open source is its academic value: it lets everyone see how things are done. And this leads to more competent developers, which, in turn, leads to better software overall.

 

[SchumannFrequency]

People don't care about ideology, they care about IT JUST WORKS.

Well if I had to define what Microsoft is I would say they are the opposite of 'IT JUST WORKS'

Rather, it is something that has largely failed since windowsXP and continues to fail. And I have noticed this almost daily for almost 20 years. Every day I can give another example of how windows works least well. Daily example: today I noticed that SwiftKey uses dark mode for incognito windows in numerous apps. You can change SwiftKey's theme, but for incognito windows you can't change it, so you're then stuck with a dark theme in popular apps, even though most people prefer a light theme. Then I installed Gboard and I suddenly had a light theme how I wanted it. SwitKey is full of these kinds of extremely idiotic problems.

What I just find time and again is that Microsoft employees spend an entire day doing next to nothing, and also have the least talent for software development of all the people involved in software development.

 

[Easy Rhino]

People don't care about ideology, they care about IT JUST WORKS.

It just works so long as they have new hardware that supports TPM 2.0. So long as they are willing to create an account to login to an OS. So long as they are willing to be ADVERTISED to while using the OS they paid money for. So long as they don't mind all of their user activity being sent to third party servers for analysis. So long as they dont mind all of their search data being captured and used to train AI.

As I said clearly, Linux desktop adoption will increase the more they realize what they are giving up by using Windows.

 

[AnotherReader]

It just works so long as they have new hardware that supports TPM 2.0. So long as they are willing to create an account to login to an OS. So long as they are willing to be ADVERTISED to while using the OS they paid money for. So long as they don't mind all of their user activity being sent to third party servers for analysis. So long as they dont mind all of their search data being captured and used to train AI.

As I said clearly, Linux desktop adoption will increase the more they realize what they are giving up by using Windows.

I think focusing on Windows is missing the forest for the trees; the biggest violators of user privacy are browsers. ISPs also snoop on you and even Linux won't protect you from that.

 

[Solaris17]

As I said clearly, Linux desktop adoption will increase the more they realize what they are giving up by using Windows.

Next year bro. I swear.

 

[bug]

It just works so long as they have new hardware that supports TPM 2.0.

If you bought a system in the past 5 years or so, it does.

So long as they are willing to create an account to login to an OS.

Millions of Android and iOS users have no problem with this. Even on desktop/laptop, it hasn't been possible to use Apple hardware without an account for years. No one complained. Meanwhile, I am still using Win11 without a Microsoft account.

So long as they are willing to be ADVERTISED to while using the OS they paid money for.

Still waiting to see a single ad. And I haven't paid for it either, I'm using a Win7 license that I kept upgrading.

So long as they don't mind all of their user activity being sent to third party servers for analysis.

Even if I didn't know this is configurable, even sending everything that Windows collects is still not "all of their user activity". Also, if you had to deal with end users and extract from them what they did to wreck their system, you'd know how invaluable telemetry is, if you want more solid software.

So long as they dont mind all of their search data being captured and used to train AI.

This one is on browsers, not the OS, but even so, I don't mind. Without real-world data, there would be no AI.

 

[SchumannFrequency]

I think focusing on Windows is missing the forest for the trees; the biggest violators of user privacy are browsers. ISPs also snoop on you and even Linux won't protect you from that.

On Android I use Firefox Focus. It's good for privacy and for battery efficiency:

On FreeBSD I use Chromium + uBlock Origin + Privacy Badger and Firefox.

It's not just browsers that are the problem:

Windows 10 Can be Your Worst Privacy Nightmare

Windows 10 Shamelessly Wants Your Data. Here’s How to Protect Yourself.

Windows 10 is the operating system Microsoft needs. In other words, it’s not Windows 8, a Frankenstein’s monster of a tablet-plus-desktop OS that...

slate.com

Windows 11: a spyware machine out of users' control?

Windows 11: a spyware machine out of users' control?

How much data is a Windows operating system sending to online servers? According to a recent video from The PC Security Channel (TPCSC, via Neowin), the most...

www.techspot.com

Microsoft to pay $20m for child privacy violations

Microsoft to pay $20m for child privacy violations

The tech giant used data collected from child Xbox users without telling parents, US regulators say.

www.bbc.com

Microsoft, OpenAI sued for $3B after allegedly trampling privacy with ChatGPT

Microsoft, OpenAI sued for ChatGPT 'privacy violations'

Where did they get the idea this bot was potentially spitting out personal info? Oh, from The Register

www.theregister.com

The Cost of a Click: Microsoft fined 60 Million Euros by French Privacy Watchdog for French Data Protection Act Violations

The Cost of a Click: Microsoft fined 60 Million Euros by French Privacy Watchdog for French Data Protection Act Violations | JD Supra

On December 22, 2022, France’s National Commission for Technology and Freedoms (“CNIL”) fined Microsoft’s Irish subsidiary 60 million euro for failure...

www.jdsupra.com

Germany Forces a Microsoft 365 Ban Due to Privacy Concerns

Germany Forces a Microsoft 365 Ban Due to Privacy Concerns

Germany Forces a Microsoft 365 Ban Due to Privacy Concerns – EU

bestofprivacy.com

Etc.

 

[Easy Rhino]

Yup, this doesn't need to be a flame war. We all know the normies gravitate to the OS that is easiest for them to run their preferred software. Of course the billion dollar software companies know this as well and capitalize on it by intruding at every level. Linux does not require any of that and distros like PopOS or Ubuntu get most people with 100 IQ 90% of the way there. Unfortunately the normies think that their government will somehow protect them from this personal invasion or they simply don't care. That is certainly their perogative but once they wake up and unplug from the matrix they will realize choosing an open source option is the better long term solution.

 

[Solaris17]

I do hope one day linux becomes a little more mainstream. I think products like steamdeck help this a lot. I think a fast way forward would be for appliances like that (not routers, TVs, fridges) that are tangible and instantly useful or tangable would go a long way. The unfortunate thing is most of these appliances, tablets, OBD2 readers, etc etc etc. Are not desktop linux. They are custom or just kernel based. I am sure most people dont even realize such things are running linux.

Maybe making more of a name of themselves or running a campaign might help "runs on linux" or some such. Not sure, and maybe given the $$ involved is against the culture as a whole, and thats of course assuming the culture isnt an issue.

Out of sight out of mind after all.

Between attitude of userbase (I run arch/BSD BTWWW), streamlining of user experience, and general knowledge of its existence I think linux can use more polish on all sides, even if I dont think its bad.

 

[Aleksandar_038]

95% of people actually want to login in order to use OS, because that allows them easy transfer of apps and data. It is like that for ages on Android and iOS, and now Windows just follow the suit.

I find it hilarious that people talk about Bill Gates or Microsoft spying on them, when Google and social networks already spy us completely for years... So, for Google and Apple is OK, for Microsoft it is not? Anyone having at least feeling that we are in the middle of propaganda war?

Linux will never be like Windows, and maybe is that a good thing. However, what we are looking at is slow demise of desktop PC - Microsoft no longer develops Windows except Edge Chromium spyware, and in couple of years everything will be in cloud anyway, as far as big tech companies goes. Linux will stay as power-user OS, but never will have widespread adoption as primary OS... However, cloud will "run" on Linux anyway, and we will be moved to browser for 99% of tasks anyway.

Terrible future, if anyone asks me, but writing is on the wall.

 

[L'Eliminateur]

a lot of very interesting points have been said, i can add some anecdotes as an (mostly former)IT consultant/computer repair shop:
In 15 years of the shop i've worked, i can count on one hand the number of clients that came with a computer that had linux, and customers that asked to install linux were less than 3.
One time I did a test, with some very old notebook for sale that was hardly working and could not run win10 at all, so i installed linux mint 32b(it did not run 64b), we explained it to the customer ane everything was ok... the notebook was returned in less than 1 week because the user simply could not work on it as it needed to install some vpn/control software from cisco i think that only ran on windows.
NONE of the cutomers i worked with(from small to big banks) had linux deployed for end users or even considered it.

As a challenge and test of "this is the year of linux on desktop" i semi-daily drove a linux mint installation side by side with my main windows machine for quite sometime to do a usability comparison:
I ran into issues constantly, and horrible ways of linux to make all my work slower and clumsier, not to mention app disparity.
As someone said before, MS Outlook has NO comparison, specially if you have an exchange server or exchange online, and no, IMAP is not a viable option, it's trash.
Libreoffice is slower and clumsier than full MS Office, for example saving a relatively simple native calc sheet takes around 5~10s on a relatively top of the line computer.
And let's not even mention the 10-ton Adobe elephant in the room, that alone precludes me from using it at home.
Game compatibility is not 100% and not guaranteed, in windows it is guaranteed, and if i have to dual boot to play some game in linux and other in windows i might as well stay in windows and enjoy full correct functionality.
Trying to use RDP was a chore with every RDP app not really working correctly like native mstsc
I also encountered bugs with drag and drop with mail clients where you could NOT drag from a network folder and had to instead click the "attach" icon.
Or PDF files being dog-slow to open as there's no Adobe reader.
Then there's the little annoyances that take you longer in linux than in windows like opening a network folder(winkey+r \\server) vs (open nemo, smb://server/) that's at least 4 more keys in linux, and that's if it decides to resolve the short hostname at all, or you'll have to type the entire fqdn..

The lack of fast/simple network tools like IP/port scanners with simple GUI (if it does not have a GUI i don't care)

It always ended up that if i wanted to be hassle free and productive i ended up on my windows PC

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

I find it hilarious that people talk about Bill Gates or Microsoft spying on them, when Google and social networks already spy us completely for years... So, for Google and Apple is OK, for Microsoft it is not? Anyone having at least feeling that we are in the middle of propaganda war?

That's one hell of a strawman you have constructed there. Of course, any glance at the type of people who complain about Microsoft spying will see they ALSO dislike google and apple and take steps to minimize their footprint from said companies.

I do hope one day linux becomes a little more mainstream. I think products like steamdeck help this a lot. I think a fast way forward would be for appliances like that (not routers, TVs, fridges) that are tangible and instantly useful or tangable would go a long way. The unfortunate thing is most of these appliances, tablets, OBD2 readers, etc etc etc. Are not desktop linux. They are custom or just kernel based. I am sure most people dont even realize such things are running linux.

Maybe making more of a name of themselves or running a campaign might help "runs on linux" or some such. Not sure, and maybe given the $$ involved is against the culture as a whole, and thats of course assuming the culture isnt an issue.

Out of sight out of mind after all.

Between attitude of userbase (I run arch/BSD BTWWW), streamlining of user experience, and general knowledge of its existence I think linux can use more polish on all sides, even if I dont think its bad.

I disagree. I sure hope linux NEVER goes mainsteam. Everything that does, from movies to games, nerd hobbies, woodcrafting, cars, ece, it ALL turns to shat. All of it. Every time. Just like everything else, if linux goes mainstream, it will be neutered and ruined by big corporations looking to make max dosh by appealing to 70IQ cavemen. See also: android, web browsers, file systems, UIs, ece.

Let average joe use WinBlows forever, or join the chromeOS train. Keep them away from linux, lest they ruin it like they have everything else that gets popular.

 

[Aleksandar_038]

That's one hell of a strawman you have constructed there. Of course, any glance at the type of people who complain about Microsoft spying will see they ALSO dislike google and apple and take steps to minimize their footprint from said companies.

Maybe, but truth is that every big tech company is doing the same, so I see no point in bashing Microsoft if we did not bash Google and Apple all this years. Of course, when I say "we" I do not mean me and you, or anyone here on the forum, where majority of us are "advanced users" and some are real "power users", I mean IT world, IT websites and news portals. They were silent for years on Google policy to insist having Google account even for most stupid operations, and now bashing Microsoft for same? To me, it reeks on Google money involved...

I disagree. I sure hope linux NEVER goes mainsteam. Everything that does, from movies to games, nerd hobbies, woodcrafting, cars, ece, it ALL turns to shat. All of it. Every time. Just like everything else, if linux goes mainstream, it will be neutered and ruined by big corporations looking to make max dosh by appealing to 70IQ cavemen. See also: android, web browsers, file systems, UIs, ece.

Let average joe use WinBlows forever, or join the chromeOS train. Keep them away from linux, lest they ruin it like they have everything else that gets popular.

Probably. I forgot who said it here, "lowest common denominator" is one hell of the policy, but it is truth. Windows is being dumbed down in order to be more like Android / iOS. So, if Linux goes mainstream, it wont be anything like now, for sure, because it will be dumbed down for average Joe to the maximum.

Issue is - if you unlock (root) Android, you have really powerful tool at your disposal. It is terrible how Google locked it down. Windows was always "customer-friendly" (make it whatever you want out of that statement), but it had serious set of tools beneath to be useful for power users and customized as much as we wanted. Windows these days, or, better said, Microsoft, is actively trying to prevent power users from customizing Windows and it actively removes or simply abandons power tools that were used for ages without a problem (they did some steps in right direction, like Terminal and Powertoys, for example - but that is tiny in big picture).

So,, maybe it is indeed for the best that Linux stays this way...

 

[gurusmi]

If you bought a system in the past 5 years or so, it does.

This is not that correct. You need much moore to get a legal update running. I'm driving a 4 yrs old Gigabyte Aorus Master Mainboard. There it wasn't possible to install Win11 the official way- I Used Rufus to get Win11 installed and running.

Millions of Android and iOS users have no problem with this. Even on desktop/laptop, it hasn't been possible to use Apple hardware without an account for years. No one complained. Meanwhile, I am still using Win11 without a Microsoft account.

Still waiting to see a single ad. And I haven't paid for it either, I'm using a Win7 license that I kept upgrading.

Even if I didn't know this is configurable, even sending everything that Windows collects is still not "all of their user activity". Also, if you had to deal with end users and extract from them what they did to wreck their system, you'd know how invaluable telemetry is, if you want more solid software.

This one is on browsers, not the OS, but even so, I don't mind. Without real-world data, there would be no AI.

M$ wrecked the whole desktop. They change the UI with every version they bring out instead of killing all the bufs inside the OS. With every single version the UI changes that much that everybody has to learn how to use it again. If anybody invents a silly way of using a computer you can be sure M$ does copy it. Mac and some Linux distros has the icons of a taskbar in the middle. M$ will copy it. Tiles in the startmenu? No doubt. Win copies it... They do copy since CP/M times. Blue Screen? Well. M$ copied it from the AmigaOS' "Guru Meditation message". Just remember. Windows was the home user OS aside IBM OS/2. They didn't invent it. It was downsized from OS/2. And till then they didn't manage it to get it stable.

 

[AnotherReader]

This is not that correct. You need much moore to get a legal update running. I'm driving a 4 yrs old Gigabyte Aorus Master Mainboard. There it wasn't possible to install Win11 the official way- I Used Rufus to get Win11 installed and running.


M$ wrecked the whole desktop. They change the UI with every version they bring out instead of killing all the bufs inside the OS. With every single version the UI changes that much that everybody has to learn how to use it again. If anybody invents a silly way of using a computer you can be sure M$ does copy it. Mac and some Linux distros has the icons of a taskbar in the middle. M$ will copy it. Tiles in the startmenu? No doubt. Win copies it... They do copy since CP/M times. Blue Screen? Well. M$ copied it from the AmigaOS' "Guru Meditation message". Just remember. Windows was the home user OS aside IBM OS/2. They didn't invent it. It was downsized from OS/2. And till then they didn't manage it to get it stable.

Don't be blinded by your hatred; Windows NT had little in common with OS/2. I'm quoting from the article linked in my previous sentence:

The core NT design team led by Dave Cutler, mostly consisting of ex-Digital programmers, had very little experience with OS/2 or even PCs.

The NT kernel’s (or more correctly the NT Executive’s) design was radically different from the design of OS/2 1.x. While OS/2 1.x was a 16-bit OS designed exclusively for the segmented architecture of the Intel 286/386 CPUs, NT was a portable 32-bit OS with paged virtual memory, deliberately ported to the 386 PC platform relatively late in its development cycle. While OS/2 could not run on anything but a 286/386 without a complete rewrite, NT could not run on a 286 ever.