The year of the Linux desktop will happen when a large (EDIT: large, CONSUMER-FOCUSED AND CONSUMER-FRIENDLY) company decides to donate a remarkable amount of resources to the development and maintenance of a specific distro to make it user friendly and give it the feeling that someone who actually knows better than most users is taking care of important stuff in the background.
…Valve? 👀
AND runs all windows programs right out of the box with no faffing about.
TBH: Most private users aren’t really using many programs. They are running chrome. Maybe an email client, but even that is declining. They are looking at pictures with the standard photo viewer and maybe at some PDFs and sometimes they are writing a letter and print it? Linux totally can do that.
Sure, but chances are if that’s your use case, you moved to a tablet years ago. Your photo storage is likely Facebook and Google Photos backup.
The casual people doggedly hanging onto PCs likely have some obscure software they need to run on it, either for work or personal use.
That’s not completely accurate. Remember, a lot of people want a full keyboard for typing; and an iPad with a keyboard is way more expensive than a mid-range Chromebook. Plus, a whole generation of students are growing up and entering the workforce having used nothing but ChromeOS for their entire middle school and high school careers; for them, a Chromebook feels very familiar.
Microsoft is VERY close to losing every install advantage they have. Gaming, corporate, devops, and government are the only use cases their leads are still in any way commanding in; and they’re fiddling while Valve puts the finishing touches on Steam OS, they’re about to lose their tenth consecutive K12 graduating class who will go into the workforce more familiar with ChromeOS than Windows, devops is increasingly moving toward web portals, and government…well, let’s face it, that’s not a particularly lucrative single game to win.
Google has already eaten Microsoft’s lunch and dinner. And now they’re about to split Windows’ breakfast with Valve. Unless they make some major changes, and quick, Microsoft is going to go into the 2030s less relevant than they’ve been in decades.
Novell tried to do that with SuSE Linux in the early 2000’s and I’ve never forgiven them. Edit, AND did deals with Microsoft. Brr.
Near? You can install Linux right now, no need to wait for anything to happen.
And that’s because the year of the Linux desktop was when Intel started full upstream contributions of drivers.
No, I literally cannot muster the willpower to switch.
Yes, precious.
We wants it!
I remember similar articles when Windows 7 reached end of life. People will complain but mostly adapt to Windows 11, and Linux will gain 0.2% market share.
Will they though ? Me and all my nerd friends straight up ignored windows 8, I’m sure we weren’t alone. I also saw the writing on the wall with windows 11 and went with Linux for my new gaming PC
I ignored Windows 8, and even 10 for a while, but that was because Windows 7 was still working and supported and still kinda is my favorite version of Windows.
Then at some point I just switched to 10 and been using it ever since while installing the occasional distro to see if I can move off of Windows (Answer is still no) or as an emergency desktop bootable USB
This time is a little different. A lot of slightly older but really decent hardware won’t be compatible with Window’s TPM requirements. They’re forcing their customers to buy all new hardware for an overall worse experience. Pair that with the upcoming Trump tariffs and you’ll see some people second guess their next choice of OS if it means they can save on a lot of money if they make some concessions on what they want. I’m not saying it’ll be a huge change but at least it’ll keep ticking up the Linux market share enough for some software publishers to start offering their products on the platform like Steam already is.
For most non-tech savvy people, the OS is part of the computer. It comes with win 10, that’s just the way the computer works and it will stay with 10 until the hardware fails or is too slow and they need a new PC. They’re not separate. And if a PC costs more, they’re just going to deal with it longer or give up on a desktop/laptop and do more on their phones.
When Windows 7 reached EOL in 2012, ChromeOS wasn’t even a year old, MacOS was too expensive, SteamOS wasn’t close on the horizon, tablets weren’t really usable, smartphones were severely underpowered, and most applications didn’t have web-based versions or replacements.
This time around, none of those things are true, and Windows 11 lost market share last month (which is frankly unprecedented).
Plus, even with that dearth of options, people griped and complained and refused for so long that Microsoft made a big marketing deal out of Windows 8.1. And even after that, they offered Windows 7 users free Windows 10 licenses to get them to upgrade.
Linux probably won’t get the crown (though I’d say a bump as high as 1-2% isn’t out of the question). It’ll probably be ChromeOS, if anything, simply because of the commanding lead Google has held for the past decade or so in K12. But in any case, if Microsoft doesn’t shift their strategy, they’re unlikely to win this one; there are a lot of options.
windows 7 reached extended eol in 2020, for security updates only, i believe that’s what they were talking about
I don’t think so. The big switchover push for 7 (like what’s happening now with 10) happened in 2012.
i am incredibly confused by what you mean, Microsoft’s website clearly states the extended end of supoort for 7 was jan 2020 as stated here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-7, and besides, the marketshare for windows 7 was still growing in 2012
by any chance, do you mean a push over to windows 7 from something like xp? or are you talking about a push from 7 to 8, which never really happened as all the focus was on the impending 2014 windows xp end of support date
No. I mean the push to switch away from Windows 7. Windows 8 was released in 2012, which is when Microsoft began pushing users to switch. The end of extended support is almost a footnote; it doesn’t even register as a blip for most users. It’s the release of the successor that begins the big marketing push.
Everyone migrates to Ubuntu. One finger of the monkey’s paw curls up.
Look, I like Linux too, and I think governments should definitely use it to move away from Microsoft.
But as long as prebuilt PCs and laptops are sold with Windows, people will stay accustomed to it and be way more hesitant to switch. You can tell them, ‘It works just like Windows! It just looks a bit different!’ Yet their minds will still think, ‘New = scary.’ and won’t use it.
There are more devices that ship with Linux or actively advertise support for it than ever tho. Of course far from the majority, but it’s a start that you can get basically anything with Linux if you want
The issue for me as a potential advocate to my immediate circle of friends and family is that I don’t want to become the only source of tech support. Now realistically they’ll probably have fewer issues, but as soon as they want to fix something they’ll have to come to me. No they won’t Google things, and if they do they won’t understand it.
That was true in the past. But in the last 10 years people have stalled their PC upgrades. That’s the real reason why they don’t move to Win11, because they don’t want to buy a new PC. And that’s where Linux is going to get that market from MS.
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It is a meme. I saw people joking about it on Slashdot back when Linux 2.4 was recent.
I’ve been learning GIMP to replace Photoshop in preparation. So far, so good, but there are still things about GIMP I just dont get. Like, it’s seems impossible to paint onto a fully transparent layer because the paint tool doesn’t modify the mask as it goes. I don’t even want that layer to have an alpha channel, but it seems like you have no choice if you want a transparent layer.
If you try to paint on a transparent layer, you just get… nothing. It’s so trivial in Photoshop to make a new layer and just paint into it, and I can’t figure it out at all in GIMP. (I really should ask in a forum, but I also feel like I shouldn’t have to.)
Being able to script in Python to simulate Photoshop actions is both awesome and crappy. It’s awesome because of how powerful it is, but crappy that I can’t just whip up an action in seconds to make a quick, repeatable edit.
I guess I’ll have to use a VM to run Autodesk Fusion. ☹️
Maybe try https://photopea.com/, an in browser Photoshop recreation.
After switching about 3 years ago, I tried running photoshop through wine. It was a little glitchy visually (I hear it’s ok nowadays though) so I tried gimp and just couldn’t get used to it. I tried krita and its perfect for what I use it for, very easy to use coming from photoshop. I’m not sure about actions as I don’t think I used them in Photoshop but it has plugins so you might be able to find something to replace what you used before
For home use FreeCAD might be an okey replacement for autodesk. It’s not as polished, but working well enough for simple geometrioes
Not sure what you need from Fusion but have you had a look at OnShape?
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I have not. I use Fusion for CAD and CAM for a CNC router.
Please Valve launch SteamOS, and I can be done with it
KDEs Project Banana OS basically sounds like Steamdecks immutable Arch with Plasma
If i remember well, Chimera OS is what steam took inspiration of for steam OS.
It is available for desktop. take a look on it :) .
Just install Bazzite, I think that’s basically SteamOS.
Oh huh, Bazzite’s based on Fedora Atomic. What’s the one that’s just Windows under the hood? I remember being surprised, “why would people want to install THAT on a Steam Deck”?
Unless Valve has said otherwise, I doubt SteamOS is going to be released for desktop. SteamOS is basically just Arch + kde plasma but with tweaks targeting the SteamDeck hardware
KDE Linux to me sounds like the desktop Linux worth waiting for - although if you are willing to put in some work, EndeavourOS is half way there and available today
Is there really a significant difference between steamOS and using big picture mode + proton? I’ve had hardly any issues using steam on Ubuntu to play windows only games. Even Microsoft flight sim works despite trying it’s hardest to act like part of windows.
there not many easy results for “arch based distro with KDE how to [do thing]” but there are a lot of Steamdeck tutorials and a SteamOS desktop version would make it better
My yearly “I should try Linux again” cycle would probably stay permanently if Valve makes the OSPeople who just blindly copy and paste random commands without any transferable thinking shouldn’t use computers in the first place.
everyone starts somewhere, it stars mindless then they eventually learn slowly but surely with a lot of mistakes. I did. I nuked my OS several times but now know a lot more about Linux because of it.
If you apply that thinking then 9/10ths of the Linux community wouldn’t have ever started using it.
Hell 99% of the non tech people I know IRL wouldn’t be able to send a text if that line of thinking is extended to them.So they shouldn’t pay their bills, do their taxes, work?
You can’t live without using a computer anymore.They should learn working with computers then.
I finally switched. Honestly, the only thing I hate is the audio manager.
Which can easily be replaced 😁
When new OEM PCs comes with Linux pre-installed is when stuff happens. Not before then. Windows 11 adoption will be slow cause of their exclusion of old hardware. That old hardware will be scrapped or people just keep Windows 10 on it, regardless of security warnings.
The Desktop Linux experience, with gaming and all, seems pretty close to fulfilling everyone needs at this point. But it would not surprise me if Microsoft goes around paying OEM manufacturers to not bundle anything but windows with their products.
i dont think we’ll have any large amount of preinstalls until the anticheat problem is solved
also you are just simply lying to yourself if you think desktop linux experience is fulfilling - i force my entire family to use linux and trust me the experience is not even close to being fulfilling for everyone
Anticheat is kernel compromise. No one should be using games that use that, or OSes that allow it.
As for fulfillment, unless you need very specific apps to do your job, I’m sure it can be fulfilling with the right DE and distro. For me, I’m using Linux since 1998, and I still prefer Mint over Arch, for example. It just works.
i didnt say “we need kernel anticheat on linux” i said we need a solution for it
Probably because its not preinstalled in more hardware?
its a paradox and the manufacturers arent gonna be the ones to break it - why would they go out of their way to do linux preinstalls? they would gain literally nothing out of it (in fact they might lose money if they have a contract with ms)
Afaik don’t most of the manufacturers contract with windows requiring them to only preinstall windows?
But it would not surprise me if Microsoft goes around paying OEM manufacturers to not bundle anything but windows with their products.
They already did that in the 90s
It sounds like Valve is going to release SteamOS, so there could be a number of handhelds with Linux pre-installed soon.
Dell has done this for a while now. You just can’t buy them in store, you have to custom order them.
I recently made the switch and motivated a friend who is still on win7 to go to linux. While installing and setting up his system i realised that you still need some konsole handling skills, that normal windows user not really have. To me thats normal, growing up with dos and win311, but if you started with win 2000 or later. Thats all new stuff.
I think laptops/computers that are all ready setup completely usable, should be a thing, thought.
I think that a lot of people are missing this, my first Windows was Windows XP, so I’m pretty much used to doing everything through a GUI
Same, but I learned (rather quickly mind you) enough of the CLI to get by, and continue learning to this day. I looked up a few “Bash basics” and “linux terminal basics” videos on youtube and followed along like it was a class which really helped. And whenever I have to figure out how to solve an issue I have (for instance my airpods didn’t want to connect through the GUI at first) and it gives me a CLI fix (bluetoothctl in this case) I try to remember it, or I can always go “ah fuck what was that command again…” and search it again, or I put some of those in a textfile called linuxcommands.txt that I can reference back to, or I can try
bluetoothctl -hfor help, orman bluetoothctlfor the manual for bluetoothctl (and that works with most CLI programs.) Honestly sometimes I prefer the CLI now.Now I need to learn all of the symbols and hotkeys and for loops and cool shit like that, but I’ll get there.
Windows 10 LTSC IoT is supported til the end of 2031, maybe 2032 will be the year I finally switch.
If you’re the type of person that can acquire and run LTSC, aren’t you exactly the kind of person that has the ability to switch to Linux?
Being able != being willing.
They’re definitely the kind of person who’s saavy enough to make their own decisions
I’ve tried several times over the years, I always run into too many issues before I just give up because USB aren’t recognizing things or it won’t boot or it won’t run some specific software after 2 hours of trying to fix it. My last attempt on a dev laptop in 2022 lasted the longest, Maybe it’ll be sorted out in 2032 though.
Of course, there are always small issues that can make it a little harder. When most hardware is designed first and exclusively to run Windows, there will always be issues to be resolved.
I made a mistake though. You never advocated for anyone else to take the LTSC route, and that’s that I incorrectly read out of your message. My apologies. I usually take issue with people saying that’s a solution for other people. You never advocated that. Sorry.
You mean the year of unpatched Windows 10.
You can now pay for extended updates.
As long as the browsers keep getting patches we’re all good.
ME ??
That wasn’t a good OS either…
Again?
