6 ms·

Seems to me that DirectX is the last remaining barrier to finally getting the majority of the Windows user base to migrate to Linux. That and driver support.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
You are ludicrously incorrect, just as everyone for the past 2 decades has been when they have predicted the year of the Linux Desktop. This trend will continue until Linux Desktop people stop underestimating what users actually do with computers.
- jenscow 7y ago
  Nothing. They moved to mobile instead
  - freehunter 7y ago
    This is the correct answer. Even Ubuntu's famous bug #1 (Microsoft has a majority marketshare) was closed many years ago [1] as PC operating systems have declined in importance. Steve Jobs's comment about PCs being "trucks" has also come true. Almost all leisure computing has moved either to mobile devices (phones and tablets) and/or to the web (which overlaps mobile devices), making the OS less and less important. Gaming is about the only leisure activity left where desktop OS matters, but that's a relatively small marketshare comparatively. [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1/comments/1834 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1/comments/1834
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
      And yet, Linux Desktop still is not dominant, even only counting desktop computers. Hmm...
      - snazz 7y ago
        As people use desktops less and less, they care less and less about what runs on them.
        belltaco 7y ago
        That narrative of the post-PC world collapsed when the sales of tablets like iPads collapsed.
        freehunter 7y ago
        Couple of things: 1) Tablets aren't the only "post-PC" platform. Most of the leisure computing is done on smartphones when it would have been done on a laptop or desktop 5-10 years ago. 2) If we're considering tablets to be PC replacements, we should expect their sales trends to be along the lines of PC sales. People keep PCs a lot longer than smartphones, so we should expect people to keep their iPads a lot longer than their phones too. 3) Tablet sales have absolutely not collapsed [1] [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-...
        Razengan 7y ago
        From what I could tell, iPads are the only tablets still going strong and getting even better. It’s Google who threw in the towel on tablets. See the recently revealed iPadOS: https://www.apple.com/ipados/ipados-preview/ https://www.apple.com/ipados/ipados-preview/
- LarryDarrell 7y ago
  Play XBill and write manifestos with LaTeX?
- iforgotpassword 7y ago
  > This trend will continue until Linux Desktop people stop underestimating what users actually do with computers. Nothing. They use apps on their Linux phones, or happily use any OS that runs a browser since everything is web based today. Oh and for gaming there is consoles of course, which crushes the PC gaming market in pretty much any discipline. The only people remaining dependent on desktops (or laptops) will be office workers, and I'm pretty sure they don't care about DirectX so much, so replacing those with Linux seems very doable, it's just the question if companies care enough. Last I checked, even office 365 worked on Linux.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    > They use apps on their Linux phones Somehow I doubt Android is what Linux Desktop evangelists imagined. At best this is moving the goal posts significantly. > or happily use any OS that runs a browser since everything is web based today. Apparently that doesn't include Linux, despite it being free, not having invasive telemetry, and not having ads in the application launcher. > Oh and for gaming there is consoles of course, which crushes the PC gaming market in pretty much any discipline. And yet Steam is a ridiculously huge money maker and people are buying more PC games than ever. > The only people remaining dependent on desktops (or laptops) will be office workers Incorrect, but let's entertain your fantasies anyway. > I'm pretty sure they don't care about DirectX so much, so replacing those with Linux seems very doable Then why hasn't it happened? You think companies like paying licensing fees to Microsoft? Consider that there are good reasons people do not use Linux Desktop instead of just assuming they're all idiots.
    - iforgotpassword 7y ago
      > Somehow I doubt Android is what Linux Desktop evangelists imagined. You must be confusing Android with a desktop OS. It's mobile so they don't fall into the desktop category at all. Which was exactly my point: they simply don't need a desktop OS anymore. > Apparently that doesn't include Linux That reads like you're looking at some statistics that show that 0% of desktop users run Linux. Care pointing to it? > And yet Steam is a ridiculously huge money maker and people are buying more PC games than ever. So? It's completely overshadowed by the console market, not even including mobile games here. > Then why hasn't it happened? You think companies like paying licensing fees to Microsoft? You're asking why it hasn't happened yet in reply to me using future tense. But let's put aside that pretty much everything you said was deliberately besides the point. Why it hasn't happened yet is pretty simple. Companies weigh the cost of switching vs. The cost of just keep paying for Windows (so no changes, no initial setup cost, no training, ...). That's gonna be cheaper for quite some time but eventually everything will be in the cloud so there is less and less reason to keep up a huge and complicated windows domain network with software rollout and other brain damage. You might keep a basic AD in place for user management that the web services talk to but that's it. Funnily enough my current and previous employer is still on win 7 because of the frequent messups you read about regarding 10, and how even in a corporate environment it's near impossible to disable all telemetry. I'm curious what they'll do at 7's EOL. As for the average home desktop user, you're not seriously expecting your mom to go ahead and download and install Ubuntu are you? As long as most OEMs still exclusively sell machines with Windows preinstalled, there really shouldn't be anything surprising about the fact that most people use Windows. We already see some of the larger ones offering machines with Linux though, and with the desktop keeping to lose relevance and everything moving to the web I wouldn't be surprised to see this getting more prevalent over the next decade if Microsoft doesn't get their act together regarding Windows. It currently looks like they're cutting costs in that department, normal users seem to get the beta versions now so they could cut down their QA.
- bediger4000 7y ago
  > people stop underestimating what users actually do with computers Oddly, this is the factor that underlies most of my personal beefs with both Microsoft and Apple. What's wrong with my wifi? At least I can look in journalctl on linux. My laptop doesn't have enough screenspace - I can use i3wm on linux. I want double-click to include '*' and '/' and ':' in a "word", hey I can change xterm config. I want left-mouse-button to start a selection, and right to continue it, and middle-mouse-button to paste, and I want F2 to paste, X11 can do that. I don't want the focused window to pop to the top? Can do on Linux. There's so many things that Windows and MacOS make the decisions for you and make it very, very hard to do otherwise that really cramp your style on a basic level.
  - zamalek 7y ago
    Most people don't do these things on their computers: > journalctl, i3wm, xterm config, non-standard mouse configurations The versatility of Linux is frequently touted as its best feature, a feature that 99% of humans don't care about, and would confuse that same 99% of people. People are used to what Microsoft and Apple imposed on them. For better, or for worse, they honestly couldn't give a damn about being able to do stuff like that. Their style is the Apple style, or the Microsoft style and, most importantly, the no-terminal style. Linux is the perfect desktop for developers. It hits all the wrong checkboxes for end-users.
    - bediger4000 7y ago
      Agreed, most people don't do much more than open "Edge" and "Outlook", some people Use "Word", a few people use "Excel" because "Word" doesn't do tables very well. The point being two-fold: 1. The argument that a Linux desktop won't fly because people do so damn many things that a Linux desktop just can't do is false. 2. Windows and Mac really push you hard into a single style of interacting with your computer.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
      > a feature that 99% of humans don't care about, and would confuse that same 99% of people. This is precisely the kind of condescending bullshit I'm talking about. > People are used to what Microsoft and Apple imposed on them. A convenient fantasy for Linux Desktop evangelists to soothe their egos.
jchw 7y ago
Along with everything else that could be said about this, I don’t think that is even a major problem. Everything I’ve tried to run on Steam Proton runs at 60 FPS with highest settings. My guess is that Vulkan has enabled much better Direct3D emulation. (Of course, I don’t play much and I didn’t bother to benchmark. It probably is still worse than native in many cases. But hey, glitch free and fast enough for me. Was very surprised to see games with Denuvo running great.)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

You are ludicrously incorrect, just as everyone for the past 2 decades has been when they have predicted the year of the Linux Desktop. This trend will continue until Linux Desktop people stop underestimating what users actually do with computers.

jenscow 7y ago
Nothing. They moved to mobile instead
- freehunter 7y ago
  This is the correct answer. Even Ubuntu's famous bug #1 (Microsoft has a majority marketshare) was closed many years ago [1] as PC operating systems have declined in importance. Steve Jobs's comment about PCs being "trucks" has also come true. Almost all leisure computing has moved either to mobile devices (phones and tablets) and/or to the web (which overlaps mobile devices), making the OS less and less important. Gaming is about the only leisure activity left where desktop OS matters, but that's a relatively small marketshare comparatively. [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1/comments/1834 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1/comments/1834
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    And yet, Linux Desktop still is not dominant, even only counting desktop computers. Hmm...
    - snazz 7y ago
      As people use desktops less and less, they care less and less about what runs on them.
      - belltaco 7y ago
        That narrative of the post-PC world collapsed when the sales of tablets like iPads collapsed.
        freehunter 7y ago
        Couple of things: 1) Tablets aren't the only "post-PC" platform. Most of the leisure computing is done on smartphones when it would have been done on a laptop or desktop 5-10 years ago. 2) If we're considering tablets to be PC replacements, we should expect their sales trends to be along the lines of PC sales. People keep PCs a lot longer than smartphones, so we should expect people to keep their iPads a lot longer than their phones too. 3) Tablet sales have absolutely not collapsed [1] [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-forecast-for-tablets-laptops-and-desktop-pcs/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-...
        Razengan 7y ago
        From what I could tell, iPads are the only tablets still going strong and getting even better. It’s Google who threw in the towel on tablets. See the recently revealed iPadOS: https://www.apple.com/ipados/ipados-preview/ https://www.apple.com/ipados/ipados-preview/
LarryDarrell 7y ago
Play XBill and write manifestos with LaTeX?
iforgotpassword 7y ago
> This trend will continue until Linux Desktop people stop underestimating what users actually do with computers. Nothing. They use apps on their Linux phones, or happily use any OS that runs a browser since everything is web based today. Oh and for gaming there is consoles of course, which crushes the PC gaming market in pretty much any discipline. The only people remaining dependent on desktops (or laptops) will be office workers, and I'm pretty sure they don't care about DirectX so much, so replacing those with Linux seems very doable, it's just the question if companies care enough. Last I checked, even office 365 worked on Linux.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  > They use apps on their Linux phones Somehow I doubt Android is what Linux Desktop evangelists imagined. At best this is moving the goal posts significantly. > or happily use any OS that runs a browser since everything is web based today. Apparently that doesn't include Linux, despite it being free, not having invasive telemetry, and not having ads in the application launcher. > Oh and for gaming there is consoles of course, which crushes the PC gaming market in pretty much any discipline. And yet Steam is a ridiculously huge money maker and people are buying more PC games than ever. > The only people remaining dependent on desktops (or laptops) will be office workers Incorrect, but let's entertain your fantasies anyway. > I'm pretty sure they don't care about DirectX so much, so replacing those with Linux seems very doable Then why hasn't it happened? You think companies like paying licensing fees to Microsoft? Consider that there are good reasons people do not use Linux Desktop instead of just assuming they're all idiots.
  - iforgotpassword 7y ago
    > Somehow I doubt Android is what Linux Desktop evangelists imagined. You must be confusing Android with a desktop OS. It's mobile so they don't fall into the desktop category at all. Which was exactly my point: they simply don't need a desktop OS anymore. > Apparently that doesn't include Linux That reads like you're looking at some statistics that show that 0% of desktop users run Linux. Care pointing to it? > And yet Steam is a ridiculously huge money maker and people are buying more PC games than ever. So? It's completely overshadowed by the console market, not even including mobile games here. > Then why hasn't it happened? You think companies like paying licensing fees to Microsoft? You're asking why it hasn't happened yet in reply to me using future tense. But let's put aside that pretty much everything you said was deliberately besides the point. Why it hasn't happened yet is pretty simple. Companies weigh the cost of switching vs. The cost of just keep paying for Windows (so no changes, no initial setup cost, no training, ...). That's gonna be cheaper for quite some time but eventually everything will be in the cloud so there is less and less reason to keep up a huge and complicated windows domain network with software rollout and other brain damage. You might keep a basic AD in place for user management that the web services talk to but that's it. Funnily enough my current and previous employer is still on win 7 because of the frequent messups you read about regarding 10, and how even in a corporate environment it's near impossible to disable all telemetry. I'm curious what they'll do at 7's EOL. As for the average home desktop user, you're not seriously expecting your mom to go ahead and download and install Ubuntu are you? As long as most OEMs still exclusively sell machines with Windows preinstalled, there really shouldn't be anything surprising about the fact that most people use Windows. We already see some of the larger ones offering machines with Linux though, and with the desktop keeping to lose relevance and everything moving to the web I wouldn't be surprised to see this getting more prevalent over the next decade if Microsoft doesn't get their act together regarding Windows. It currently looks like they're cutting costs in that department, normal users seem to get the beta versions now so they could cut down their QA.
bediger4000 7y ago
> people stop underestimating what users actually do with computers Oddly, this is the factor that underlies most of my personal beefs with both Microsoft and Apple. What's wrong with my wifi? At least I can look in journalctl on linux. My laptop doesn't have enough screenspace - I can use i3wm on linux. I want double-click to include '*' and '/' and ':' in a "word", hey I can change xterm config. I want left-mouse-button to start a selection, and right to continue it, and middle-mouse-button to paste, and I want F2 to paste, X11 can do that. I don't want the focused window to pop to the top? Can do on Linux. There's so many things that Windows and MacOS make the decisions for you and make it very, very hard to do otherwise that really cramp your style on a basic level.
- zamalek 7y ago
  Most people don't do these things on their computers: > journalctl, i3wm, xterm config, non-standard mouse configurations The versatility of Linux is frequently touted as its best feature, a feature that 99% of humans don't care about, and would confuse that same 99% of people. People are used to what Microsoft and Apple imposed on them. For better, or for worse, they honestly couldn't give a damn about being able to do stuff like that. Their style is the Apple style, or the Microsoft style and, most importantly, the no-terminal style. Linux is the perfect desktop for developers. It hits all the wrong checkboxes for end-users.
  - bediger4000 7y ago
    Agreed, most people don't do much more than open "Edge" and "Outlook", some people Use "Word", a few people use "Excel" because "Word" doesn't do tables very well. The point being two-fold: 1. The argument that a Linux desktop won't fly because people do so damn many things that a Linux desktop just can't do is false. 2. Windows and Mac really push you hard into a single style of interacting with your computer.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    > a feature that 99% of humans don't care about, and would confuse that same 99% of people. This is precisely the kind of condescending bullshit I'm talking about. > People are used to what Microsoft and Apple imposed on them. A convenient fantasy for Linux Desktop evangelists to soothe their egos.

jchw 7y ago

Along with everything else that could be said about this, I don’t think that is even a major problem. Everything I’ve tried to run on Steam Proton runs at 60 FPS with highest settings. My guess is that Vulkan has enabled much better Direct3D emulation. (Of course, I don’t play much and I didn’t bother to benchmark. It probably is still worse than native in many cases. But hey, glitch free and fast enough for me. Was very surprised to see games with Denuvo running great.)

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]