4 ms·

I was thinking about Windows/macOS being the standard choice for most folks. Nowadays, people that mainly use the browser for their work/life stuff could just u

by ciurca 5y ago

I was thinking about Windows/macOS being the standard choice for most folks. Nowadays, people that mainly use the browser for their work/life stuff could just use some Linux distro like Ubuntu. The standard choice for standard people should probably become an easy to use Linux distro.

luke2m 5y ago
> The standard choice for standard people should probably become an easy to use Linux distro. More and more, it is becoming exactly that with Chrome OS.
- dddddaviddddd 5y ago
  Android as well, to some extent.
- thomastjeffery 5y ago
  That seems to be the goal of Chrome OS. Unfortunately, Chrome OS prioritizes simplicity over functionality, so most of the non-technical users I talk to complain that it's not enough to replace windows. Something like Ubuntu with a really good wine interface would be much more valuable to the average user.
  - Mikeb85 5y ago
    > really good wine interface Do people even use wine for anything that's not gaming? Also nowadays Steam Proton takes care of that.
pjmlp 5y ago
Browser is the new X-Windows/telnet thin client, the OS is meaningless. Problem is that those kind of people will also buy a hardware XYZ at the shopping mall and the experience won't be like on Windows/macOS when they plug it at home.
rvba 5y ago
Do people use browsers for their work stuff? I thought most non programmers usually use: email, chat, some ERP, some CMS, spreadhseets, spreadsheets, spreadsheets, some word processing software and maybe some project management tool like Jira (it seems to starting to be adopted outside of IT). It seems that every company has some data in ERP and few various other databases, but then there are hundreds of various Excel spreadsheets and Word documents. I think there are decent Word replacements (but can they really work in a browser when the documents have more than dew pages?), but Im not convinced that Excel has anything good enough (I tried few). Google sheets probably is the best alternative due to its multi-user features, but I dont think it is a good daily driver: too laggy with big files, also problematic when one file collects data from other files. Maybe I am a bit skewed, but it seems most work is more Excel heavy: lists, lists, lists of everything. On a side note MS could make Excel so much better in few areas. Also "downloading something from ERP to Excel, reworking it and uploading back" is something that seems to happen in most companies that I know (as long as they have an ERP, or even financial software). There is a lot of money for some better Acess replacement though. Lots of companies need small databases, but it is hard to build them for non programmers. That's why "excel as a database"..
- warner25 5y ago
  Where I work (US Department of Defense), we depend on PowerPoint more than anything. We recently got O365 which includes the PowerPoint web application, but the web application is still very weak compared to the desktop application. Anything beyond editing some text on a slide, or creating a very simple (mostly text) slide, in the web application is just horrible if not impossible. This is really a shame, because the ability for multiple people to open a PowerPoint file in O365 and do simultaneous editing is an amazing leap forward. Version control has always been a problem for us as we endlessly email PowerPoint files back and forth, or store them on SharePoint or simple file servers. I've mostly used LibreOffice (and OpenOffice before that) on my personal machine at home, but I wouldn't dare depend on it to handle the complex PowerPoint files that we pass around at work. Edited to add: I guess we equally depend on fillable PDFs (often digitally signed with our smart cards). For that, I gave up on trying to find a good native solution in Linux after Adobe stopped making Acrobat Reader available in 2013.

by ciurca 5y ago

luke2m 5y ago

> The standard choice for standard people should probably become an easy to use Linux distro. More and more, it is becoming exactly that with Chrome OS.

dddddaviddddd 5y ago
Android as well, to some extent.
thomastjeffery 5y ago
That seems to be the goal of Chrome OS. Unfortunately, Chrome OS prioritizes simplicity over functionality, so most of the non-technical users I talk to complain that it's not enough to replace windows. Something like Ubuntu with a really good wine interface would be much more valuable to the average user.
- Mikeb85 5y ago
  > really good wine interface Do people even use wine for anything that's not gaming? Also nowadays Steam Proton takes care of that.

pjmlp 5y ago

Browser is the new X-Windows/telnet thin client, the OS is meaningless. Problem is that those kind of people will also buy a hardware XYZ at the shopping mall and the experience won't be like on Windows/macOS when they plug it at home.

rvba 5y ago

Do people use browsers for their work stuff? I thought most non programmers usually use: email, chat, some ERP, some CMS, spreadhseets, spreadsheets, spreadsheets, some word processing software and maybe some project management tool like Jira (it seems to starting to be adopted outside of IT). It seems that every company has some data in ERP and few various other databases, but then there are hundreds of various Excel spreadsheets and Word documents. I think there are decent Word replacements (but can they really work in a browser when the documents have more than dew pages?), but Im not convinced that Excel has anything good enough (I tried few). Google sheets probably is the best alternative due to its multi-user features, but I dont think it is a good daily driver: too laggy with big files, also problematic when one file collects data from other files. Maybe I am a bit skewed, but it seems most work is more Excel heavy: lists, lists, lists of everything. On a side note MS could make Excel so much better in few areas. Also "downloading something from ERP to Excel, reworking it and uploading back" is something that seems to happen in most companies that I know (as long as they have an ERP, or even financial software). There is a lot of money for some better Acess replacement though. Lots of companies need small databases, but it is hard to build them for non programmers. That's why "excel as a database"..

warner25 5y ago
Where I work (US Department of Defense), we depend on PowerPoint more than anything. We recently got O365 which includes the PowerPoint web application, but the web application is still very weak compared to the desktop application. Anything beyond editing some text on a slide, or creating a very simple (mostly text) slide, in the web application is just horrible if not impossible. This is really a shame, because the ability for multiple people to open a PowerPoint file in O365 and do simultaneous editing is an amazing leap forward. Version control has always been a problem for us as we endlessly email PowerPoint files back and forth, or store them on SharePoint or simple file servers. I've mostly used LibreOffice (and OpenOffice before that) on my personal machine at home, but I wouldn't dare depend on it to handle the complex PowerPoint files that we pass around at work. Edited to add: I guess we equally depend on fillable PDFs (often digitally signed with our smart cards). For that, I gave up on trying to find a good native solution in Linux after Adobe stopped making Acrobat Reader available in 2013.