7 ms·

I'm not old and I have lived to see this sentiment come and go at least twice before. We're still on Windows.

Lorkki 5y ago
On the other hand, some of it sticks. For one thing, gaming on Linux has improved by leaps and bounds approximately since the announcement of Windows 10.
- thrower123 5y ago
  Gaming on Linux gave up on trying to build native ports and Valve put some real effort into making their Windows compatibility layer that sits on Linux good.
smoldesu 5y ago
Then why wait? Programs like Photoshop and Ableton Live work just fine through WINE. I have a hard time imagining what kind of software you can't replace on modern Linux...
- neltnerb 5y ago
  Even LabView runs natively on Linux now, so my reason for the last fifteen years may draw to a close soon. Microsoft decided to put Office in the cloud, so don't need Windows for that anymore... VMware is also quite good if WINE isn't good enough for some reason. There's some rare expensive equipment that doesn't have Linux support (I'm talking $100k mechanical testing equipment and CNC machines) but those only need one computer each. Of course those probably won't support Windows 11 either, they barely supported Windows 10.
- serf 5y ago
  while these can be made to work .. Fusion360/SolidWorks/CATIA/Siemens NX are notoriously hard to make work, and when they do the fixes usually only last a single patch; and these softwares (aside from SolidWorks) are all always-connected and auto-updating. and unfortunately a lot of that software is simply career-making. It's simply an arms-race that can't be won from the consumer perspective without applying adequate pressure to the companies to try and facilitate a legitimate release. it's hard to run any kind of business software to run any kind of business when it's in the back of your mind whether or not Autodesk has pushed an update to break everything by the time you need to use the software and have actual clients and money waiting for the work. I'd drop all my windows machines in a heart beat if those companies would consider the GNU/Linux market, but i'm not really holding my breath -- they make a ton of money on their captive audience.
  - InitialLastName 5y ago
    These are my problem. Situations where "maybe the export is a little wrong because an update mucked with the optimal Wine configuration" don't fly when I'm about to bet the business (or a less extreme version, drop multiple yearly salaries) on a production run of some hardware.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    You're not necessarily wrong, but the vast majority of recent WINE developments have been going into making it a much more stable experience. The past decade of WINE development has pretty much been about throwing the kitchen sink at your program and praying that it works, but companies like Valve have made some pretty wild overhauls to the system that allow for both leaner and more predictable prefixes. It's still not perfect (and as you've suggested, will likely never be), but the gap is definitely closing. We've gotten to the point where people are confident shipping Linux consoles because the Windows compatibility layer is just that good. Game studios are able to support Linux-based platforms without targeting a build for the OS in the first place. As the technology continues to be refined, I can definitely see some CAD and studio software developers experimenting with the tech. Much like you, I'm pretty pessimistic about the whole thing. It's safe to assume that nobody cares about it, but it's also still too early to say for sure. In 5 years, WINE could well be a stable development platform for third-party developers who want to focus on a Windows build but also offer compatibility with other operating systems. Stranger things have happened.
    - InitialLastName 5y ago
      It would take a lot of progress for me to bet my livelihood on WINE functionality for niche software (whose customer support I pay for, and whose support agents would hang up on me the moment it became clear I was having trouble while not running on Windows).
  - chris_wot 5y ago
    Fusion 360 has a webassembly version, runs remarkably well!
- DashAnimal 5y ago
  What about VSTs using iLok? Ive only shallowly looked at it in the past but haven't heard good things
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    VSTs using iLok barely work on Windows/MacOS, I'd imagine their chances of working on Linux to be fairly slim, courtesy of the fact that the DRM is often larger than the plugin itself. Some manufacturers like U-HE have taken it upon themselves to start releasing Linux builds of their VSTs (albeit without support) and they seem to work really well from what I've tried. So yeah, DRM is still an issue but the tides may be turning, especially now that the audio subsystem on Linux just got a massive rework.
- tentacleuno 5y ago
  > Programs like Photoshop and Ableton Live work just fine through WINE. Could you expand on this, please? What was your experience working with Photoshop in WINE? What version / CC of Photoshop did you use? Did you use PlayOnLinux, which supports this IIRC?
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Photoshop CS6 works pretty reliably on the majority of setups, I remember having an... ahem, perfectly legal copy installed without needing to use any install helpers whatsoever. WINE just downloaded all of the dependencies before launching the installer and it worked like a charm. According to WineHQ[0], the only features it seems to be missing is the updater that came with it. Creative Cloud seems to be a bit more hit-or-miss, but I genuinely don't know many people running CC these days. It might be worth doing your own research there. Ableton Live 10 works fine though, I played around with it for a while before switching to Bitwig (which has a native Linux build), and I really didn't have any complaints besides the CPU usage being marginally higher than native Windows. I haven't tried it recently either, so the situation may well have improved. EDIT: just reinstalled my copy of Live 11, it works out-of-the-box with WINE installed and no configuration. I can't go around making claims that it's perfect, but it's pretty damn close. You may as well see for yourself, all the software (WINE, Linux, etc) is free. [0] https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=25607&iTestingId=105510 https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iI...
    - xxpor 5y ago
      Does low latency audio work through WINE? I don't care about the specific tech used, as long as midi->hearing audio works well enough to actually play a piano.
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        Depends on what you consider low, Live reported that it was around 45ms of latency using the default settings on the DirectAudio driver, I didn't bother to install ASIO4ALL and try it that way though. You could also bring it down by reducing the buffer size, but I didn't really mess with that either. Native DAWs can hit 5-10ms of latency though, I'd bet with a minimal amount of tinkering you could get it to hover around 15ms through WINE.
- ahnick 5y ago
  Fortnite
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
scruple 5y ago
Thankfully we have options. I'm planning on moving my main desktop to Arch over my Christmas break from work. It's been a while since I ran Linux as my main desktop, my only complaints have been around gaming performance. I have a friend who plays the same games as I do and he's got everything working on his Arch install. That's really the only thing that holds me on Windows and if it's as smooth of a transition as I believe it currently is then I just have no reason to not give it another fair shake.
- BrandoElFollito 5y ago
  I try to move to Linux desktop one or twice a year for the last, what, 20 years. I have Linux on all my servers, was an early (very minor) dev on pre-1 kernel and generally love it. The desktop is a walking nightmare. Something continuously does not work: multiple screens, waking up from sleep etc. I really would like to move (we use Outlook but I am even ready to go for OWA) but Windows is considerably better on laptops. Again, I love Linux and have managed literally thousands of them since 1994.
  - viraptor 5y ago
    > Something continuously does not work: multiple screens, waking up from sleep etc. That's my experience with Windows as well though. On Dell xps on windows my external monitor goes blank sometimes and sleep randomly causes overheating and fast battery drain. On the other hand Linux handles it just fine. Win is not consistently better anymore.
    - rapind 5y ago
      I’ll add that m1 macs have been a shit show for external monitor support (ymmv but google it and you’ll find thousand page long support issues). It’s either rocket science to get monitors to work flawlessly or it’s the B team working on it. Probably the former given that it’s also a problem on Linux and windoze.
  - aquir 5y ago
    The same, I always try but go back to Windows because on desktop it's unusable due to silly issues like what you've mentioned
roody15 5y ago
I’m not. Linux been main driver for years … even for gaming now (although wine and proton have a big part here).
matkoniecz 5y ago
Dozens of people switched :) At least I upgraded Windows 7 to Lubuntu
cdumler 5y ago
Realize the people who complain how hard it is are the people who are stuck. The people who don't made it out aren't complaining. Get out takes effort, but also it depends on how you approach it. If you look at trying to leave as in "how to run what I have now without Windows OS," you're going to have a bad time. Instead, I would suggest a few approaches that make a transition a lot easier: _Look at it as opportunity_ Other platforms have other ideas about how things should work. Instead of trying to replace Windows, take the time to realize that it's not the only way to solve problems. The Unix world has a pretty different idea about what's the way to work, which is often foreign until you realize there is a method to the madness. If you want opinionated and guided, MacOS is designed to have very strong "you won't have to worry about that" goal. Linux is the opposite and very flexible. So, you'll want to look at a lot of different distributions, as they all have particular goals in mind. _Reconsider your current software_ Look at your current software and see if you can find replacements that are cross platform. This can mean software that runs on multiple platforms (Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS, etc). This can also mean switching to cloud/self-hosted software. The software I use I choose through the lens of "if I have to give up my current platform of choice, does this go with me?" _Sync your environment_ It can be daunting to jump ship to another OS if all your stuff is stuck on a different machine. I highly suggest SyncThing. It is a multi-platform, self-hosted synchronizer. Get a new machine (Linux, Mac) and sync your important files from your other machine. Now, you try out working on the new machine without loosing your work. Install some tools. Try getting stuff done. When you feel you've been held up for too long and need to get some stuff done again in Windows, all your stuff is magically sync'ed. Eventually, you'll find you're doing most of your work on the new machine, and you'll decide what to decommission from the old one. _VM/Wine/Proton_ Windows support under Mac and Linux has come a long way. Maybe you still need a very specific piece of software. That's fine, just plan on taking time to figure out if you can still get it to work on your new platform. About 12 years go I jumped from Windows to Mac and about 4 years ago I started working with Linux, as well. And, so can you. Today is your first day to start making changes.
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
> I'm not old and I have lived to see this sentiment come and go at least twice before. We're still on Windows. In that time we've seen Microsoft concede the mobile market to iOS and Android and the server market to Linux and Google Docs manage to take a major chunk out of MS Office. Microsoft is still extremely profitable, but it's not because of Windows anymore. Which is why they're now comfortable risking defection by screwing over the Windows customer more than ever. But that's what happens at the end, not the middle.
- hakfoo 5y ago
  It feels like, to an extent, Microsoft was all but admitting they were giving away Windows for home users (how many of us are still on perpetually upgraded Win7 licenses?) and betting (the desktop software sector) on commercial licensing and Office. I notice a lot of OEM PCs, for example, come with an Office 365 trial install. I'm sure the OEM deal is "Windows is 30 cents cheaper if you include the trial." But if the OEM is already installing Ubuntu or whatever, they 1) no longer need to negotiate to shave pennies off the Windows license and 2) have an office suite pre-installed, potentially capturing a large number of the easy customers who'd click on the first thing available. How does Microsoft keep that sales channel open? I can't imagine them going the road of the shovelware antivirus vendors and outright paying OEMs for presence. But I could see them packaging up a cut down "Linux Subservices for Windows" product. This would be basically a blessed virtual machine package, which OEMs would be willing to include-- or maybe even pay a token sum for-- because, well, people still want to run their games and legacy software. More importantly, it's a way to get millions of people to install a MS-provided package on their desktops, which could include cross-promotional offers and telemetry. (Yes, there will be the inevitable shut-up packages from third parties, but they have those for Windows already).
underscore_ku 5y ago
i'm not. i've moved to Ubuntu linux
bsder 5y ago
Office365 being web/cloud based is a big difference this time. A normal office worker wouldn't have much difference whether their desktop is Windows, Linux, Chromebook, etc. Office workers follow breadcrumb trails through tech. As long as somebody gives them a document explaining how to follow the breadcrumbs, they don't care about anything else.

On the other hand, some of it sticks. For one thing, gaming on Linux has improved by leaps and bounds approximately since the announcement of Windows 10.

thrower123 5y ago
Gaming on Linux gave up on trying to build native ports and Valve put some real effort into making their Windows compatibility layer that sits on Linux good.

smoldesu 5y ago

Then why wait? Programs like Photoshop and Ableton Live work just fine through WINE. I have a hard time imagining what kind of software you can't replace on modern Linux...

neltnerb 5y ago
Even LabView runs natively on Linux now, so my reason for the last fifteen years may draw to a close soon. Microsoft decided to put Office in the cloud, so don't need Windows for that anymore... VMware is also quite good if WINE isn't good enough for some reason. There's some rare expensive equipment that doesn't have Linux support (I'm talking $100k mechanical testing equipment and CNC machines) but those only need one computer each. Of course those probably won't support Windows 11 either, they barely supported Windows 10.
serf 5y ago
while these can be made to work .. Fusion360/SolidWorks/CATIA/Siemens NX are notoriously hard to make work, and when they do the fixes usually only last a single patch; and these softwares (aside from SolidWorks) are all always-connected and auto-updating. and unfortunately a lot of that software is simply career-making. It's simply an arms-race that can't be won from the consumer perspective without applying adequate pressure to the companies to try and facilitate a legitimate release. it's hard to run any kind of business software to run any kind of business when it's in the back of your mind whether or not Autodesk has pushed an update to break everything by the time you need to use the software and have actual clients and money waiting for the work. I'd drop all my windows machines in a heart beat if those companies would consider the GNU/Linux market, but i'm not really holding my breath -- they make a ton of money on their captive audience.
- InitialLastName 5y ago
  These are my problem. Situations where "maybe the export is a little wrong because an update mucked with the optimal Wine configuration" don't fly when I'm about to bet the business (or a less extreme version, drop multiple yearly salaries) on a production run of some hardware.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  You're not necessarily wrong, but the vast majority of recent WINE developments have been going into making it a much more stable experience. The past decade of WINE development has pretty much been about throwing the kitchen sink at your program and praying that it works, but companies like Valve have made some pretty wild overhauls to the system that allow for both leaner and more predictable prefixes. It's still not perfect (and as you've suggested, will likely never be), but the gap is definitely closing. We've gotten to the point where people are confident shipping Linux consoles because the Windows compatibility layer is just that good. Game studios are able to support Linux-based platforms without targeting a build for the OS in the first place. As the technology continues to be refined, I can definitely see some CAD and studio software developers experimenting with the tech. Much like you, I'm pretty pessimistic about the whole thing. It's safe to assume that nobody cares about it, but it's also still too early to say for sure. In 5 years, WINE could well be a stable development platform for third-party developers who want to focus on a Windows build but also offer compatibility with other operating systems. Stranger things have happened.
  - InitialLastName 5y ago
    It would take a lot of progress for me to bet my livelihood on WINE functionality for niche software (whose customer support I pay for, and whose support agents would hang up on me the moment it became clear I was having trouble while not running on Windows).
- chris_wot 5y ago
  Fusion 360 has a webassembly version, runs remarkably well!
DashAnimal 5y ago
What about VSTs using iLok? Ive only shallowly looked at it in the past but haven't heard good things
- smoldesu 5y ago
  VSTs using iLok barely work on Windows/MacOS, I'd imagine their chances of working on Linux to be fairly slim, courtesy of the fact that the DRM is often larger than the plugin itself. Some manufacturers like U-HE have taken it upon themselves to start releasing Linux builds of their VSTs (albeit without support) and they seem to work really well from what I've tried. So yeah, DRM is still an issue but the tides may be turning, especially now that the audio subsystem on Linux just got a massive rework.
tentacleuno 5y ago
> Programs like Photoshop and Ableton Live work just fine through WINE. Could you expand on this, please? What was your experience working with Photoshop in WINE? What version / CC of Photoshop did you use? Did you use PlayOnLinux, which supports this IIRC?
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Photoshop CS6 works pretty reliably on the majority of setups, I remember having an... ahem, perfectly legal copy installed without needing to use any install helpers whatsoever. WINE just downloaded all of the dependencies before launching the installer and it worked like a charm. According to WineHQ[0], the only features it seems to be missing is the updater that came with it. Creative Cloud seems to be a bit more hit-or-miss, but I genuinely don't know many people running CC these days. It might be worth doing your own research there. Ableton Live 10 works fine though, I played around with it for a while before switching to Bitwig (which has a native Linux build), and I really didn't have any complaints besides the CPU usage being marginally higher than native Windows. I haven't tried it recently either, so the situation may well have improved. EDIT: just reinstalled my copy of Live 11, it works out-of-the-box with WINE installed and no configuration. I can't go around making claims that it's perfect, but it's pretty damn close. You may as well see for yourself, all the software (WINE, Linux, etc) is free. [0] https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=25607&iTestingId=105510 https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iI...
  - xxpor 5y ago
    Does low latency audio work through WINE? I don't care about the specific tech used, as long as midi->hearing audio works well enough to actually play a piano.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      Depends on what you consider low, Live reported that it was around 45ms of latency using the default settings on the DirectAudio driver, I didn't bother to install ASIO4ALL and try it that way though. You could also bring it down by reducing the buffer size, but I didn't really mess with that either. Native DAWs can hit 5-10ms of latency though, I'd bet with a minimal amount of tinkering you could get it to hover around 15ms through WINE.
ahnick 5y ago
Fortnite
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

scruple 5y ago

Thankfully we have options. I'm planning on moving my main desktop to Arch over my Christmas break from work. It's been a while since I ran Linux as my main desktop, my only complaints have been around gaming performance. I have a friend who plays the same games as I do and he's got everything working on his Arch install. That's really the only thing that holds me on Windows and if it's as smooth of a transition as I believe it currently is then I just have no reason to not give it another fair shake.

BrandoElFollito 5y ago
I try to move to Linux desktop one or twice a year for the last, what, 20 years. I have Linux on all my servers, was an early (very minor) dev on pre-1 kernel and generally love it. The desktop is a walking nightmare. Something continuously does not work: multiple screens, waking up from sleep etc. I really would like to move (we use Outlook but I am even ready to go for OWA) but Windows is considerably better on laptops. Again, I love Linux and have managed literally thousands of them since 1994.
- viraptor 5y ago
  > Something continuously does not work: multiple screens, waking up from sleep etc. That's my experience with Windows as well though. On Dell xps on windows my external monitor goes blank sometimes and sleep randomly causes overheating and fast battery drain. On the other hand Linux handles it just fine. Win is not consistently better anymore.
  - rapind 5y ago
    I’ll add that m1 macs have been a shit show for external monitor support (ymmv but google it and you’ll find thousand page long support issues). It’s either rocket science to get monitors to work flawlessly or it’s the B team working on it. Probably the former given that it’s also a problem on Linux and windoze.
- aquir 5y ago
  The same, I always try but go back to Windows because on desktop it's unusable due to silly issues like what you've mentioned

roody15 5y ago

I’m not. Linux been main driver for years … even for gaming now (although wine and proton have a big part here).

matkoniecz 5y ago

Dozens of people switched :) At least I upgraded Windows 7 to Lubuntu

cdumler 5y ago

Realize the people who complain how hard it is are the people who are stuck. The people who don't made it out aren't complaining. Get out takes effort, but also it depends on how you approach it. If you look at trying to leave as in "how to run what I have now without Windows OS," you're going to have a bad time. Instead, I would suggest a few approaches that make a transition a lot easier: _Look at it as opportunity_ Other platforms have other ideas about how things should work. Instead of trying to replace Windows, take the time to realize that it's not the only way to solve problems. The Unix world has a pretty different idea about what's the way to work, which is often foreign until you realize there is a method to the madness. If you want opinionated and guided, MacOS is designed to have very strong "you won't have to worry about that" goal. Linux is the opposite and very flexible. So, you'll want to look at a lot of different distributions, as they all have particular goals in mind. _Reconsider your current software_ Look at your current software and see if you can find replacements that are cross platform. This can mean software that runs on multiple platforms (Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS, etc). This can also mean switching to cloud/self-hosted software. The software I use I choose through the lens of "if I have to give up my current platform of choice, does this go with me?" _Sync your environment_ It can be daunting to jump ship to another OS if all your stuff is stuck on a different machine. I highly suggest SyncThing. It is a multi-platform, self-hosted synchronizer. Get a new machine (Linux, Mac) and sync your important files from your other machine. Now, you try out working on the new machine without loosing your work. Install some tools. Try getting stuff done. When you feel you've been held up for too long and need to get some stuff done again in Windows, all your stuff is magically sync'ed. Eventually, you'll find you're doing most of your work on the new machine, and you'll decide what to decommission from the old one. _VM/Wine/Proton_ Windows support under Mac and Linux has come a long way. Maybe you still need a very specific piece of software. That's fine, just plan on taking time to figure out if you can still get it to work on your new platform. About 12 years go I jumped from Windows to Mac and about 4 years ago I started working with Linux, as well. And, so can you. Today is your first day to start making changes.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

> I'm not old and I have lived to see this sentiment come and go at least twice before. We're still on Windows. In that time we've seen Microsoft concede the mobile market to iOS and Android and the server market to Linux and Google Docs manage to take a major chunk out of MS Office. Microsoft is still extremely profitable, but it's not because of Windows anymore. Which is why they're now comfortable risking defection by screwing over the Windows customer more than ever. But that's what happens at the end, not the middle.

hakfoo 5y ago
It feels like, to an extent, Microsoft was all but admitting they were giving away Windows for home users (how many of us are still on perpetually upgraded Win7 licenses?) and betting (the desktop software sector) on commercial licensing and Office. I notice a lot of OEM PCs, for example, come with an Office 365 trial install. I'm sure the OEM deal is "Windows is 30 cents cheaper if you include the trial." But if the OEM is already installing Ubuntu or whatever, they 1) no longer need to negotiate to shave pennies off the Windows license and 2) have an office suite pre-installed, potentially capturing a large number of the easy customers who'd click on the first thing available. How does Microsoft keep that sales channel open? I can't imagine them going the road of the shovelware antivirus vendors and outright paying OEMs for presence. But I could see them packaging up a cut down "Linux Subservices for Windows" product. This would be basically a blessed virtual machine package, which OEMs would be willing to include-- or maybe even pay a token sum for-- because, well, people still want to run their games and legacy software. More importantly, it's a way to get millions of people to install a MS-provided package on their desktops, which could include cross-promotional offers and telemetry. (Yes, there will be the inevitable shut-up packages from third parties, but they have those for Windows already).

underscore_ku 5y ago

i'm not. i've moved to Ubuntu linux

bsder 5y ago

Office365 being web/cloud based is a big difference this time. A normal office worker wouldn't have much difference whether their desktop is Windows, Linux, Chromebook, etc. Office workers follow breadcrumb trails through tech. As long as somebody gives them a document explaining how to follow the breadcrumbs, they don't care about anything else.