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Bad time to be pushing this crap with the Linux desktop wooing the gaming/ power user overlap crowd now that steam deck is on the scene. I have been using Wind

• dzdt 4y ago
  Yes 2023 is sure to be the year of the Linux desktop. (/s) The reality is the computer form factor involving a keyboard is slowly becoming more and more of a niche. Windows has a lock on this niche for business and gaming. For other home use there is strong competition from apple and for education there is strong competition from chromebook. Linux is still not really in the running, sorry.
  • als0 4y ago
    The year of the Linux Desktop already happened, just not in the way people wanted - Android and Chromebooks.
    • nibbleshifter 4y ago
      Tbh, everyone I know who has used an Android "laptop" or "Chromebook" has abandoned it after ~6 months for a "real computer". Turns out Native > Webshit for many things.
      • Mistletoe 4y ago
        I'm never buying another Chromebook and Chromebox because Google sunsetted my perfectly fine working laptop and Chromebox and now it can't do things like play streaming movies from HBO Max because the chrome version is too low. Spotify doesn't work either. Leaves few things left to do with it haha.
        • the_third_wave 4y ago
          Install Linux on it and you'll be able to use the latest version of Chromium and stream to your heart's content.
          • Mistletoe 4y ago
            I think I'll just sell it and get a used Macbook Air, they go for like $99 on Ebay now. Every time in my life I have installed Linux with such high hopes and get annoyed by all the crap that doesn't work.
            • the_third_wave 4y ago
              Can you give some examples of "things which do not work"? Seeing how as I've been using Linux for close to 30 years and have it running on loads of different types of hardware with more or less everything working - yes even Bluetooth - I'm always somewhat surprised by these problems which fail to haunt me.
              • 20after4 4y ago
                I think some people just don’t even bother to resolve an issue. Maybe it’s not even broken but just reflexively assumed to be broken if something isn’t immediately as they expect it to work. My parents both use Linux daily and rarely ever need me to provide any support. Ubuntu or Debian has worked out of the box on every machine I’ve touched over the last 10 years. Avoiding nvidia graphics is probably the secret to success though, and may be the issue responsible for many people who have a much more negative view of Linux “just working”
              • Mistletoe 4y ago
                Wi-Fi is usually wonky and just various other things like video drivers etc. Here is the laptop you wanted me to try to install Linux on lol. Who has time for this shit? I just want to use the computer not futz around with it constantly. https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/eku5tv/replacing_chromeos_with_ubuntu_on_an_arm/ https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/eku5tv/replacing_... Like I said, spend $99 on MacBook Air, receive it, turn it on, it works. That’s all I care about. I don’t even like apple products really but I just want something I know will work.
    • pjmlp 4y ago
      That is the Year of Linux kernel, there is nothing else from GNU/Linux on Android and ChromeOS.
      • tormeh 4y ago
        It's a pretty good argument in favor of the GNU/Linux vs. plain Linux distinction. Which is not a thing I really thought I'd say.
  • the_third_wave 4y ago
    For you, maybe not. For me it has been in the running - and mostly in the lead - for close to 30 years. There's Linux on this iMac, on the Thinkpad sitting next to it, on the server these connect to, on the phones lying on the desk, on the tablet. For all I know there is Linux in the washing machine as well, I never bothered to look. It seems like Gates' vision of "information at your fingertips" has come true, the only thing "missing" is Windows. I do have a few virtual machines on the server for the few packages (VAG ELSA, looking at you...) which don't run well on Linux/Wine but these only get started every other blue moon. By the way, the Chromebook you mentioned runs Linux. Google might eventually port this to Fuchsia but this remains to be seen.
  • veridies 4y ago
    I think OP's point is that there's one more major use case — gaming — for which Windows has a newly viable competitor. It's not that Linux is going to replace Windows, but that Windows could suffer a death by a thousand cuts. I'll note that more and more offices that I encounter seem to be switching to Chromebooks.
    • BlargMcLarg 4y ago
      People keep saying this and then run into minor problems becoming bigger problems because frequently used programs end up being unusable or 3rd class citizen, behind both mobile and Mac users. Unless Linux is braindead easy to use without frustrations, it won't happen. Gamers pay more for lesser ease of access increases.
      • croes 4y ago
        Yes, people are strange. Every problem on Linux is deal breaker, all the problems on Windows aren't.
        • mynameisvlad 4y ago
          I mean, this is pretty easily explainable. People have grown up around Windows. The problems for the most part don’t change over time, so people have gotten used to them and have developed their own tried and true ways of doing something that sidesteps the problems they had. Switching to Linux brings with it a whole new swath of problems and fixes Windows problems so not only are users seeing new issues, their workarounds now have to be worked around because whatever was wrong in Windows works in Linux. Add to that the fact that most Linux users are power users and instructions therefore lean towards that, and you’ve got a problem that also seems insurmountable to solve. It’s the classic boiling frog dilemma. Windows has just had decades of heating water to get to where we are.
          • drkhn1234 4y ago
  • drkhn1234 4y ago
  • yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
    On the contrary, Linux is in a good position for the same reason you think it isn't. As the desktop/laptop market shrinks to advanced users, it loses the long tail of users who weren't technically capable enough to switch. At the same time, WINE/proton and even some native ports have vastly improved the gaming scene on Linux, and a decent chunk of non-gaming applications too. Sure, there will always be certain business applications that refuse to work on anything but actual Windows, but Linux works for a decent and growing part of the shrinking niche that is "real computers".
    • encryptluks2 4y ago
      Just played some games on Linux Steam yesterday. It works so smooth. The Steam client is actually buggy at times with a tiling WM, but all the games worked great.. even the oned with Proton.
      • formerly_proven 4y ago
        It's actually amazing how well games work under Proton. Even a significant number of multiplayer titles just work, despite anti-cheat. There's some "random problems" sometimes with some titles, sure... but that's also true on Windows. Interestingly the problematic titles are more or less exactly opposite to Windows - new titles tend to work well on Windows and perhaps have issues on Linux (requiring some specific launch options or Proton version, perhaps graphical glitches). Meanwhile older titles are often problematic on Windows, but are less so on Linux. Might just be my selection bias though.
    • jakogut 4y ago
      > Sure, there will always be certain business applications that refuse to work on anything but actual Windows I disagree with this statement, especially in the case where there's somebody motivated enough to patch Wine to support specific applications. At the end of the day, Windows applications expect a set of interfaces. As long as those interfaces exist and work as expected, the application will work.
      • 4y ago
  • tracerbulletx 4y ago
    I don't think that's really true. Recent trends show the % of desktop/laptop users has normalized and is no longer trending down.
  • mhh__ 4y ago
    Soo niche except for 99.99999% of devs
    • vips7L 4y ago
      A lot of devs don’t want to tinker with Linux. Myself included. And this is disregarding all of the work places that only give out Windows or MacOS machines.
      • SoftTalker 4y ago
        I use Linux. No tinkering required if you use a major distro. I used to like to tinker with stuff, but slowly my viewpoint changed. Most of the time these tweaks are just different, not better, and a waste of time. Worse, whenever you have to use a more stock configuration on another machine, you are fumbling around. These days I just use the defaults on almost everything, whether Windows, Mac, or Linux.
      • mhh__ 4y ago
        The comment I am replying to says that computers with keyboards are niche, that's what I'm replying to
      • mhh__ 4y ago
        Also I've spent a grand total of 30 minutes tinkering with my Linux machines this year, windows has had to be reinstalled twice.
      • tormeh 4y ago
        No tinkering required. Tinkering can be tempting and dangerous, but if you keep yourself in check it's just not a thing you need to do. Unless you install Arch, but then you deserve what you get. Just install Ubuntu or Pop and you'll be fine.
        • phendrenad2 4y ago
          "No tinkering required" needs to come with a big YMMV. Most of the devs I've polled about their Linux experience matches the OP, they tried it and went back to Mac/Windows.
  • oliwarner 4y ago
    While there are still use-cases where the traditional laptop/desktop form-factor remains the answer and there are Windows users, Windows getting worse and Linux getting better will continue to see people migrate over. No, there' won't be an explosion, it's a death by a thousand cuts. The bemused amongst us are wondering why Microsoft is the one holding the knife.
• screye 4y ago
  If anything, I think it's the other way around. WSL2 is now so good, that you can get away with not needing Linux at all.
  • yoyohello13 4y ago
    I pretty much live in WSL2 at work. While it makes Windows tolerable, it's not even close to as good as a full Linux desktop.
    • ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      > it's not even close to as good as a full Linux desktop I use "a full linux desktop" at work (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS) and the desktop UI bugs and limitations are a nightmare. Give me Windows and WSL any day in comparison. At least there I know that basic stuff like clipboard and screen sharing/capture always works flawlessly, and windows don't magically get stuck to one aspect ratio and nost wasting my time trying to google fixes for snap/wayland/apt bugs. Sure, some of these bugs I encountered could be Ubuntu, or Gnome, or Wayland, or pipewire issues, but as an employee, I don't have time to distro hop at work in search for the Linux experience with the least amount of jank or find out which component of this bazaar engineering efort is the one responsible for this jank. Sure, I don't see ads in my Ubuntu install, but it's 2022 and the clipboard in Firefox in Ubuntu still stops working randomly, which causes me way more productivity loss than seeing a candy crush icon in the Win start menu. Firefox bug tracker says the clipboard issue fixed on their end whenever this bug gets reported and says it must be now a Wayland issue, while Wayland devs say this is a Firefox issue, meanwhile me and severa other Ubuntu users are complaining about our clipboards being broken in FF. FML, it's 2022 and I still can't have a working clipboard on Linux, one of the most used basic features on any OS. "Year of the Linux desktop." Yeah. Not to mentions the lack of hibernate(not sleep) on Ubuntu. I spend almost an hour trying various tutorials and command line incantations that had the risk at bricking my OS, to get hibernate working, and no cigar, and I realized Ubuntu really, really wants you not to use hibernate at all cost. I never thought it would be missing a basic feature so simple as "dump entire RAM contents to SSD, then at power on, copy them back to RAM and resume". Sure, Linux boffins will tell me this is a limitation due to the use of Z-RAM compression or something, but me as an end user, I don't care which technical decision has lead to this limitation, as it doesn't fix my problem of not having hibernate.
• tester756 4y ago
  >People forget that tech trends often flow outwards from the nerds who will actually try something new, then evangelize it to the world - see chrome for example trillion dollar marketing seems to be more important factor than "nerds" see Linux for example There's ofc Android, but people have no choice - you are either "rich" (outside US) and want to buy iphone or go with android
• lewantmontreal 4y ago
  Off topic but I really wish the regular old mouse and scroll wheel would work ”normally” straight out the box on fedora/ubuntu/etc. It’s really such a horrible experience coming from Windows when using the mouse is all icky not having ”proper” (Windows default) acceleration on and scroll wheel scrolling one line at a time. Like many people I really want to make the jump but still hang on to Windows via O&O Shutup 10.
  • cjauvin 4y ago
    I have been using Linux as my primary OS for many years, but this particular issue is stubbornly baffling. There are solutions of course but they are not really good.
  • sph 4y ago
    I don't know what you're talking about, but I've never had any mouse wheel issues on Linux, when I dual booted daily so it had plenty of chances to compare. In fact I made sure I had the exact same mouse speed on both OS. My wheel doesn't scroll a line at a time, and there are three acceleration modes for the pointer-default,adaptive and flat. I keep hearing people complaining about Linux with the weirdest problems ever.
    • lewantmontreal 4y ago
      Sounds good, I’ll try again when I have time. My latest attempt was back in Summer with Fedora 36 and a Logitech mouse. The default was one line at a time and I could not find a setting for it. (Apart from Firefox config but I need multiple browsers.) Amusingly I even gave Chromebook (kind of a Linux) a proper try and with the scroll wheel it too scrolled a single line at a time.
  • stemlord 4y ago
    This is ironic to read as I felt the windows mouse controls were dogshit compared to what I had with macOS
  • RichardCA 4y ago
    This may or may not help, but this mouse has variable acceration (DPI) and I've been pretty happy with it. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071J9JC6S https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071J9JC6S
• pjmlp 4y ago
  Those 2% market share are looking great. The Year of Desktop Linux is as virtual machine running on top of Apple and Microsoft desktop OS, or having the complete userspace replaced like on Google OS offerings.
• brundolf 4y ago
  I've held on to windows just for gaming, but Valve has been making huge strides turning linux into a viable option for that. Whenever support stops for Windows 10, I may have to give it a try
• ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  Honestly, ubuntu is doing similar UX breaking crap... every two years you need to relearn where to set the static ip, apt-get is snap, or snap is apt-get or who knows what you'll get when you need a simple install, and phoning home is preinstalled too.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    I’ve had better luck with rolling release desktops because at least things break and change slowly over time. Each new Ubuntu is a whole new beast on the desktop (and sometimes even on server).
  • lmm 4y ago
    Yep. I honestly think that if you loved Linux 10 or 20 years ago you're better off with FreeBSD these days.
    • ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      There are still some distros that are usable... notably gentoo or arch... but the "pretty" ones, especially the debian/ubuntu based ones, have really gone downhill.
  • timbit42 4y ago
    Try LinuxMint. It's Ubuntu but without the Snaps. There is a reason it's 4 positions above Ubuntu on DistroWatch.
• mancerayder 4y ago
  This message is 20 years old. Many of us long for the utopia of a Linux desktop that just works, where drivers are up to date and X windows doesn't die due to a yum/apt-get update. This feels like a future parody thread where someone will make fun of our comments.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    The Linux desktop arrived under the guise of Android. The rest is minor noise, sadly. At least it is possible to have a working Linux desktop but that was true twenty years ago.
    • actually_a_dog 4y ago
      Oh really? Where are these widely used/popular Android desktop and/or laptop machines?
      • bombcar 4y ago
        They’re called phones and they’re killing the windows desktop like Linux users wanted in the 90s. It’s a very monkey’s paw scenario.
        • actually_a_dog 4y ago
          That’s simply untrue. I have a phone, a tablet, and a laptop. I do different things on each. None has supplanted the others; they all supplement each other.
          • viraptor 4y ago
            You do that, but it doesn't generalise. Mobile phone ownership exceeded laptop/desktop ownership in the us in the last 2 years and the latter is in a slow constant decline. A lot of people are going to be happy with just the phone in the future.
• andix 4y ago
  Microsoft has not a lot of interest in home power users. They need windows for business customers. And the majority of home users just keep the default system their PC came with. So if a few home users switch to Linux they probably won’t care at all.
• npteljes 4y ago
  Chrome as an example? They had an advert on top of the most successful search engine. Hardly a grassroots effort. People won't bother with Linux, nor other alternative systems. Many don't even change the desktop wallpaper. The computer works out of the box, as it comes, and that's the end of the customization story. In order to achieve Linux majority, it needs to become the de facto standard: governments need to use it, schools need to teach it, and businesses need to use it. And it needs to come on computers preinstalled, compatible with all these other systems. Otherwise, no dice. The question is not technological - Linux has been fine for a long time now. It has been down to business, and Microsoft is good at business. That's it.