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I’ve wondered for a bit if there’s a future where Windows turns into A Linux distribution with some extra tools and runtimes for legacy executables. Microsoft h

I’ve wondered for a bit if there’s a future where Windows turns into A Linux distribution with some extra tools and runtimes for legacy executables. Microsoft has some really expensive software it has to maintain. Office is also maintained on multiple platforms, but it feels like Windows is starting to be a drag on the company - lots of resources for not a lot of income. As wild as it would be, offloading a lot of dev to the OSS community would free up resources to differentiate their product.

Zurrrrr 4y ago
Windows is Windows because of the huge API, all the legacy support, the graphics subsystem, all the DirectX stuff etc. If the somehow did switch to running a Linux kernel for some reason, it wouldn't be noticeable to the end user at all. I can't see that ever happening though.
GuB-42 4y ago
As a mostly Linux user, I disagree. You simply can't replace Windows with Linux, at least not in the near future. Here is a page which summarize Linux shortcomings on the desktop: https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.t... One reason I think Linux (the kernel) would be a poor fit as a Windows replacement is the lack of a stable driver ABI. Linux is a monolithic kernel and all the drivers are expected to be part of it. It is a model that works because it fully embraces open source and community driven development. But not all manufacturers want that, first because they may not want to, open their code, or maybe they can't due to licensing arguments. It also means they need to invest significant resources into getting their code accepted by the community. The Windows driver model drove its rich hardware ecosystem. And if you think switching to a Linux driver model is going to be better, more free, think again, because we already have that with Android. Manufacturers fork the kernel and don't give much back to the community, just having them comply with the GPL is a struggle, and hardware support besides what is built into the phone is extremely limited, and because they don't work with the community, support for what's in the phone isn't carried on for more than a couple of years. And Windows really strong point is backwards compatibility. For example, I still use the "free" Photoshop CS2, 20 years later, works perfectly fine as a binary, I can run stuff that dates back from the 3.11 era, though as I understand it, it is mostly emulation at this point. This is part of the reason people use Windows. Microsoft tried to start clean with Windows RT, it was a failure. Apple can get away with it because they have complete control over their ecosystem, not Microsoft. Also, games.
- bityard 4y ago
  My experience with drivers on Linux and Windows has been just about the exact opposite from yours somehow. On Windows, you sometimes cannot even install the OS without hunting down the right drivers for some piece of hardware like the RAID controller, if you can even find them. Most drivers are authored by the hardware vendors whose main competency may not be writing kernel code, so driver quality tends to be extremely variable. The result is often drivers that just don't work well (which can look like a hardware issue, e.g. lack of performance) or crash the whole system. Not all Linux drivers are bug-free or feature-complete of course, but they tend to be reasonable or high quality due to the fact that they are written by and/or reviewed by the kernel community. Since all the drivers come with the kernel, the user generally has to do nothing to make their hardware work, it just does right out of the box. (Notable exceptions here are vendors of certain video cards and wifi chips who refuse to either write Linux drivers or supply the information needed to write them. So you do have to be somewhat careful to avoid those vendors when purchasing hardware.) I'm not a heavy gamer but my understanding is that a surprising number of popular games run just fine on Linux, thanks in part to the WINE community and the efforts of Valve.
  - AlecSchueler 4y ago
    I've always found the same, especially with audio equipment. On Linux it's always plug and play but on Windows I have to search and search for drivers from random websites.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    > On Windows, you sometimes cannot even install the OS without hunting down the right drivers for some piece of hardware like the RAID controller, if you can even find them. This sounds like an experience from 2007. For the past 5 years, every piece of hardware I have ever bought, even from aliexpress, either works automatically or downloads a driver from windows uodate automatically. Coming back to linix, I want wifi 6 on my little linux server, and you have to hint down the few pieces of hardware that are compatiable.
    - 4y ago
LorenDB 4y ago
Eric S. Raymond had similar thoughts: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8764 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8764
trinsic2 4y ago
That is an interesting idea. I wonder if that's true because they definitely seem like it's a loss for them because they absolutely do not care anymore about what they do to the operating system other than keeping it stable to run applications.
DeathArrow 4y ago
I wouldn't wonder if Microsoft will do such a thing in the future. But I wouldn't be happy about it. It will be messy and suffer from hardware problems and performance issues.

Zurrrrr 4y ago

Windows is Windows because of the huge API, all the legacy support, the graphics subsystem, all the DirectX stuff etc. If the somehow did switch to running a Linux kernel for some reason, it wouldn't be noticeable to the end user at all. I can't see that ever happening though.

GuB-42 4y ago

As a mostly Linux user, I disagree. You simply can't replace Windows with Linux, at least not in the near future. Here is a page which summarize Linux shortcomings on the desktop: https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.t... One reason I think Linux (the kernel) would be a poor fit as a Windows replacement is the lack of a stable driver ABI. Linux is a monolithic kernel and all the drivers are expected to be part of it. It is a model that works because it fully embraces open source and community driven development. But not all manufacturers want that, first because they may not want to, open their code, or maybe they can't due to licensing arguments. It also means they need to invest significant resources into getting their code accepted by the community. The Windows driver model drove its rich hardware ecosystem. And if you think switching to a Linux driver model is going to be better, more free, think again, because we already have that with Android. Manufacturers fork the kernel and don't give much back to the community, just having them comply with the GPL is a struggle, and hardware support besides what is built into the phone is extremely limited, and because they don't work with the community, support for what's in the phone isn't carried on for more than a couple of years. And Windows really strong point is backwards compatibility. For example, I still use the "free" Photoshop CS2, 20 years later, works perfectly fine as a binary, I can run stuff that dates back from the 3.11 era, though as I understand it, it is mostly emulation at this point. This is part of the reason people use Windows. Microsoft tried to start clean with Windows RT, it was a failure. Apple can get away with it because they have complete control over their ecosystem, not Microsoft. Also, games.

bityard 4y ago
My experience with drivers on Linux and Windows has been just about the exact opposite from yours somehow. On Windows, you sometimes cannot even install the OS without hunting down the right drivers for some piece of hardware like the RAID controller, if you can even find them. Most drivers are authored by the hardware vendors whose main competency may not be writing kernel code, so driver quality tends to be extremely variable. The result is often drivers that just don't work well (which can look like a hardware issue, e.g. lack of performance) or crash the whole system. Not all Linux drivers are bug-free or feature-complete of course, but they tend to be reasonable or high quality due to the fact that they are written by and/or reviewed by the kernel community. Since all the drivers come with the kernel, the user generally has to do nothing to make their hardware work, it just does right out of the box. (Notable exceptions here are vendors of certain video cards and wifi chips who refuse to either write Linux drivers or supply the information needed to write them. So you do have to be somewhat careful to avoid those vendors when purchasing hardware.) I'm not a heavy gamer but my understanding is that a surprising number of popular games run just fine on Linux, thanks in part to the WINE community and the efforts of Valve.
- AlecSchueler 4y ago
  I've always found the same, especially with audio equipment. On Linux it's always plug and play but on Windows I have to search and search for drivers from random websites.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > On Windows, you sometimes cannot even install the OS without hunting down the right drivers for some piece of hardware like the RAID controller, if you can even find them. This sounds like an experience from 2007. For the past 5 years, every piece of hardware I have ever bought, even from aliexpress, either works automatically or downloads a driver from windows uodate automatically. Coming back to linix, I want wifi 6 on my little linux server, and you have to hint down the few pieces of hardware that are compatiable.
  - 4y ago

LorenDB 4y ago

Eric S. Raymond had similar thoughts: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8764 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8764

trinsic2 4y ago

That is an interesting idea. I wonder if that's true because they definitely seem like it's a loss for them because they absolutely do not care anymore about what they do to the operating system other than keeping it stable to run applications.

DeathArrow 4y ago

I wouldn't wonder if Microsoft will do such a thing in the future. But I wouldn't be happy about it. It will be messy and suffer from hardware problems and performance issues.