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> The use case for this is: corporation has RHEL servers but Windows workstations. This is entirely the point I'm making. RH could have used IBM's backing to

> The use case for this is: corporation has RHEL servers but Windows workstations. This is entirely the point I'm making. RH could have used IBM's backing to make desktop linux a 1st class experience. Instead, they're doing none of that, and conceding the desktop market to Windows and Mac.

dismalaf 2y ago
> RH could have used IBM's backing to make desktop linux a 1st class experience Desktop Linux IS a first class experience and has been for awhile now. Fedora is amazing. Fedora Silverblue is even better. RHEL Workstations are great. Linux on the desktop beats Windows, hands down. Even the laptop experience with Linux is flawless these days, I've got an MSI laptop and absolutely everything works, flawlessly, all the time with Fedora Silverblue, even Nvidia graphics, fingerprint reader, Wacom pen and touch screen, etc... But here is why corporations use Windows: they get locked into Excel/Outlook and MS offers corporate contracts that solve email, communication, cloud storage, productivity, etc... Plus the millions of office drones have a tough time adapting to anything that they don't recognise (my folks are boomer office workers, I still remember how much they complained when MS Office changed to the "ribbon" interface). The only way to beat Windows on the desktop is for Linux vendors to offer an all-in-one OS and productivity solution that a 50 year old accountant or secretary can use. Because that's Windows' bread and butter. But is it worthwhile for IBM/Red Hat to make desktop apps and a W365 competitor? Or for them to sell clusters, mainframes and AI infrastructure/services? The fact is, Linux is more important and more used than ever before despite MS' dirty tactics. Even on the desktop. And WSL is like a gateway drug to Linux. It's still a big win. Even if it's not what Linux users imagined winning would look like 20 years ago...
- linuxftw 2y ago
  Linux and FOSS is losing the battle to proprietary hardware. How many consumer devices can easily run linux, and still be functional? Phones, tablets, ARM pcs, they are all non-functional or require numerous binary blobs. You'll look back in 20 years and remember this as the final few years we used linux on personal devices.
  - dismalaf 2y ago
    Open hardware is a somewhat different topic than FOSS. Yes, lots of hardware is closed and proprietary blogs are unfortunately still needed. But that doesn't mean Linux or OSS is going away anytime soon. There's more Linux systems in the world than every other OS that's ever existed combined. For a large portion of the world a Linux (Android) device is the only computing device they've ever used. Even in developed countries, desktops are less and less relevant and mobile devices are #1, and outside a few select countries, that means Linux (Android). And Linux is gaining steam if anything thanks to AI, since most of the infrastructure related to producing LLMs runs only on Linux. No one's running Windows server on a 300k node cluster. And to address your point directly, installing Linux on non-Linux hardware is still better than it's ever been. More hardware is compatible than ever before (I've been running Linux since the early 2000's) and while running non-Android Linux on phones isn't great, even that is better than it used to be. But yeah, we probably won't ever reach the "whole stack is open top to bottom" future that people like RMS dreamt about...
    - MrResearcher 2y ago
      > we probably won't ever reach the "whole stack is open top to bottom" future that people like RMS dreamt about We will because that is the only sustainable mode of operation in the long term. Every proprietary stack goes through ups and downs, and is eventually displaced. You must be open to persevere. It's just a matter of time.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    So what, Linux doesn't have to be the end game. For me it was always one way to have UNIX at home, that is all. In fact, Solaris, Irix and NeXTSTEP have always been my favourite UNIX clones. As long I can plug into some flavour of POSIX, I am good, as do most folks in big corps.

dismalaf 2y ago

> RH could have used IBM's backing to make desktop linux a 1st class experience Desktop Linux IS a first class experience and has been for awhile now. Fedora is amazing. Fedora Silverblue is even better. RHEL Workstations are great. Linux on the desktop beats Windows, hands down. Even the laptop experience with Linux is flawless these days, I've got an MSI laptop and absolutely everything works, flawlessly, all the time with Fedora Silverblue, even Nvidia graphics, fingerprint reader, Wacom pen and touch screen, etc... But here is why corporations use Windows: they get locked into Excel/Outlook and MS offers corporate contracts that solve email, communication, cloud storage, productivity, etc... Plus the millions of office drones have a tough time adapting to anything that they don't recognise (my folks are boomer office workers, I still remember how much they complained when MS Office changed to the "ribbon" interface). The only way to beat Windows on the desktop is for Linux vendors to offer an all-in-one OS and productivity solution that a 50 year old accountant or secretary can use. Because that's Windows' bread and butter. But is it worthwhile for IBM/Red Hat to make desktop apps and a W365 competitor? Or for them to sell clusters, mainframes and AI infrastructure/services? The fact is, Linux is more important and more used than ever before despite MS' dirty tactics. Even on the desktop. And WSL is like a gateway drug to Linux. It's still a big win. Even if it's not what Linux users imagined winning would look like 20 years ago...

linuxftw 2y ago
Linux and FOSS is losing the battle to proprietary hardware. How many consumer devices can easily run linux, and still be functional? Phones, tablets, ARM pcs, they are all non-functional or require numerous binary blobs. You'll look back in 20 years and remember this as the final few years we used linux on personal devices.
- dismalaf 2y ago
  Open hardware is a somewhat different topic than FOSS. Yes, lots of hardware is closed and proprietary blogs are unfortunately still needed. But that doesn't mean Linux or OSS is going away anytime soon. There's more Linux systems in the world than every other OS that's ever existed combined. For a large portion of the world a Linux (Android) device is the only computing device they've ever used. Even in developed countries, desktops are less and less relevant and mobile devices are #1, and outside a few select countries, that means Linux (Android). And Linux is gaining steam if anything thanks to AI, since most of the infrastructure related to producing LLMs runs only on Linux. No one's running Windows server on a 300k node cluster. And to address your point directly, installing Linux on non-Linux hardware is still better than it's ever been. More hardware is compatible than ever before (I've been running Linux since the early 2000's) and while running non-Android Linux on phones isn't great, even that is better than it used to be. But yeah, we probably won't ever reach the "whole stack is open top to bottom" future that people like RMS dreamt about...
  - MrResearcher 2y ago
    > we probably won't ever reach the "whole stack is open top to bottom" future that people like RMS dreamt about We will because that is the only sustainable mode of operation in the long term. Every proprietary stack goes through ups and downs, and is eventually displaced. You must be open to persevere. It's just a matter of time.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  So what, Linux doesn't have to be the end game. For me it was always one way to have UNIX at home, that is all. In fact, Solaris, Irix and NeXTSTEP have always been my favourite UNIX clones. As long I can plug into some flavour of POSIX, I am good, as do most folks in big corps.