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For home users I'd say the biggest thing that keeps them on Windows is gaming, but Valve have made excellent progress at getting games to run on Linux now. For

For home users I'd say the biggest thing that keeps them on Windows is gaming, but Valve have made excellent progress at getting games to run on Linux now. For business users I'd say the biggest thing is Active Directory - being able to manage and micro-manage a fleet of hundreds or thousands of PCs by a small team is highly desirable.

qualeed 1y ago
>For business users I'd say the biggest thing is Active Directory Also QuickBooks (online does not come close to replacing desktop enterprise) & CAD, in my experience.
- jabroni_salad 1y ago
  The small/midsize banking ecosystem (jack henry, fiserv, FIS) runs on windows server as well. maybe the big guys with a self-developed platform have it better.
- neutronicus 1y ago
  Yeah I work on Architectural CAD and let me tell you that Linux and the browser and both not even close to on the roadmap. The application is cumbersome enough as a native app I can't even imagine if the whole thing were ported to run on JS.
paxys 1y ago
It's all about applications. The % of business apps out there with Linux support is negligible. The majority of mid-large sized companies worldwide would fail without the Office suite, or really just Excel.
- voxic11 1y ago
  Office and Excel are now both browser based though right? So they should run on Linux as well as they do on Windows. The last two companies I have worked for didn't even use Office or Excel they used Google Workspace.
  - BobaFloutist 1y ago
    The browser based versions are inadequate for power users, especially for excel.
- threetonesun 1y ago
  I can't remember the last time I used or saw someone else use an "office app" outside of the browser. Which is not to say no one does, more so that the argument that you need Linux specific installed applications is not as strong as it was say, 10 years ago.
- korse 1y ago
  This is what has continually killed it in my experience. Orgs run microsoft software and have basically no business case to switch. People have said this before, but how much frustration does it cause when microsoft moves a default ribbon around? Try moving those people to a program with different icons. Yikes. Now do it across a giant organization and try to justify the resulting performance hit to a board. This isn't even getting into all of the arcane business logic that keeps processes moving built on excel sheets, fucking macros and who knows what else. Sure, most of it works fine but when it doesn't and people don't know how, why or where...
ascagnel_ 1y ago
Valve has done a lot, but until you start getting the big "forever" games to support Linux, it'll never be an acceptable substitute for most home users. Doubly so for anyone with kids.
- nemomarx 1y ago
  The main thing is anti cheats now. Any big forever single player game works, but online stuff is still dicey because the AC companies don't want to enable ports for various titles
- red-iron-pine 1y ago
  most of the "forever" games have low requirements and are generally free from OS-level fuckery, unless Rockstar or Epic start making their launchers a requirement. Even then they generally work under Linux with Proton. as someone else mentioned, anti-cheat is a big problem, and on a linux system that runs into both the practical challenges as well as the "it's a FOSS box and no one makes me install a kernel module unless I approve" angle.
resource_waste 1y ago
>For business users Legacy software for me. Catia only works on Windows.
- realusername 1y ago
  I see it's being rated Platinum on winehq?
  - ang_cire 1y ago
    There are a lot of people who have biases against using non-native apps on Linux, weirdly. I've run into this even with highly technical people, who just won't believe that something under wine can be just as good (certainly as far as a person can tell) as a native app, and refuse to use them. Usually I end up having to find them a native alternative.
    - qualeed 1y ago
      If it is a business scenario, in my experience it is typically because of support contracts as opposed to just "does it work or not". For example, QuickBooks may run just fine with Wine (not sure, haven't checked), but it would forfeit your ability to access QuickBooks Support personnel. For businesses without a dedicated IT department (or just a small one), this may be a deal breaker.
  - resource_waste 1y ago
    I looked it up, and you are taking about a 5 year outdated version. I'm not opposed to trying it, I just would prefer to spend my time not messing around. The other wrench is that we arent just using Catia, we are using Visual Studio and communicating via COM to make macros, Visual Studio is nice because it has an integrated COM debugger. I got another... I need to run a Catia license server too. Just to clarify, Fedora is the greatest OS of all time. I would love to use it 100% of the time. Windows is utter trash in comparison.
fabian2k 1y ago
For me the biggest hurdle with Linux recently was the bad support for fractional scaling and multi-monitor setups with different scaling factors. It looks like this got better now, though on the Notebook I'm using Linux with I'm fighting a bit with the X Window System to Wayland transition. Fractional scaling is only sharp with Wayland, so I have to set some flags for applications like VSCode so that they don't render crappy. I also had bad luck with drivers and bluetooth/audio issues the last time I tried to switch. That might have been just that particular Ubuntu release though. I might try it sometime soon again, especially if Microsoft annoys me with Windows 11 again.
- dontlaugh 1y ago
  I had video artefacts in Gnome on Nvidia with fractional scaling turned on, but only on Ubuntu 24.04. It all works correctly on 25.04.
trey-jones 1y ago
Serious question - what does AD do that OpenLDAP (or similar) doesn't?
- liveoneggs 1y ago
  LDAP is just one component of AD - which also integrates kerberos and ssl and the management gui, and years of windows-specific documentation/knowledge/etc. The main thing is - if you are in the microsoft ecosystem enough to be seriously using AD - you use AD. Microsoft IT is its own world.
  - jabroni_salad 1y ago
    It is also doing a lot with DNS and device management via group policy and is one of the only 'it just works' high-availability services I've ever used. Making a new node is usually as easy as doing a dcpromo and logging out. You can replicate a lot of it in *nix but I've never seen anything as cohesive as a windows domain controller. I think the only windows services I 100% would give a thumbs down to is websites (I do not like IIS) and print management.
- red-iron-pine 1y ago
  Keberos integration for SSO, Group Policy Objects (GPO) -- which is a big one in my opinion; you need to script or orchestrate things to replicate that -- built in DNS and DHCP, cert stuff, and a lot of domain-forest relationships
akgoel 1y ago
I’ve tried to switch to Linux and Mac several times over the past 30 years. And once I get it in front of me, I’m struck with a feeling of “now what?”. All that effort and no upside.
- nehal3m 1y ago
  That may remain true, but at some point the downside of Windows will become large enough that what was once a lateral move will become a step up.
- specproc 1y ago
  Aye, I must have tried it ten, fifteen times over the years before it stuck. All I'd say is it's pretty easy and more or less "just works" these days. I remember fighting over basic stuff like second monitors, but for the most part, all the issues relating to Linux itself are solved. A DE like Gnome is simple, clean and easy to use. Gaming totally works thanks to Steam. The only hurdle is if you absolutely need a full Office or Adobe install. For most of us, that comes with our work machines. For me, Linux is perfect for my personal rig. Wouldn't dream of going back.
- seanw444 1y ago
  Obviously your experience is your experience, but I just cannot understand this. Been using Linux comfortably for 5 years now. The only time I touch Windows for personal use anymore is inside a GPU-passthrough VM for gaming, though lately I've been considering switching to playing the games through Linux because it's gotten so good recently. Actually, many titles get better performance in Linux than Windows now, ironically.
  - progmetaldev 1y ago
    I think the fact that you are able to even setup a VM with GPU-passthrough probably means your knowledge of using Linux is far greater than most coming from Windows and Mac. I'm someone that uses Visual Studio for work often, but the fact that you can do GPU-passthrough gives me some hope that I could switch to Linux full-time, and make it work. Even though your comment was about games, I appreciate that you posted and gave me some hope. Most of the software I write now in .NET is able to run on Linux, but the specific CMS I use is still tied to MS SQL Server for production. I can use SQLite for development, but moving from SQLite to MS SQL Server is quite a big extra step. If I can use Visual Studio and MS SQL Server (Express) in a VM, I can do most of my daily tasks directly in Linux.
Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
> but Valve have made excellent progress at getting games to run on Linux now. Until the answer to "Will this new game run on Linux?" becomes "Of course it does. Why wouldn't it?", it's not good enough. That said, I've heavily considered running a Linux VM in my Windows box and doing nearly all my day-to-day activities inside the VM and only switching out to Windows to play games. I've got 128 GB of RAM, so I could dedicate a healthy 32 GB to the Linux VM and still have far more than I need for gaming in the Windows host. Dual booting is a pain in the ass. I won't do it.
red-iron-pine 1y ago
AAA games work essentially flawlessly on Linux. Can't predict if there will be any sort of fuckery for the next gen games like GTA 6, but Cyberpunk 2077, RDR2, etc. all worked flawlessly with Proton. I'll second AD -- ain't no way we're moving away from that or Azure AD (EntraID). I've done OpenIPA deployments before and AD is a fairly mature product all things considered. Like, if you think AD is shit, wait until you start messing with OpenLDAP implementations...

qualeed 1y ago

>For business users I'd say the biggest thing is Active Directory Also QuickBooks (online does not come close to replacing desktop enterprise) & CAD, in my experience.

jabroni_salad 1y ago
The small/midsize banking ecosystem (jack henry, fiserv, FIS) runs on windows server as well. maybe the big guys with a self-developed platform have it better.
neutronicus 1y ago
Yeah I work on Architectural CAD and let me tell you that Linux and the browser and both not even close to on the roadmap. The application is cumbersome enough as a native app I can't even imagine if the whole thing were ported to run on JS.

paxys 1y ago

It's all about applications. The % of business apps out there with Linux support is negligible. The majority of mid-large sized companies worldwide would fail without the Office suite, or really just Excel.

voxic11 1y ago
Office and Excel are now both browser based though right? So they should run on Linux as well as they do on Windows. The last two companies I have worked for didn't even use Office or Excel they used Google Workspace.
- BobaFloutist 1y ago
  The browser based versions are inadequate for power users, especially for excel.
threetonesun 1y ago
I can't remember the last time I used or saw someone else use an "office app" outside of the browser. Which is not to say no one does, more so that the argument that you need Linux specific installed applications is not as strong as it was say, 10 years ago.
korse 1y ago
This is what has continually killed it in my experience. Orgs run microsoft software and have basically no business case to switch. People have said this before, but how much frustration does it cause when microsoft moves a default ribbon around? Try moving those people to a program with different icons. Yikes. Now do it across a giant organization and try to justify the resulting performance hit to a board. This isn't even getting into all of the arcane business logic that keeps processes moving built on excel sheets, fucking macros and who knows what else. Sure, most of it works fine but when it doesn't and people don't know how, why or where...

ascagnel_ 1y ago

Valve has done a lot, but until you start getting the big "forever" games to support Linux, it'll never be an acceptable substitute for most home users. Doubly so for anyone with kids.

nemomarx 1y ago
The main thing is anti cheats now. Any big forever single player game works, but online stuff is still dicey because the AC companies don't want to enable ports for various titles
red-iron-pine 1y ago
most of the "forever" games have low requirements and are generally free from OS-level fuckery, unless Rockstar or Epic start making their launchers a requirement. Even then they generally work under Linux with Proton. as someone else mentioned, anti-cheat is a big problem, and on a linux system that runs into both the practical challenges as well as the "it's a FOSS box and no one makes me install a kernel module unless I approve" angle.

resource_waste 1y ago

>For business users Legacy software for me. Catia only works on Windows.

realusername 1y ago
I see it's being rated Platinum on winehq?
- ang_cire 1y ago
  There are a lot of people who have biases against using non-native apps on Linux, weirdly. I've run into this even with highly technical people, who just won't believe that something under wine can be just as good (certainly as far as a person can tell) as a native app, and refuse to use them. Usually I end up having to find them a native alternative.
  - qualeed 1y ago
    If it is a business scenario, in my experience it is typically because of support contracts as opposed to just "does it work or not". For example, QuickBooks may run just fine with Wine (not sure, haven't checked), but it would forfeit your ability to access QuickBooks Support personnel. For businesses without a dedicated IT department (or just a small one), this may be a deal breaker.
- resource_waste 1y ago
  I looked it up, and you are taking about a 5 year outdated version. I'm not opposed to trying it, I just would prefer to spend my time not messing around. The other wrench is that we arent just using Catia, we are using Visual Studio and communicating via COM to make macros, Visual Studio is nice because it has an integrated COM debugger. I got another... I need to run a Catia license server too. Just to clarify, Fedora is the greatest OS of all time. I would love to use it 100% of the time. Windows is utter trash in comparison.

fabian2k 1y ago

For me the biggest hurdle with Linux recently was the bad support for fractional scaling and multi-monitor setups with different scaling factors. It looks like this got better now, though on the Notebook I'm using Linux with I'm fighting a bit with the X Window System to Wayland transition. Fractional scaling is only sharp with Wayland, so I have to set some flags for applications like VSCode so that they don't render crappy. I also had bad luck with drivers and bluetooth/audio issues the last time I tried to switch. That might have been just that particular Ubuntu release though. I might try it sometime soon again, especially if Microsoft annoys me with Windows 11 again.

dontlaugh 1y ago
I had video artefacts in Gnome on Nvidia with fractional scaling turned on, but only on Ubuntu 24.04. It all works correctly on 25.04.

trey-jones 1y ago

Serious question - what does AD do that OpenLDAP (or similar) doesn't?

liveoneggs 1y ago
LDAP is just one component of AD - which also integrates kerberos and ssl and the management gui, and years of windows-specific documentation/knowledge/etc. The main thing is - if you are in the microsoft ecosystem enough to be seriously using AD - you use AD. Microsoft IT is its own world.
- jabroni_salad 1y ago
  It is also doing a lot with DNS and device management via group policy and is one of the only 'it just works' high-availability services I've ever used. Making a new node is usually as easy as doing a dcpromo and logging out. You can replicate a lot of it in *nix but I've never seen anything as cohesive as a windows domain controller. I think the only windows services I 100% would give a thumbs down to is websites (I do not like IIS) and print management.
red-iron-pine 1y ago
Keberos integration for SSO, Group Policy Objects (GPO) -- which is a big one in my opinion; you need to script or orchestrate things to replicate that -- built in DNS and DHCP, cert stuff, and a lot of domain-forest relationships

akgoel 1y ago

I’ve tried to switch to Linux and Mac several times over the past 30 years. And once I get it in front of me, I’m struck with a feeling of “now what?”. All that effort and no upside.

nehal3m 1y ago
That may remain true, but at some point the downside of Windows will become large enough that what was once a lateral move will become a step up.
specproc 1y ago
Aye, I must have tried it ten, fifteen times over the years before it stuck. All I'd say is it's pretty easy and more or less "just works" these days. I remember fighting over basic stuff like second monitors, but for the most part, all the issues relating to Linux itself are solved. A DE like Gnome is simple, clean and easy to use. Gaming totally works thanks to Steam. The only hurdle is if you absolutely need a full Office or Adobe install. For most of us, that comes with our work machines. For me, Linux is perfect for my personal rig. Wouldn't dream of going back.
seanw444 1y ago
Obviously your experience is your experience, but I just cannot understand this. Been using Linux comfortably for 5 years now. The only time I touch Windows for personal use anymore is inside a GPU-passthrough VM for gaming, though lately I've been considering switching to playing the games through Linux because it's gotten so good recently. Actually, many titles get better performance in Linux than Windows now, ironically.
- progmetaldev 1y ago
  I think the fact that you are able to even setup a VM with GPU-passthrough probably means your knowledge of using Linux is far greater than most coming from Windows and Mac. I'm someone that uses Visual Studio for work often, but the fact that you can do GPU-passthrough gives me some hope that I could switch to Linux full-time, and make it work. Even though your comment was about games, I appreciate that you posted and gave me some hope. Most of the software I write now in .NET is able to run on Linux, but the specific CMS I use is still tied to MS SQL Server for production. I can use SQLite for development, but moving from SQLite to MS SQL Server is quite a big extra step. If I can use Visual Studio and MS SQL Server (Express) in a VM, I can do most of my daily tasks directly in Linux.

Sohcahtoa82 1y ago

> but Valve have made excellent progress at getting games to run on Linux now. Until the answer to "Will this new game run on Linux?" becomes "Of course it does. Why wouldn't it?", it's not good enough. That said, I've heavily considered running a Linux VM in my Windows box and doing nearly all my day-to-day activities inside the VM and only switching out to Windows to play games. I've got 128 GB of RAM, so I could dedicate a healthy 32 GB to the Linux VM and still have far more than I need for gaming in the Windows host. Dual booting is a pain in the ass. I won't do it.

red-iron-pine 1y ago

AAA games work essentially flawlessly on Linux. Can't predict if there will be any sort of fuckery for the next gen games like GTA 6, but Cyberpunk 2077, RDR2, etc. all worked flawlessly with Proton. I'll second AD -- ain't no way we're moving away from that or Azure AD (EntraID). I've done OpenIPA deployments before and AD is a fairly mature product all things considered. Like, if you think AD is shit, wait until you start messing with OpenLDAP implementations...