5 ms·

I think the big story here is that ~4% of Steam users run Vista. The year of the Linux desktop is very, very, very far away.

jebblue 13y ago
For me and my wife and me at work it was 2007.
izolate 13y ago
By the time the year of the Linux desktop arrives, desktop computing will be a relic of the past. The year of linux computing however, is already upon us.
sontek 13y ago
For me, year of the Linux desktop was 2003. Year of Linux desktop on my laptop (wifi and battery were an issue for awhile) was 2007. For my wife, year of the Linux desktop was 2011.
- gum_ina_package 13y ago
  You're right, and sometimes (when a kernel update is released for example), the Year of Linux desktop retoactively gets changed.
  - sontek 13y ago
    That hasn't been my experience and I run Fedora, which is known for running cutting edge technology, compared to more stable distros like Debian. Admittedly, I know how to use linux, so I might not notice problems that beginners do.
crdoconnor 13y ago
The Linux desktop will come when Microsoft loses its leverage over hardware manufacturers and they start to preinstall linux and stop putting up barriers to adoption (e.g. remove windows -> lose warranty). It's already better than the windows desktop (xubuntu anyway, not unity, however). The barriers to uptake are no longer technical and haven't been for some years. It's all market + legal now.
- rplnt 13y ago
  > It's all market + legal now. And investing in re-schooling people to the new system and applications (Office suite would be probably the most notable one).
  - tankenmate 13y ago
    Retraining people to use LibreOffice (or OpenOffice) from Office 2007 is cheaper than training them to use Office 2013; the interfaces are almost identical. The municipality of Munich has proved this conclusively with their big roll out. The only true bugbear is porting Excel spreadsheets with VBA macros.
  - crdoconnor 13y ago
    Office is now easy to use on linux thanks to wine and crossover. Everything else works pretty much the same anyhow. There's a minor learning curve for learning how to install software. That's about it.
  - EliRivers 13y ago
    A bit off-topic, I haven't been able to use a version of Office since they brought that ribbon thing in and moved the "Properties" menu option that used to be under "File". What year was that? 2003? I recall spending ages trying to figure out where on the hard drive the file actually was without having to go via "Save As" (used to be File->Properties, and there it is). I'm sure it's trivially easy, but that interface change effectively made Office a whole new program to learn for me, with the predictable result that since I now had to relearn how to use it, it was on a level playing field with other tools - one of which I switched to. While I'm only one data point, making me relearn the interface meant Office suddenly had to actually compete again. I also struggle to use any version of Windows beyond XP. I am a total cluster on Win 8 and it's quicker for me to find someone who can use it and get them to do it for me. The older I get, the more sure I becomes that there is no such thing as an intuitive interface; only convention.
- macco 13y ago
  > It's already better than the windows desktop (xubuntu anyway, not unity, however). Disaggree. Unity is by far superior to the Windows Desktop. It's the most productive DE on a notebook I know (OS X included)
shangaslammi 13y ago
I'm not sure what you are trying to imply. :) Vista (at least after the first service pack) is a solid OS. I still run it on my gaming PC (which also dual boots to Ubuntu) and I don't see any reason whatsoever to "upgrade" to W7 or W8.
- codygman 13y ago
  Security vulnerabilities? Are they still supporting vista?
  - shangaslammi 13y ago
    Vista gets security updates until 2017.
darklajid 13y ago
You didn't quite explain what you want to say here. Questions that came to my mind when I read your comment: - Is the number of Vista/Linux users declining or increasing? - How long is Steam for Vista/Linux available? - How many games are available for Vista/Linux? My expectation is that Vista's falling, while Linux rises in that statistic. I'd say the fact that Steam is 'new' for Linux and relatively restricted/obscure for now (Ubuntu centric) the percentage isn't too bad. Given that a lot of games (mostly the oh-so-expensive so-called AAA titles in my experience) are still Windows only or Windows/OS X only, I find the number still quite interesting and not really disappointing.

jebblue 13y ago

For me and my wife and me at work it was 2007.

izolate 13y ago

By the time the year of the Linux desktop arrives, desktop computing will be a relic of the past. The year of linux computing however, is already upon us.

sontek 13y ago

For me, year of the Linux desktop was 2003. Year of Linux desktop on my laptop (wifi and battery were an issue for awhile) was 2007. For my wife, year of the Linux desktop was 2011.

gum_ina_package 13y ago
You're right, and sometimes (when a kernel update is released for example), the Year of Linux desktop retoactively gets changed.
- sontek 13y ago
  That hasn't been my experience and I run Fedora, which is known for running cutting edge technology, compared to more stable distros like Debian. Admittedly, I know how to use linux, so I might not notice problems that beginners do.

crdoconnor 13y ago

The Linux desktop will come when Microsoft loses its leverage over hardware manufacturers and they start to preinstall linux and stop putting up barriers to adoption (e.g. remove windows -> lose warranty). It's already better than the windows desktop (xubuntu anyway, not unity, however). The barriers to uptake are no longer technical and haven't been for some years. It's all market + legal now.

rplnt 13y ago
> It's all market + legal now. And investing in re-schooling people to the new system and applications (Office suite would be probably the most notable one).
- tankenmate 13y ago
  Retraining people to use LibreOffice (or OpenOffice) from Office 2007 is cheaper than training them to use Office 2013; the interfaces are almost identical. The municipality of Munich has proved this conclusively with their big roll out. The only true bugbear is porting Excel spreadsheets with VBA macros.
- crdoconnor 13y ago
  Office is now easy to use on linux thanks to wine and crossover. Everything else works pretty much the same anyhow. There's a minor learning curve for learning how to install software. That's about it.
- EliRivers 13y ago
  A bit off-topic, I haven't been able to use a version of Office since they brought that ribbon thing in and moved the "Properties" menu option that used to be under "File". What year was that? 2003? I recall spending ages trying to figure out where on the hard drive the file actually was without having to go via "Save As" (used to be File->Properties, and there it is). I'm sure it's trivially easy, but that interface change effectively made Office a whole new program to learn for me, with the predictable result that since I now had to relearn how to use it, it was on a level playing field with other tools - one of which I switched to. While I'm only one data point, making me relearn the interface meant Office suddenly had to actually compete again. I also struggle to use any version of Windows beyond XP. I am a total cluster on Win 8 and it's quicker for me to find someone who can use it and get them to do it for me. The older I get, the more sure I becomes that there is no such thing as an intuitive interface; only convention.
macco 13y ago
> It's already better than the windows desktop (xubuntu anyway, not unity, however). Disaggree. Unity is by far superior to the Windows Desktop. It's the most productive DE on a notebook I know (OS X included)

shangaslammi 13y ago

I'm not sure what you are trying to imply. :) Vista (at least after the first service pack) is a solid OS. I still run it on my gaming PC (which also dual boots to Ubuntu) and I don't see any reason whatsoever to "upgrade" to W7 or W8.

codygman 13y ago
Security vulnerabilities? Are they still supporting vista?
- shangaslammi 13y ago
  Vista gets security updates until 2017.

darklajid 13y ago

You didn't quite explain what you want to say here. Questions that came to my mind when I read your comment: - Is the number of Vista/Linux users declining or increasing? - How long is Steam for Vista/Linux available? - How many games are available for Vista/Linux? My expectation is that Vista's falling, while Linux rises in that statistic. I'd say the fact that Steam is 'new' for Linux and relatively restricted/obscure for now (Ubuntu centric) the percentage isn't too bad. Given that a lot of games (mostly the oh-so-expensive so-called AAA titles in my experience) are still Windows only or Windows/OS X only, I find the number still quite interesting and not really disappointing.