Is It Finally the Year of 'Linux on the Desktop' ? (pcworld.com) 406
"2019 is truly, finally shaping up to be the year of Linux on the desktop," writes PC World's senior editor, adding "Laptops, too!"
But most people won't know it. That's because the bones of the open-source operating system kernel will soon be baked into Windows 10 and Chrome OS, as Microsoft and Google revealed at their respective developer conferences this week... Between lurking in Windows 10 and Chrome OS, and the tiny portion of actual Linux distro installs, pretty much any PC you pick up will run a Linux kernel and Linux software. Macs won't, but it's based on a Unix-like BSD system that already runs many Linux apps with relative ease (hence Apple's popularity with developers).
You have to wonder where that leaves proper Linux distributions like Ubuntu and Linux Mint, though. They already suffer from a minuscule user share, and developers may shift toward Windows and Chrome if the Linux kernels in those operating systems get the same job done. Could this fruit wind up poisonous over the long term? We'll have to see. That said, Linux is healthier than ever. The major distros are far more polished than they used to be, with far fewer hardware woes than installs of yesteryear. You can even get your game on relatively well thanks to Valve's Proton technology, which gets many (but not all) Steam games working on Linux systems. And hey, Linux is free.
Normal users may never be aware of it, but 2019 may finally be the year of Linux on the desktop -- just not Linux operating systems on the desktop.
You have to wonder where that leaves proper Linux distributions like Ubuntu and Linux Mint, though. They already suffer from a minuscule user share, and developers may shift toward Windows and Chrome if the Linux kernels in those operating systems get the same job done. Could this fruit wind up poisonous over the long term? We'll have to see. That said, Linux is healthier than ever. The major distros are far more polished than they used to be, with far fewer hardware woes than installs of yesteryear. You can even get your game on relatively well thanks to Valve's Proton technology, which gets many (but not all) Steam games working on Linux systems. And hey, Linux is free.
Normal users may never be aware of it, but 2019 may finally be the year of Linux on the desktop -- just not Linux operating systems on the desktop.
No (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like every year.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re: No (Score:5, Insightful)
They want something that's usable right out of the box.
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They want something that's usable right out of the box.
I switched full-time to Linux Mint on January 1st this year and have no complaints. Everything just worked- scanners, printers, wifi, webcams, Bluetooth dongles, etc.
Are there some downsides to Linux? Sure. Are there downsides to Windows? OH HELL YES.
For me, one of the best parts of Linux is not having to reboot all the damn time for every little thing.
You install stuff and *boom* there it is, no reboot required.
You update the system and just keep on going, no reboot required.
You uninstall stuff and *boom*
Re: No (Score:4, Insightful)
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There is also the problem that there are no applications ON the Linux Desktop that enable users to get work done.
Re: No (Score:5, Informative)
Which is probably part of your problem. You have been using linux so long you don't know of a better way. You are so used to fighting linux's issues when trying to use it as a desktop, you don't think about it any more. An issue pops up, like a document being incomparable, you deal with it and move on. You have just become used to what a horrible experience a linux desktop is, in a office environment. If you was using a proper windows desktop you would never have had the issues to start with.
Yes, I know what I'm talking about. I've been using linux longer than 20 years, in virtually every environment imaginable. Technical workstation, general workstation/office workstation, and I became accustom to linux issues and fixing them.
Re: No (Score:4, Informative)
I work for a fortune 500 company and I use libreoffice for my job,
I use LibreOffice all the time, and I've got to say, Microsoft Office is better. It's better at not crashing, and it's got a better interface. LO apps crash on me about weekly, and just using Calc is frustrating compared to using Excel because of its basic behaviors.
LO is quite good, it's amazing really for the price, but it's still not as good as Office.
Re: No (Score:4, Interesting)
I could level the same point at you: you've moulded yourself around the issues of other platforms such that you don't see them day to day. As an occasional visitor to Windows, and a weekly (not daily) user of Macs, for me, Linux is the system that works most smoothly and work fewest problems day to day.
I don't use Linux because I feel compelled to tinker day to day. I use it because it's the easiest system to use.
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It only needs to be good enough. Not too many companies provide best-in-class tools to their employees, probably because they simply don't need to. The needs of the IT department outweigh the needs of us office drones. If MS is the best for your IT department, then you use MS. If your IT department is unusually adept at custom imaging of systems (probably are ex Red Hat employees), then you can find yourself working in a Linux shop. What is the best user interface, more reliable, or most powerful hardly ent
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It's not exactly limited to Linux: What's the best version of Windows?
Re: No (Score:3)
Windows 10. It runs the best on a given hardware platform, is the most secure, and maintains a significant similarity to Windows 7, everyone's favorite desktop from recent versions of Windows.
Oh, and it will now include the Linux kernel in it - doesn't that make it the best?
Depends (Score:2)
If your Android phone is lying on your desktop then yes.
quit asking already (Score:5, Funny)
No, we aren't there yet. It's like driving with a bunch of kids in the back seat.
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The Linux in the desktop year half life portal III (Score:3, Funny)
Stupid level: Over 9000 (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, everybody is a star (astronomically speaking) because we all contain atoms which were created inside stars.
I refuse to believe the Linux community is THAT desperate.
Re:Stupid level: Over 9000 (Score:5, Informative)
In case you're not familiar with the origins of the expression, it's from the 90s (1997 IIRC) when they talked about how Linux is finally in a good state to be used as an everyday desktop operating system, not that it was about to take over the desktop market. It obviously didn't take long for Windows fanboys, who probably felt threatened by competition in the generic PC market, to misinterpret the expression and have been using this misinterpretation to mock Linux and it's users ever since.
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This story is completely moot. ... who know s who am I and what I do?
No on knows or can measure what percentage the "Linux Desktop Market" is.
I have a linux VM on my Mac, I use it nice or twice a week.
When I'm at a client side, I use it daily. So
Re:Stupid level: Over 9000 (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't spout nonsense. Plenty of real work gets done in Mac OS. The programs in my Windows VM are ones I use once a year to interface with oddball hardware (satnav, temperature/CO2 recorder) and service manuals for my cars.
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I think you just made my point for me. To get shit done you still have to use windows.
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to get real work done is "first load windows in a vm."
If, by "real work" you mean, "use an application that everyone insists on using that is Windows-only", then yes, you are correct.
I do everything I possibly can on non-windows systems. I consider Windows to be an OS of last resort that is utterly untrustworthy. Unfortunately there are some things I just can't do without it, whether it's administering AD or using some application that only has a Windows version.
It's an unfortunately situation that I've learned to deal with. Like it or not, we live in a Mi
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Windows Fanboys ca 1997? Christ.
I knew one back in 92 or 93 who said "I live in Windows" And he was talking about Windows 3.1. Probably died there too.
Re:Stupid level: Over 9000 (Score:4, Interesting)
You have a very selective memory. I remember many, many posts here around the turn of the century that in full seriousness was saying this is it, this is the year we crack open Microsoft's monopoly. Even as it grew stale [slashdot.org] you can find lots of people claiming it's already here or already passed:
1 Killer products: [slashdot.org]
2008 was the year of Linux on the desktop. Does anyone really think Microsoft would have kept XP alive without netbooks? Does anyone really think Microsoft isn't shitting itself at 30% of netbooks running Linux?
2 Taking the work market: [slashdot.org]
I think the year of the Linux Desktop has passed already. (...) Linux desktop machines sold alongside Windows Machines, Linux Laptops sold by at least one top 3 Online vendor, an area where Linux competes on an equal footing with Windows products (netbooks) and common adoption of Linux desktops by large corporations and government agencies.
3 Doing everything a normal user needs: [slashdot.org]:
I think 2008 already was the year of the Linux desktop. It wasn't as big and flashy as everyone hoped, but for the first time I've seen a non-computer geek running Linux on their laptop-- not for any political or ideological issues, but because it was cheap and easy and did everything they needed.
It was always something, it was WinME, XP activation, Slammer, OLPC, Vista, ARM netbooks... this was the death blow that would send Windows spiraling into irrelevance. Of course not in a year, but like Mozilla cracked IE6's monopoly so too would they fall. I think I was part of the choir seeing it an inevitability for a while. The mockery came when it turned into a running joke, a prediction made year after year without ever coming closer to becoming a reality. Saying it started as a pun is nothing but a retcon.
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Computers and the internet ARE important. So much of your life is contained there, even if you don't own or use a computer.
Re: Stupid level: Over 9000 (Score:2)
Microsoft has been losing money for nearly a decade now.
Citation?
Microsoft topped $110 billion in revenue for the year, up 14 percent from the year before, passing the $100 billion mark for the first time.
Source: GeekWire [geekwire.com]
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The problem is that, do you want it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The problem is that, do you want it? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh God, now every Linux freak is going to switch to Windows get away from systemd! Someone at Microsoft was utterly brilliant.
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Cringe worthy.
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Remember that the main function of a computer is to "do things fast", not "do things in a fancy way".
The vast majority of computer users have made it abundantly clear they completely disagree with this notion and whether you like it or not, the masses decide where the market goes.
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Well, in about 98 give or take, when I was around 10... I installed my first linux OS on the one computer in the house, despite what my dad said. I broke it immediately. Took me a month of doing this almost daily before I got the NIC going. And had to install windows almost daily over the top so my dad would stop bitching and use the computer for a few hours.(dual boot was hard back then, atleast for a kid) not to mention I was working with a 4GB HDD... but that was my start. And since then I have flip flop
Re: The problem is that, do you want it? (Score:3, Interesting)
That's why after 10 years of using Linux exclusively I'm going back to Windows. Might as well, Red Hat and Canonical have ignored users and forced crap on us that we don't want. The Linux Foundation sold us out to corporate interests. So why not? There's no bazaar anymore, just our corporate masters in their cathedral towers dictating the direction we all have to go. The revolution has failed. We the people lost, again. The dream has died.
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Use debian, Ive been on SID/buster for a few months now because I wanted newer drivers for a few things I own. Wonderfully stable. And new KDE is awesome and stable.
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An you expected anything different? Most of us saw this coming from a mile away, 1.6km for those you that use sane measurements in your country. I knew 20 years ago that linux was going to replace unix as the dominate server OS.
No, because ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I updated Ubuntu 18.04 LTS a few weeks ago and I wasn't able to reach the GUI desktop after the GUI login, the logs showed that malformed JavaScript code throws an error and takes down my GNOME desktop . . . . yes, JavaScript code crushes my desktop. I switched back to Unity (the community continued branch), and I was able to reach the desktop again.
Since 20+ years I use Linux . . . and believe me, unless IBM/RedHat/Google band together to push the quality and reliability, Linux desktop will not reach the quality to be widely adapted. The Open Source community is too unsteady and lacks leadership, something the Kernel development has with Linus, and all the different distributions have their groups (Mint, etc), but the desktop GUI/window-manager/overall integration, there is no leadership but mediocre skilled developers reinventing the wheel every few years and then drop the ball, or worse, like GNOME, reduce functionality and stability with every new release.
Linux Desktop is the bad example of Open Source: fragmentation ("many options") at its worst: nothing really mature and lasting.
Re:No, because ... (Score:5, Interesting)
That is because GNOME shell is written in JavaScript and C. The whole "plugin" infrastructure is JavaScript. Yes, I also was horrified when I found out.
Hey! Hello. So did I! While my GNOME worked after the upgrade to 18.04, it is so wasteful with space that is becomes hard to use on a 1366x786 laptop. I did this only to one laptop, which made me decide to stick to 16.04 on my existing machines and new installations get Debian/testing with MATE. MATE still is more wasteful than Unity, but it's workable. There currently is no Debian package for Unity in the repos, but I'd use that if it were available.
The Linux landscape was much better 10 years ago. A lot of projects went seriously down in quality and annoying decisions were made. I still use Linux exclusively on the desktop, and I will continue to do so. Microsoft embracing Linux into Windows 10 is not going to lure me back after over a decade of Freedom.
That said, for me "Linux on the Desktop" is a reality and has been for ages. So it is for quite a few people in my family where I set up their machines. Granted, I took the choices, and I support them. They were never confronted with fragmentation, because of my choices.
Re: No, because ... (Score:2)
The zealots aren't going to like you questioning their religion on here.
Slackware (Score:2)
Slackware is still around and kicking. Its wonderful, its the Linux I remember. Barebones with good documentation.
Yet more 'open source' FUD (Score:2)
Why didn't you restore from the backup you made before running the update?
“Since 20+ years I use Linux
You're obviously trolling here. Tell us why it is virtually impossible to enter a high-street computer shop and walk out with a pre-install linux desktop computer?
“Th
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Linux Desktop is the bad example of Open Source: fragmentation ("many options") at its worst: nothing really mature and lasting.
That's only the part of it. Fragmentation, lack of maturity, add in general user unfriendliness, expectation that either the user knows all of the hundreds of "options" presented to them or can whip out vi and work their way through a bunch of /etc/ files, sit down at another Linux machine and you don't have a clue how to use it because someone else set it up, lack of basic functionality expected of the desktop.
Best of all this won't be fixed because the community is absolutely toxic to the development of a
already exist - Android (Score:3, Insightful)
If you by "Linux" mean any OS using the kernel (instead of GNU/Linux), many of us probably already have a Linux computer on the desktop: an Android phone or other device. Arguable in some way more "Linux" than running in a container; the kernel run at the top level, and there is at least some resemblance to UNIX userland.
It depends on the definition of Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It depends on the definition of Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, the BMW engine out of a Rolls Royce in a FIAT Multipla might be fun for some car enthusiasts but "normal people" would only shake their heads...
Bones of a kernel (Score:2)
What are exactly the "bones of an OS kernel"? AFAIK, Win10 does NOT implement the Linux kernel -- only its API. ChromeOS, by contrast, actually runs the linux kernel.
Re:Bones of a kernel (Score:4, Informative)
Starting with WSL 2 they *are* running the actual Linux kernel.
See for yourself at https://devblogs.microsoft.com... [microsoft.com] - "WSL 2 uses an entirely new architecture that uses a real Linux kernel."
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Don't care, as long as it says MS on the outside, I'm not touching it. They'll only screw it up.
WSL2 (Score:2)
AFAIK, Win10 does NOT implement the Linux kernel -- only its API.
That was indeed the case up until the previous WSL included.
It was an absolutely tiny subset of the Linux kernel API, barely enough to test some programs, and lacking all the sexy interesting bits of the real deal.
Microsoft realised that and decided to drop the ball (again. If you've paid attention at their older attempt at android app compatibility for Windows 10 mobile, which was their first drop of the same ball and which they salvaged into the previous WSL)
Now, starting from WSL2, Microsoft decided to i
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Serous question here: What then is the difference between WSL and a VM, like HyperV or VMWare? Is WSL something else?
WSL1, WSL2 (Score:3)
Serous question here: What then is the difference between WSL and a VM, like HyperV or VMWare? Is WSL something else?
TL;DR: WSL1 - absolutely not at all. WSL2 - kindof but with more integration. CoLinux would be something closer.
Keep in mind that there two different generations of WSL.
WSL 1 [microsoft.com] (the thing introduced a couple of years ago) :
It relies on a peculiarity of the NT kernel: it can "speak" completely different APIs (called "subsystems")
In addition to Win32 API for most windows application, in the past this has been used to also provide some POSIX-ish APIs (the old "Microsoft POSIX subsystem") or OS/2 API back when
No. However... (Score:4, Interesting)
... if someone comes up with a distro that looks and behaves enough like Windows 7, that requires minimal to no "fucking about" to work - for example, includes pre-configured Office-alike, Wine, native video drivers, etc - then next year, when Windows 7 goes EoL and unsupported, there's a big chance it will.
Lindows (Score:4, Informative)
Lindows exactly attempted back in the days.
(a windows-look-a-like skin + wine for app compatibility)
and got at the receiving end of the obviously expected law suits.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Lawsuits which MS was losing (it was in danger of having Windows nullified as a trademark for being too generic), so it actually *paid* a considerable sum to buy the Lindows trademark and Lindows was renamed to Linspire.
And therein lies the problem... (Score:2)
...with current distros - the triumph of philosophy over functionality.
The inclusion of open-source as well as native drivers implies choices - and overt configuration changes - to be made, by people without the knowledge and expertise to do so and, furthermore, who are actively disinterested in learning how.
Joe Public couldn't give less of a shit about the philosophy of open source, and how native drivers with closed-source binary blobs are inherently evil. They want something that installs cleanly, update
This Year The Desktop Is On The Linux! (Score:2)
Did everyone forget 2004 ? (Score:5, Interesting)
I keep repeating this, the first time I heard talk of the "Year of hte Linux Desktop" was 2004.
And it was true. Starting with that year I did not have to go to any forum, read any documenntation or do any tweaks to use Linux on on the desktop. What I got out-of-the-box worked fine.
The reasons for not using Linux on the desktop moved from technical to politiical.
If you need proof:
1 - SCO's attack on Linux started in 2003.
2 - The Munich Linux migration project was announced and Ballmer's visit to Munich followed shortlly after.
3 - Ken Brown's Samizdat was annoounced also in 2004.
4 - Darl McBride's talk at MIT where he took along an armed bodygard (MIT students are murderers, so he needed amed protection) also took place in 2004.
Nobody seems to remember that lots of companies were preparing to switch to Linux on the desktop, but the SCO threat (bankrolled by Microsoft) to sue everyone running Linux and demanding 700 USD per CPU per year in licensing fees has spooked almost all corporations.
Linux was used everywhere, but only on the servers where it was not viisible.
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I remember. The linux desktop is clean and functional. I gave up on windows because the upgrade process is a nightmare from one version to another. With Linux a copy of your home directory on the upgraded system is enough and you're good to go.
Puff piece (Score:2)
Who wrote this vapid puff piece... is that you, Miguel?
Is it still relevant? (Score:2)
Is the desktop still relevant? I saw last week that most gaming is now performed on mobile devices. That was already the case for web browsing a few years ago. I don't think the desktop is a relevant platform anymore in terms of market. It's like wondering if alloy X will finally be number one for horseshoes this year, nobody cares.
Re: Is it still relevant? (Score:2)
There's this whole other world where people do an awful lot more with computers than play Pokemon Go. Pretending that doesn't exist won't make it go away.
Be Careful what you wish for (Score:2)
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish
for reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
some things never change
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No. And the reason is games. (Score:3)
Let's face it, everything else a "normal" user could possibly need or want runs on Linux. Browsing the web, doing email, using online messaging services, writing documents, watching and editing graphics, you name it, it's there.
What isn't there is gaming. This is admittedly only partly the fault of Linux (and its makers), much more of the blame lies on the shoulders of those companies that make those games.
First and foremost, DRM. A lot of DRM relies on runtime behaviour of the WinAPI that is of course very different in Wine, simply because it is not exactly the same. But that's only the tip of the ice cube. Even if the game runs, it usually takes quite a bit of configuration (and no, PlayonLinux is not a panacea, quite far from it) that is virtually impossible to understand, let alone do, for the average user. It seems to be more like a proof of concept at this stage rather than something you'd hand to Joe Randomuser als a tool to get his games to work on Linux.
Then there's the driver issue. While by now there's plenty of support from the major GPU suppliers, that's also pretty much where it ends. Sound is still far from on par with Windows (even if you get it to work, getting that "virtual 7.1" support you enjoy on Windows is usually out of reach, let alone various sound effects), and we better not start on gaming mice and keyboards, you're usually already lucky if you get them to work at all, let alone getting their special keys and gimmicks to work. And pretty much any input device that has "programmable" in its name is not at all programmable in Linux because, you guessed it, the programming tool is only available as a Windows executable that somehow refuses to run in Wine (or if it does, it can't upload anything to the devices... again, if you're lucky and it doesn't just kill the device when you try).
So no. The year of the Linux desktop will, at least in consumer areas, only come if there is some noticeable support from third party hardware and software. And it doesn't seem to be forthcoming in the foreseeable future.
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And it's a catch-22. They will only support Linux if its popular and Linux can't be popular for gaming if it isn't supported.
Furthermore than infantile debating and fragmentation of the ecosystem makes it pretty much impossible for a game dev to support "Linux". They have to pick a popular distro family and go with that. When Red Hat land uses rpm and flatpack and Debian land uses deb and snaps there is no "we support linux". To get arbitrary Linux support for any application of real complexity essentiall
Every year is the same (Score:2)
Linux must be the best desktop OS (Score:3)
Linux must be the best desktop OS since everybody wants to have it and makes big announcements about being able to run linux applications on their OS.
Crap battery life (Score:3)
Last week, I installed Linux Mint Cinnamon on my Yoga Pro 2 notebook. Core i7, 512GB SSD and 16 GB RAM.
So far, it is certainly not better than Windows 10, but that really leaves a bad impression for me is the battery life. It is literally less than 50% of what I get when running my windows partition.
Videos on youtube are also pretty choppy most of the time. Overall I would say that the performance is significantly worse than Win 10. I will try to some optimizations, but likely I will delete the installation and just go back to Windows 10.
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The old issues remain (Score:3)
If the goal is to make linux more popular... (Score:2)
Assuming your goal is to make desktop linux more popular:
Linux on the desktop is going nowhere fast [statcounter.com]. We could keep relying on "proper linux distros" (whatever that means), and spend another 10 years and maybe gain another 0.5% market share. Or we can admit that the linux distros have thoroughly failed on he desktop and embrace new strategies such as adding linux kernel and apps to windows and chrome os.
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Integrating Linux functionality doesn't achieve the goal though. Unless things have changed I thought it was supposed to be a FOSS OS becoming dominant. What needs to happen is for the devs in all of these projects to lay down their egos and realize that 300 window managers, 500 package managers etc etc is counter productive. Linux needs a standard. There is freedom and then there is reinventing the wheel. We are very much at reinventing the wheel. On a high level there is no difference between Snap and Fla
has been for ages (Score:2)
Linux on the desktop has been a thing for ages now. Back in '95 I still found it too tedious (writing modelines by hand etc.), but from about 1998 I preferred a Linux distro to, say, OS/2 (and certainly over any Windows version).
Having decent hardware has always helped, and choosing the desktop environment (or simple window manager) wisely also helped.
All in all, Linux has been very user-friendly... just a bit picky over who it would consider a friend (a wise choice, IMHO).
That being said, there's still thi
Get off my Linux Desktop! (Score:2)
No and I hope it will never be. Can we keep something that is more "power user friendly"? Let's be honest, most Linux desktop users are IT people like me who want/need this kind of interface. I don't want it to be dumbed down to a touchscreen-like interface. If you need a toy/gaming OS, install Windows (or buy a console).
It will be (Score:2)
As long that my Dell laptop continue to crash with (Score:2)
I will only use Linux Mint on it... And update the windows 10 partition just in case it will works.
Seriously moving the goal posts (Score:2)
So we are now defining 'The Year of Linux on the Desktop' to be when Microsoft includes the Linux kernel in Windows 10 as a novelty for edge-use applications?
I'm pretty certain that when Linus put up his infamous 'World Domination' presentation slide he was totally imagining his kernel being folded into Windows decades later...
Why? Someone, please tell me why? (Score:2)
.
Why?
Re: (Score:2)
so really just a virtual machine. hardly Linux on the desktop.
If I can run gcc from a bash prompt, I will be happy.
A true nerd needs nothing more.
Re: (Score:2)
A true nerd would use zsh. :)
Re:nope still not the year of linux desktop (Score:4, Funny)
A true nerd would embed particles of neodymium in the end of their tongue with an ice-pick and lick the end of a serial cable with a loopback plug attached.
Re:nope still not the year of linux desktop (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
A true nerd would use zsh. :)
Emacs Macht Alle Computer Schön. The Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping-issue is no longer a problem - even a smart watch has 512 MB or more these days.
Re: nope still not the year of linux desktop (Score:2)
Except emacs or vi
Re: (Score:2)
A true nerd needs nothing more.
I true nerd needs the kernel running on metal because really, that's the whole purpose of the kernel -- low latency IO, real-time scheduling, direct access to peripheral hardware interfaces... you know,... nerd stuff.
Re:nope still not the year of linux desktop (Score:4, Funny)
If you need nothing more then you don't need Windows to run Linux.
I am not always using my own computer.
When my neighbor asks me how to do something on his computer, I can tell him "First, open a Bash prompt, and then type ....", and he will never bother me again.
Re: (Score:3)
Did that actually work? I had to threaten to cut their heads off and mount them on a pike.
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If you need nothing more then you don't need Windows to run Linux.
I am not always using my own computer.
When my neighbor asks me how to do something on his computer, I can tell him "First, open a Bash prompt, and then type ....", and he will never bother me again.
Why would you tell them to open a bash prompt, when you could talk them through doing the same thing with GUI tools that are installed by default?
Would you tell them to start regedit if they were on Windows, or a command prompt (oh yes, you might, if you want ipconfig /renew, where on Linux I would click the network icon in the system tray and choose disconnect/connect).
When I help my wife with things on her desktop running Linux, I use a GUI approach, so that she can see it is easy, and so she might learn
Re: Don't move your sensitive work to Windows (Score:3, Insightful)
I already have a single Linux computer
Re: (Score:3)
I always laugh at these articles, I have everything I need on linux. Even most of the games native. On one hand, I would like linux to go somewhere and bring more support. But on the other, the users get what they deserve. If they don't want to learn how to use it, they can keep taking it from microsoft.
Re: Don't move your sensitive work to Windows (Score:2)
Shocked that a bank won't let desktop users (or even developers) run their own VMs on bank computers...
Are you really that stupid?
Re: Don't move your sensitive work to Windows (Score:3)
Roll back? Yeah, takes a lot of time on Windows (could be up to a whole day). Linux system itself takes much shorter time to reinstall everything.
Five years ago I could re-image a user desktop in a K-12 public school setting with nothing more elaborate than a gigabit LAN and the free tools Microsoft supplied all their users - please explain this day-long 'roll back' you claim.
Re: (Score:2)
Funny, compared to KDE Plasma on Debian, Windows 10 is buggy and unpolished crap, never mind sluggish, insecure and a rampant privacy violation.
Re: not yet.. but the biggest opportunity is comin (Score:2)
Last I looked, Windows ME had more desktop users than Linux (all flavors).
Re: (Score:3)
No, it's just death by inertia, a lack of mindshare and preinstalls above all.
Parents teach their kids to use Windows, the Windows upbringing being completed in school.
That inertia is waning. Most schools now use Ipads and Chromebooks. Many households don't even have desktops anymore and just use tablets and phones for everything. There is a whole generation growing up without a strong background in windows.
Re: (Score:2)
You do understand that nobody, and I mean NO BO DY uses 8.1 anymore? Windows 10 is the thing now. Try it one day.
Re: (Score:2)
Suggestion, KDE desktop, And if you have linux experience use debian. Ubuntu/mint and Arch are good for beginners but you will grow out of them fast. I haven't used manjaro but I hear its great for gaming. But I haven't heard about anything else.
Re: not yet.. but the biggest opportunity is comin (Score:3)
Try Windows 10 - you can upgrade for free, and it has essentially the same desktop appearance as Win 7 - the only time you see 'tiles' is for a handful of programs when you click on start, otherwise it looks a lot like Win 7 to the casual user.
Did I mention it was a free upgrade? Just download media from Microsoft and install the upgrade, it will accept your Win 7 product key for activation.
Linux programmer can't get it to work? (Score:2)
And I totally believe you, anonymous troll
Ubuntu 3D Desktop [youtube.com]
Pop!_OS vs Ubuntu 18.10 [youtube.com]