this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
1297 points (96.4% liked)

Technology

59651 readers
833 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 158 points 5 months ago (9 children)

"The Year Of Linux on Desktops". Been hearing this for decades, but it might actually be happening. What I'm feeling now is the same thing I felt when Mozilla originally split Firefox out, and made the first real competition to corporate browsers as a free product. People don't want all this bullshit, and want to retain control over the machines they are working on. Seems a lot more people are interested in FOSS environments now just to avoid all the other BS they hate getting shoveled at them.

[–] rImITywR@lemmy.world 100 points 5 months ago (5 children)

“The Year Of Linux on Desktops”. Been hearing this for decades, but it might actually be happening.

Been hearing this for decades.

[–] randomname01@feddit.nl 46 points 5 months ago (8 children)

And it won’t ever be true until you can pick up a PC running Linux in a big box store. I could see the Steam Deck (and Valve’s rumoured upcoming console) to make a dent in the PC gaming space, but it won’t make a difference to the purchasing decisions of your your aunt who uses her pc to check her emails.

Should corporate buyers ever get tired of MS’ shenanigans they might switch over to Ubuntu, but I’m not holding my breath for that.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 54 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (6 children)

At work, we have a strict ban on purchasing any laboratory equipment that requires Windows. After about a year, several of our suppliers have been pressured to offer Linux support, precisely because we don’t have time for windows shenanigans on a $100k piece of advanced benchtop hardware. We just got our first oscilloscope with Red Hat preinstalled.

Also, regular people aren’t buying PCs as much as they used to. The PC is now a workplace and enthusiast device. Everyone else uses mobile.

[–] plactagonic@sopuli.xyz 22 points 5 months ago (2 children)

The oldest version of Win I used was 95 about 2 years ago on chromatography machine (I think hplc or gas).

It is to my knowledge still in use in the school because the software don't run on newer machines. The teacher told me that he don't know what will he do when it dies. It isn't really an issue on Linux.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It might be worth trying it in Wine. It has great support for older software especially.

Within the past year I have compiled new software for Windows 98.

In a lab environment, it’s important to strictly control software versions and understand thoroughly what gets updated. We also want the ability to use the same version of software indefinitely if it meets our needs.

[–] plactagonic@sopuli.xyz 11 points 5 months ago

I think that there are more issues like archaic connectors and stuff like that. You can't find new hardware with 30yo standard io.

[–] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

O&G still uses a lot of old versions as well. I remember back in the Win 7 days when I had to set up a 95 virtual machine and register a bunch of DLLs by hand plus set up a fake A: drive because even the 95 version of the software was garbage. A friend of mine did something similar but he got it working on the Win 7 machine somehow. I never understood how, but he left a script behind at the company he worked for because it needed to be reinstalled every time someone did something stupid and he didn't want to do it by hand.

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

We ship a $50k instrument product running Windows, and everyone hates it.

As the only EE on staff, I got to spend a portion of covid soldering TPM chips to motherboards. Fun times.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Wow, that sounds painful. Not so much because it’s technically difficult, but ridiculous that you have to do that.

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

Yeah, they were tssop, so not hard. It was only necessary because the parts shortage crunch had the vendor shipping them without the chips installed.

[–] barsquid@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I find it unbelievable that anyone ever accepted lab equipment with a Windows requirement. I mean, I know it is true, but what the fuck? Glad your work is doing this.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 10 points 5 months ago

I was not around at that time. Some of the systems I support are very long lived. At the time, having windows running on some of your equipment wasn’t seen as a liability. I guess you have to get bitten a few times before you understand that you need control of that system including the software.

[–] Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

several of our suppliers have been pressured to offer Linux support

We just got our first oscilloscope with Red Hat preinstalled.

This is so cool. Really great to hear. I wish more companies and other institutions would do this. They have to realize that using Microsoft software won't benefit them in the long term, and actually start pressuring hardware vendors into pre-installing Linux.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Shit, the iPad pro is pretty damn close to a laptop these days with the keyboard and track pad (just lacking the OS). I had a conversation the other day where someone mentioned how OSX and Windows are locking down their OS's to the point where it wouldn't be farfetched to guess that many consumer devices will eventually use essentially a mobile device OS.

[–] tromars@feddit.de 5 points 5 months ago

I had a conversation with a friend about iPads lately related to the „just lacking the OS“. The newer iPads with M-chips have all the computing power an average user could need but it’s crippled by the mobile-ish OS, so all the computing power is for nothing basically. An iPad running MacOS (with some adjustments for the Touchscreen) would be awesome. But we concluded it won’t happen anytime soon, because then basically no one would buy MacBooks anymore

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] potatopotato@sh.itjust.works 23 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'd argue the year of the Linux desktop passed years ago and now it's just a saturation game. Most serious SW development is now on Linux laptops/desktops, Android owns the mobile space and versions are starting to make huge inroads in the laptop space. You can buy gaming systems running it trivially now.

Conversely, casual users of windows are dying off, fewer non technical people are using desktops for anything at all. Only institutional users are buying Windows keys and they're some of the easiest to get on Linux because of the cost savings, particularly if you run Linux server infrastructure, a fight we already won over a decade ago.

[–] EnderMB@lemmy.world 13 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Most serious SW development is now on Linux laptops/desktops,

I'd love a source for this. To my knowledge, most people that build to Linux hosts still use OSX.

[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 8 points 5 months ago

a good indication is Microsoft making WSL at all

[–] EatATaco@lemm.ee 4 points 5 months ago

Source: I'm a super pro serious developer and I use Linux. QED if you don't also use Linux, you're not serious.

[–] TipRing@lemmy.world 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Thanks to the Steamdeck Linux users on Steam now outnumber Mac users. Still a tiny percentage of total Steam users but if developers increase support we will hopefully see that number take off.

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

Also helps that Valve isn’t porting source to Apple silicon.

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

All the larger PC manufacturers do offer Ubuntu at least. There was a time when Best Buy was selling them from Dell and Lenovo, but I'm sure the staff couldn't sufficiently explain the "why", and it was also at a time when more technology illiterate folks were the purchasers. That's not the case anymore, but I guess we will see how/if it shifts at all.

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

I loathe to be the BestBuy employee who sells a Linux box to a customer who only cares about the price difference.

[–] Aphelion@lemm.ee 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Lenovo ships some models with Mint FWIW.

[–] BombOmOm@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

Framework laptops also ship without Windows if you wish. Certainly nice to save the money for not purchasing an OS license I won't use.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

Most aunts I know primarily use an iPad or phone to manage email.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] aniki@lemm.ee 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Decades ago it was a funny joke. Now it's the most popular handheld OS on the planet by a huge margin. Linux is damn EVERYWHERE except the desktop now, and it's only a matter of time.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago (3 children)

This is why (as per usual) Stallman was right: the "GNU/" part matters. Linux is already all over the desktop (or at least, the laptop) in schools, in the form of Chromebooks. That means the entire next generation is going to grow up using Linux.

The only trouble is, it's locked-down Google/Linux that they're using, not GNU/Linux. All the freedom and user empowerment has been neatly excised from it such that it only facilitates consumption, not creativity.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Empricorn@feddit.nl 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Been hearing this for decades.

I've been hearing this about people hearing about people hearing that about Linux for decades.

[–] A_Very_Big_Fan@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

We can dream 😔

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 20 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I don't see a "year of the Linux desktop" happening, but rather its share growing slowly over the years. Windows would probably not have one big event that ends its dominance, but it can be a death of a thousand cuts.

[–] Plopp@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Guess which OS won't be recognized as a "trusted environment" to visit websites with down the line in Google's upcoming Web DRM. For your own protection of course...

[–] joe_cool@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This I would actually want to see.
I would so laugh when their most of their profits go to EU Antitrust Fines.
Or they pull an Apple and only EU device owners get to choose their own browser.

[–] Plopp@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

I really wouldn't, because I wouldn't want to risk them succeeding. It could be like Meta with WhatsApp, they just say "sure anyone can interoperate with us, they just have to use the Signal protocol because it's the safest and what we use". Google et al could say "any system could be considered trusted, as long as these security criteria are met" and the criteria are such that they go completely against the form of user control of the OS and software that Linux is all about. Technically a Linux distro could be made to meet the requirements, but pretty much no current day Linux user would ever want to use it because they'd be giving up the thing that made them switch to Linux in the first place - their control.

[–] JovialSodium@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I can easily believe these types of continued enshittification will help drive more users to Linux desktop usage. But that will still be a small percent.

People have to know and care about the problem and then be willing to put in the effort to understand what to do. That combination is pretty limiting.

I'd love to be proven wrong, though.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I think it might. Demographics are changing to make PC users more technical overall. The casual user isn’t looking to purchase a desktop PC. Casual is now synonymous with mobile.

It used to be that you needed a desktop to do your taxes or make an insurance claim over the Internet. That’s just not true anymore.

[–] pixel@pawb.social 3 points 5 months ago

The demographics are stratifying, more than anything. I work in child education and kids do not understand computers nowadays. They understand how to interface with their phones, but kids see any electronic that behaves outside the "app" paradigm -- landlines, desktop computers, what have you, and immediately don't understand. I do think that linux usership is going to go up, but there also needs to be an investment in increasing literacy in kids to make sure usership of linux stays up, otherwise the pendulum will swing back hard

[–] KazuyaDarklight@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The counterpoint are people like this, the feature they want is built on extreme data gathering. https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a8fec90b-c349-46c9-8592-5dbe17ea4c8c.jpeg

[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 15 points 5 months ago

Technically you could have such data gathered and stored locally, without sending them to big corpo. Privacy friendly "AI" is very much possible, it's just not favorable to those companies because they see those models as a tool and the data as what ends up making them money.

[–] tyrant@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

People may not want it but most don't know, care enough to adjust, or are just generally complacent. I mean, I DO care and find it hard to move to Linux due to lack of support for some of my work tasks.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] gerryflap@feddit.nl 6 points 5 months ago

I'm not so sure that the laypeople will, but I do expect a shift. Personally I'm still running Windows 10 next to Linux currently. Most of my time is still spent on Windows, because it's generally a bit more stable and hassle free due to the Windows monopoly. Software is written for Windows, so sadly it's usually just a better experience.

But so many things I read about Win 11 (and beyond) piss me off. It's my computer, I don't want them to decide things for me or farm my data. I'm mentally preparing for the transition to Linux-only. 90% of the software I use will work out of the box, and I think with some effort I can get like 8% of the rest to work. It'll be a lot of effort, but Micro$oft has pushed so far that I'm really starting to consider.

Multiple friends and colleagues (all programmers) I spoke are feeling the same way. I think Linux may double in full-time desktop users in a few years of this goes on.

[–] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Firefox is like 2.8% of browser market share, so if that's our baseline then Linux is already beating it by a mile.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

The combined ages of my children taken from 2024 would not equal the first year I heard that Ubuntu would take over the market.

load more comments (1 replies)