Honestly, between the telemetry data collection, the strange hardware requirements, advertisements, bloatware, and unknown future licensing model, Linux is looking like an attractive option. At this point, I only use Windows for Office and gaming, and Linux + Proton has gotten really good lately. I don’t see a reason to use Windows on my personal machine any more.
Linux is fine for people like you and me who are comfortable installing our own operating system, and trouble-shooting any problems. Most ‘normal’ people though will continue to walk into a store, buy a laptop, and use whatever came installed.
Of course, the year of Linux on the desktop actually happened some time ago without anyone noticing. It’s called ChromeOS, and that’s a whole different can of worms.
While true, how much troubleshooting does windows require? Because as I sometimes use windows, it’s not that much less work to get it to do what you want it to do, or solve issues, than linux.
Especially since it feels like windows tries to fight you every step of the way.
Most distributions require little to no troubleshooting, and if they do, someone has probably already posted the solution online. It’s pretty rare these days that you run into a problem that someone else hasn’t and you’re stuck figuring it out yourself.
The only pain point is trying to find the Linux equivalent of the Windows apps that you commonly use. Web browsers are the exact same, but that’s about it. A fair amount of apps to offer Linux counterparts though.
It depends on ehat youre trying to do. If you are teying to debloat it, of course you go out of your way, but it has the reverse problem for most drivers, where youre almost guaranteed to plug in an arbitrary USB device, and itll probably have drivers or software in the windows environment.
Linux is great. With the caveat that you specifically pick hardware that works well in Linux for it, else you have the problem of “a choice fighting you every step of the way”
Linux is easily fixed but the problem is that the issues that crop up needing to be fixed are generally not pain points on Windows. The first Arch install I did this year was busted and I thought I had broken my networking setup because it wouldn’t connect, but the issue was that the system clock was wrong. Something like that may pop up in Windows but you can quickly press the sync time and date button in the settings and it’ll sort itself out, while Arch requires a lot more work than just that, especially if it has no connectivity.
I’ve been using Linux for like 15 years and Arch for about a decade. I’ve never had an issue where the system time prevents the network connection from working. That’s odd.
It makes sense because all of our cryptography is based around time limits. If the system time is way off it can’t verify the cryptographic signatures and it’s not going to validate any certs since the time doesn’t line up properly.
Once people get over the initial Windows indoctrination, Linux is simple to use and doesn’t require tons of complex troubleshooting like people think. Before the COVID lockdown I tried for the Nth time to get my dad to use Linux. I had it installed and told him to stick with it for a few weeks (he only browses the web and plays solitaire). If he still didn’t like it, I’d reenable Windows. Well that few weeks turned into 6 months. Now both he and my mom have been happy Linux users for about 2 years.
A GUI software center is used (or if the said dad is comfortable with an interactive console application)
The said dad actually realizes the importance behind updates. From my experience, many people don’t.
So, unless both of above are true, the dad will never (want to) update his system because “it works as is”, sticking to old versions of software, never receiving bugfixes and neglecting security.
Most distro nowadays come with a gui to update. A pop up window appears asking if you want to update/upgrade. You can press “yes” and the password of the sudoer or admin user is asked. It has been like this for over a decade. For popular distros as Ubuntu or fedora over 15 years
Yes, probably because I stick with Arch and Slackware plus a lightweight environment. The only time I saw such a GUI was when I tried out Elementary just for fun.
What I consider a problem is that the user can simply dismiss or disregard the updates notification indefinitely. I know many non-tech-savvy people who do not understand the importance of updates, so they would be inclined to do exactly that. That is why unattended upgrades are probably a better option in such cases.
The process is so simple that there is no reason to not do it. My wife is non-tech person, I installed ubuntu on her laptop and she’s very happy because it’s faster than windows. I have never updated it for her. She does it. Only thing I have done is the upgrade to a new ubuntu release
You’re a wise (wo)man. That is exactly the case. I’ve shown him how to do it in the GUI but he doesn’t care to because, like you said, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
Thank you for answering. I can relate to manually updating my parents’ systems once in a while but at this point I’m seriously considering unattended upgrades (updating over SSH is also a good idea).
I’m not the guy you asked, and I hope he responds because I’d like to hear his answer too, but a lot of that depends on the Linux distro you select. On rolling releases you get continuous updates automatically, not major upgrades like forced Windows Updates.
I’m OP, he runs Manjaro and I handle the updates whenever I see him, every month or so (I live out of state). I could do it over SSH but if something happens to break, it’s a pain to fix. I showed him how to do it in the GUI but he doesn’t care to do it.
What do you mean, automatically? Arch is a rolling release and I have to explicitly run pacman with the correct flags to update. At the same time Debian, which is not a rolling release, has the unattended upgrades feature which installs updates automatically.
But indeed, many things depend on the distro. For example, user-centric distros such as Elementary and others provide an easy to use GUI for updating the system.
And yes, Windows Updates was (is still? not a Win user) a nightmare.
What do you mean, automatically? Arch is a rolling release and I have to explicitly run pacman with the correct flags to update. At the same time Debian, which is not a rolling release, has the unattended upgrades feature which installs updates automatically.
I was thinking Tumbleweed, Manjaro and the like which have GUI updaters, lol. @[email protected] was pretty clear that his parents are the ultimate Linux beginners; he’s not going to give them Arch or Debian out of the box and bark command lines at them.
I do it for them whenever I come over every month or two (I live out of state). I could also just SSH in and do it remotely if I really wanted to. I showed my dad how to do it with the GUI package manager, but he’s the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” type. Linux will run perfectly fine without updates for years.
When people are talking about Linux Desktop they usually mean GNU/Linux. Chrome OS and Android both use the Linux kernel, but they aren’t GNU/Linux like we understand Linux desktop.
GNU/Linux needs a company that will create a Macintosh equivalent. A company that will design quality hardware. Restrict the hardware they support tightly, but highly optimise the drivers in their devices. Selling their equipment with a distro that’s well supported with bug testing and user support. Each update being tested on all their devices.
This would allow people to buy their devices without much thought.
I think people in the past thought this could be Ubuntu and Canonical. But their business is server, so there desktop will never get to the place it needs to be.
The steam deck is pushing Linux closer to this place. But I don’t think it will be enough.
System76 aren’t there. They sell rebranded ugly generic laptops with low quality screens. They sell them for a similar prices to low end macbooks. You put the average person in front of both in a store and they are going for the macbook. Better screen, better battery life and good quality hardware.
PopOS has the best chance to be ‘the Linux’ desktop. But they need nicer hardware. System76 are selling laptops to Linux people, that’s their market. They don’t have nice hardware design to compete in the high end of the market. And they aren’t cheap enough to compete in the low end.
System76 are also going after the server market. I suspect they will go the way of Ubuntu. Chasing the server market and being too distracted to follow through with their desktop ambitions.
I wouldn’t call System76’ hardware ugly. It’s generic looking, sure, but it’s not ugly. It’s also designed by them. They used to only customize OEM systems with their own designs, but they started designing and manufacturing their own desktops a few years ago. Their first fully self designed and manufactured laptop is coming out soon. They have never just rebranded other companies’ designs though, so that’s just flat out wrong.
Their screens are fine. Have you seen them? They’re nothing to write home about, but they’re not low quality.
They have a range of laptops from $999 to $3,299, so I’m not sure what you mean when you say they’re a similar price to a low end MacBook.
They are very much not abandoning their desktop ambitions. They are putting a lot of effort and investment into their own desktop environment.
There is no company that designs all their PC hardware and all their software. Not even Apple does (but they’re probably the closest). Everyone has suppliers they work with for stuff they don’t want to design or build.
To add to that, Android is likely the overwhelming market share of Linux-based operating systems in use today. For that matter, an absolute ton of Intel CPUs have Minux installed on them too, but I wouldn’t call this “on the desktop”, just interesting.
Storage is super cheap these days. Just buy an extra hard drive for Windows and boot into that on the rare occasion you truly need to use Windows. Or just use a VM.
I’ve worked as a SWE at Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn, and none of the devs I worked with used Windows. Everyone either used Mac or Linux. It’s just a matter of time before the dev world bleeds out into the consumer world.
At LinkedIn everyone had a Linux desktop that matched the server environment. Very few people actually coded on their desktop though. Most of us used a MacBook then either tested on the desktop or tested on a dev server.
At Google, almost everyone used a MacBook or their Goobuntu desktop (Google’s custom version of Ubuntu). Basically everyone would remote into their desktop to write code. Some people used Windows and some used Chromebooks.
At Facebook, most used MacBooks, the rest were pretty evenly divided between Windows and Linux (on Thinkpads). Everyone had a Linux dev server in one of the data centers to test on.
At every one of these places, the production environment is 100% Linux, so eventually, everyone had to test their code on Linux (except mobile or desktop app developers).
Again, I never worked with anyone who used Windows, but I knew there were some people who did, cause they would stick out.
Should probably clarify that I meant their home PCs, not work provided ones. Our dev is all done on Mac and then we have remote Linux dev environments for testing if needed.
Windows for development is asinine, can definitely agree there. But for home computing it still isn’t taking over.
Cost wasn’t mentioned in the original scope. OP was saying he hates the telemetry, ads, etc. and then you stated that companies have software that needs windows to run, to which I stated that there is a version that doesn’t have OPs concerns and runs custom apps that companies use.
The subscription rumor was debunked pretty quickly. I honestly don’t see that happening anytime soon, PC makers would get pretty upset (especially if they don’t get a cut of the revenue).
Forcing everyone to stream Windows from a cloud server would not work well for the vast majority of PCs and internet connections. Microsoft isn’t dumb, they’re not going to try that and lose even more market share to Apple. I was linking to the article to show the correction, the original article was junk based on nothing and shouldn’t be taken seriously.
I was using Mint for a while but the system got hosed. I plan on modding Starfield, and there was another game I can’t recall that wouldn’t work on Linux. After I best Starfield I fully expect to wipe my system again and go with a more stable distro of Linux (e.g. Gentoo or something).
Using ModOrganizer2 to launch a Windows game from Steam using Proton is a massive pain in the ass, I’ve tried to set it up a few times before. I finally got it to work correctly, where it would actually run the game with ENB, and I was getting 15 FPS on an RTX 2080 Super and Ryzen 7 5900.
Also trying to get all the other programs like DynDoLOD and xEdit to work with MO2 was a pain as well.
Honestly, between the telemetry data collection, the strange hardware requirements, advertisements, bloatware, and unknown future licensing model, Linux is looking like an attractive option. At this point, I only use Windows for Office and gaming, and Linux + Proton has gotten really good lately. I don’t see a reason to use Windows on my personal machine any more.
We don’t use the word “Spyware” like we did twenty years ago. It’s baked into Windows now.
They could bring back BonziBuddy and nobody would bat an eye
Bonzi Buddy is called Cortana now.
This needs to be a “this is her now. Feel old yet?” meme.
At this point, Bonzibuddy is damn near benign compared to what we’re dealing with now.
Linux is fine for people like you and me who are comfortable installing our own operating system, and trouble-shooting any problems. Most ‘normal’ people though will continue to walk into a store, buy a laptop, and use whatever came installed.
Of course, the year of Linux on the desktop actually happened some time ago without anyone noticing. It’s called ChromeOS, and that’s a whole different can of worms.
While true, how much troubleshooting does windows require? Because as I sometimes use windows, it’s not that much less work to get it to do what you want it to do, or solve issues, than linux.
Especially since it feels like windows tries to fight you every step of the way.
When windows needs fixing, people take it to the best buy genius bar or whatever
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you don’t, normal people take their shit to the best buy when it’s broken
Most distributions require little to no troubleshooting, and if they do, someone has probably already posted the solution online. It’s pretty rare these days that you run into a problem that someone else hasn’t and you’re stuck figuring it out yourself.
The only pain point is trying to find the Linux equivalent of the Windows apps that you commonly use. Web browsers are the exact same, but that’s about it. A fair amount of apps to offer Linux counterparts though.
A surprising amount
It depends on ehat youre trying to do. If you are teying to debloat it, of course you go out of your way, but it has the reverse problem for most drivers, where youre almost guaranteed to plug in an arbitrary USB device, and itll probably have drivers or software in the windows environment.
Linux is great. With the caveat that you specifically pick hardware that works well in Linux for it, else you have the problem of “a choice fighting you every step of the way”
Linux is easily fixed but the problem is that the issues that crop up needing to be fixed are generally not pain points on Windows. The first Arch install I did this year was busted and I thought I had broken my networking setup because it wouldn’t connect, but the issue was that the system clock was wrong. Something like that may pop up in Windows but you can quickly press the sync time and date button in the settings and it’ll sort itself out, while Arch requires a lot more work than just that, especially if it has no connectivity.
…I’ve certainly had that issue on windows as well. I had to manually set the time. Windows sync at least didn’t use to always work.
I’ve been using Linux for like 15 years and Arch for about a decade. I’ve never had an issue where the system time prevents the network connection from working. That’s odd.
It makes sense because all of our cryptography is based around time limits. If the system time is way off it can’t verify the cryptographic signatures and it’s not going to validate any certs since the time doesn’t line up properly.
Yeah, true.
Every distro has ntp setup by default. New users shouldn’t use Arch…
Yeah and old users shouldn’t be fucking snobs, yet here we are.
Once people get over the initial Windows indoctrination, Linux is simple to use and doesn’t require tons of complex troubleshooting like people think. Before the COVID lockdown I tried for the Nth time to get my dad to use Linux. I had it installed and told him to stick with it for a few weeks (he only browses the web and plays solitaire). If he still didn’t like it, I’d reenable Windows. Well that few weeks turned into 6 months. Now both he and my mom have been happy Linux users for about 2 years.
If I may ask, how do you deal with updates? Have you enabled unattended upgrades or do you update the machines yourself?
His dad just needs to put a password when asked. It’s a 6-years-old kid task updating on most Linux distro.
That would be true if:
So, unless both of above are true, the dad will never (want to) update his system because “it works as is”, sticking to old versions of software, never receiving bugfixes and neglecting security.
Most distro nowadays come with a gui to update. A pop up window appears asking if you want to update/upgrade. You can press “yes” and the password of the sudoer or admin user is asked. It has been like this for over a decade. For popular distros as Ubuntu or fedora over 15 years
Is it different for your distro?
He still doesn’t care to.
Yes, probably because I stick with Arch and Slackware plus a lightweight environment. The only time I saw such a GUI was when I tried out Elementary just for fun.
What I consider a problem is that the user can simply dismiss or disregard the updates notification indefinitely. I know many non-tech-savvy people who do not understand the importance of updates, so they would be inclined to do exactly that. That is why unattended upgrades are probably a better option in such cases.
The process is so simple that there is no reason to not do it. My wife is non-tech person, I installed ubuntu on her laptop and she’s very happy because it’s faster than windows. I have never updated it for her. She does it. Only thing I have done is the upgrade to a new ubuntu release
You’re a wise (wo)man. That is exactly the case. I’ve shown him how to do it in the GUI but he doesn’t care to because, like you said, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
Thank you for answering. I can relate to manually updating my parents’ systems once in a while but at this point I’m seriously considering unattended upgrades (updating over SSH is also a good idea).
NP, I don’t consider it a big issue, I kick it off whenever I’m there and it takes about 10 minutes.
His own password which makes it even simpler.
I’m not the guy you asked, and I hope he responds because I’d like to hear his answer too, but a lot of that depends on the Linux distro you select. On rolling releases you get continuous updates automatically, not major upgrades like forced Windows Updates.
I’m OP, he runs Manjaro and I handle the updates whenever I see him, every month or so (I live out of state). I could do it over SSH but if something happens to break, it’s a pain to fix. I showed him how to do it in the GUI but he doesn’t care to do it.
What do you mean, automatically? Arch is a rolling release and I have to explicitly run
pacmanwith the correct flags to update. At the same time Debian, which is not a rolling release, has the unattended upgrades feature which installs updates automatically.But indeed, many things depend on the distro. For example, user-centric distros such as Elementary and others provide an easy to use GUI for updating the system.
And yes, Windows Updates was (is still? not a Win user) a nightmare.
I was thinking Tumbleweed, Manjaro and the like which have GUI updaters, lol. @[email protected] was pretty clear that his parents are the ultimate Linux beginners; he’s not going to give them Arch or Debian out of the box and bark command lines at them.
I actually have given him Arch before, but I handled everything. They’re running Manjaro.
I do it for them whenever I come over every month or two (I live out of state). I could also just SSH in and do it remotely if I really wanted to. I showed my dad how to do it with the GUI package manager, but he’s the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” type. Linux will run perfectly fine without updates for years.
When people are talking about Linux Desktop they usually mean GNU/Linux. Chrome OS and Android both use the Linux kernel, but they aren’t GNU/Linux like we understand Linux desktop.
GNU/Linux needs a company that will create a Macintosh equivalent. A company that will design quality hardware. Restrict the hardware they support tightly, but highly optimise the drivers in their devices. Selling their equipment with a distro that’s well supported with bug testing and user support. Each update being tested on all their devices.
This would allow people to buy their devices without much thought.
I think people in the past thought this could be Ubuntu and Canonical. But their business is server, so there desktop will never get to the place it needs to be.
The steam deck is pushing Linux closer to this place. But I don’t think it will be enough.
System76
PopOS?
Dell and Lenovo sell Linux laptops.
As sadreality said, you’re describing System76.
System76 aren’t there. They sell rebranded ugly generic laptops with low quality screens. They sell them for a similar prices to low end macbooks. You put the average person in front of both in a store and they are going for the macbook. Better screen, better battery life and good quality hardware.
PopOS has the best chance to be ‘the Linux’ desktop. But they need nicer hardware. System76 are selling laptops to Linux people, that’s their market. They don’t have nice hardware design to compete in the high end of the market. And they aren’t cheap enough to compete in the low end.
System76 are also going after the server market. I suspect they will go the way of Ubuntu. Chasing the server market and being too distracted to follow through with their desktop ambitions.
Tell us how you really feel. xD
I wouldn’t call System76’ hardware ugly. It’s generic looking, sure, but it’s not ugly. It’s also designed by them. They used to only customize OEM systems with their own designs, but they started designing and manufacturing their own desktops a few years ago. Their first fully self designed and manufactured laptop is coming out soon. They have never just rebranded other companies’ designs though, so that’s just flat out wrong.
Their screens are fine. Have you seen them? They’re nothing to write home about, but they’re not low quality.
They have a range of laptops from $999 to $3,299, so I’m not sure what you mean when you say they’re a similar price to a low end MacBook.
They are very much not abandoning their desktop ambitions. They are putting a lot of effort and investment into their own desktop environment.
There is no company that designs all their PC hardware and all their software. Not even Apple does (but they’re probably the closest). Everyone has suppliers they work with for stuff they don’t want to design or build.
To add to that, Android is likely the overwhelming market share of Linux-based operating systems in use today. For that matter, an absolute ton of Intel CPUs have Minux installed on them too, but I wouldn’t call this “on the desktop”, just interesting.
Imagine sounding this elitist because of an operating system you use
Until you realize that many orgs have software that only works on windows.
Its not a great situation
Storage is super cheap these days. Just buy an extra hard drive for Windows and boot into that on the rare occasion you truly need to use Windows. Or just use a VM.
You could just use a VM or put on the same disk. There is no reason to spend extra money
Windows has a bad habit of fucking up Linux boot partitions when it updates, so proceed with caution if you decide to keep them on one disk.
I’ve never had an issue
That’s great for you. Doesn’t mean the issue doesn’t exist, though.
I’ve worked as a SWE at Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn, and none of the devs I worked with used Windows. Everyone either used Mac or Linux. It’s just a matter of time before the dev world bleeds out into the consumer world.
We’re a Mac shop here, but almost everyone I know still runs windows on their desktops. The few who don’t are on MacBooks and don’t have desktops.
Linux is still a minority, even among developers
Edit: I should probably clarify I mean personal desktops, not work provided.
At LinkedIn everyone had a Linux desktop that matched the server environment. Very few people actually coded on their desktop though. Most of us used a MacBook then either tested on the desktop or tested on a dev server.
At Google, almost everyone used a MacBook or their Goobuntu desktop (Google’s custom version of Ubuntu). Basically everyone would remote into their desktop to write code. Some people used Windows and some used Chromebooks.
At Facebook, most used MacBooks, the rest were pretty evenly divided between Windows and Linux (on Thinkpads). Everyone had a Linux dev server in one of the data centers to test on.
At every one of these places, the production environment is 100% Linux, so eventually, everyone had to test their code on Linux (except mobile or desktop app developers).
Again, I never worked with anyone who used Windows, but I knew there were some people who did, cause they would stick out.
Should probably clarify that I meant their home PCs, not work provided ones. Our dev is all done on Mac and then we have remote Linux dev environments for testing if needed.
Windows for development is asinine, can definitely agree there. But for home computing it still isn’t taking over.
Corporations have access to a version of windows that doesn’t have telemetry, advertisements or bloatware. Its called Enterprise Edition.
That comes at a cost premium
Cost wasn’t mentioned in the original scope. OP was saying he hates the telemetry, ads, etc. and then you stated that companies have software that needs windows to run, to which I stated that there is a version that doesn’t have OPs concerns and runs custom apps that companies use.
I was actually speaking from personal experience but I see your point
The subscription rumor was debunked pretty quickly. I honestly don’t see that happening anytime soon, PC makers would get pretty upset (especially if they don’t get a cut of the revenue).
No, it’s coming. And for thin clients it’s already here.
Yes, that’s reporting on the “leak” from Neowin, which Neowin later redacted because there wasn’t actually enough evidence: https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-might-want-to-be-making-windows-12-a-subscription-os-suggests-leak/
Windows 365 is a cloud streaming PC that isn’t even available to consumers yet.
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The original source for that is an internal presentation with poorly-worded language that said Windows will “move” to the cloud, the whole presentation slide makes it clear they’re talking about Windows in the cloud as an option: https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/27/23775117/microsoft-windows-11-cloud-consumer-strategy
Forcing everyone to stream Windows from a cloud server would not work well for the vast majority of PCs and internet connections. Microsoft isn’t dumb, they’re not going to try that and lose even more market share to Apple. I was linking to the article to show the correction, the original article was junk based on nothing and shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Appreciate the clarification, thank you for taking the time.
Do it. I only use Windows to play my heavily modded copy of Skyrim and now Starfield. Everything else has been Linux for years.
I was using Mint for a while but the system got hosed. I plan on modding Starfield, and there was another game I can’t recall that wouldn’t work on Linux. After I best Starfield I fully expect to wipe my system again and go with a more stable distro of Linux (e.g. Gentoo or something).
They work fine unmodded (AFAIK) it’s just a pain getting them to work through MO2 along with other things.
I have been playing both of those on proton with little issue, and I’m not positive that the issues I experienced are exclusive to linux.
Using ModOrganizer2 to launch a Windows game from Steam using Proton is a massive pain in the ass, I’ve tried to set it up a few times before. I finally got it to work correctly, where it would actually run the game with ENB, and I was getting 15 FPS on an RTX 2080 Super and Ryzen 7 5900.
Also trying to get all the other programs like DynDoLOD and xEdit to work with MO2 was a pain as well.