Look, I like Linux too, and I think governments should definitely use it to move away from Microsoft.
But as long as prebuilt PCs and laptops are sold with Windows, people will stay accustomed to it and be way more hesitant to switch. You can tell them, ‘It works just like Windows! It just looks a bit different!’ Yet their minds will still think, ‘New = scary.’ and won’t use it.
That was true in the past. But in the last 10 years people have stalled their PC upgrades. That’s the real reason why they don’t move to Win11, because they don’t want to buy a new PC. And that’s where Linux is going to get that market from MS.
The issue for me as a potential advocate to my immediate circle of friends and family is that I don’t want to become the only source of tech support. Now realistically they’ll probably have fewer issues, but as soon as they want to fix something they’ll have to come to me. No they won’t Google things, and if they do they won’t understand it.
There are more devices that ship with Linux or actively advertise support for it than ever tho. Of course far from the majority, but it’s a start that you can get basically anything with Linux if you want
The year of the Linux desktop will happen when a large (EDIT: large, CONSUMER-FOCUSED AND CONSUMER-FRIENDLY) company decides to donate a remarkable amount of resources to the development and maintenance of a specific distro to make it user friendly and give it the feeling that someone who actually knows better than most users is taking care of important stuff in the background.
…Valve? 👀
Novell tried to do that with SuSE Linux in the early 2000’s and I’ve never forgiven them. Edit, AND did deals with Microsoft. Brr.
AND runs all windows programs right out of the box with no faffing about.
TBH: Most private users aren’t really using many programs. They are running chrome. Maybe an email client, but even that is declining. They are looking at pictures with the standard photo viewer and maybe at some PDFs and sometimes they are writing a letter and print it? Linux totally can do that.
Sure, but chances are if that’s your use case, you moved to a tablet years ago. Your photo storage is likely Facebook and Google Photos backup.
The casual people doggedly hanging onto PCs likely have some obscure software they need to run on it, either for work or personal use.
That’s not completely accurate. Remember, a lot of people want a full keyboard for typing; and an iPad with a keyboard is way more expensive than a mid-range Chromebook. Plus, a whole generation of students are growing up and entering the workforce having used nothing but ChromeOS for their entire middle school and high school careers; for them, a Chromebook feels very familiar.
Microsoft is VERY close to losing every install advantage they have. Gaming, corporate, devops, and government are the only use cases their leads are still in any way commanding in; and they’re fiddling while Valve puts the finishing touches on Steam OS, they’re about to lose their tenth consecutive K12 graduating class who will go into the workforce more familiar with ChromeOS than Windows, devops is increasingly moving toward web portals, and government…well, let’s face it, that’s not a particularly lucrative single game to win.
Google has already eaten Microsoft’s lunch and dinner. And now they’re about to split Windows’ breakfast with Valve. Unless they make some major changes, and quick, Microsoft is going to go into the 2030s less relevant than they’ve been in decades.
The windows 11 ads worked. I installed Linux a month ago and would say the transition is done and iam really happy.
Same here.
Migrated my home studio/gaming rig to Nobara this year. The only reason I have Windows still on a drive in my PC is because the sim racing titles I enjoy (mainly iRacing) use anti-cheat and I’m also a little bit scared of bricking my expensive peripherals trying to get them working on Linux. Seems like it’s very possible, but I’m still hesitant.
That said, literally every audio peripheral I have works perfect, as well as all my VSTs. Concerning gaming, the only title in my steam library that is giving me issues is Counter Strike 2 which I’m not interested in playing right now anyway.
10/10, would recommend migrating to Nobara.
Nice to her! Which vsts do you use? Sadly i stopped doing music some years ago, but i have bitwig and some bought vsts. I wondered using them will be an issue. Like if they have an installer for windows.
I had a big Waves set for a long time but I spent a year away from home with nothing but a work laptop and got used to free and stock Reaper plugins only. I enjoyed the simplicity so much that I purged my VST list down to what I was using on that laptop. I have some Aberrant DSP, Valhalla, Voxengo, among others. Some instruments too, namely Surge XT, Cardinal, GGD Drums, Vital, Redtron Mellotron, and a couple guitar sims. That’s what I can think of right now.
The plugins install via WINE just like they do on Windows, then you sync them with Yabridge for use with your DAW. It was pretty easy to get it all running.
I wonder how many people would notice if when upgrading from windows 10 to 11, windows is replaced by KDE themed to look like windows 11.
Please Valve launch SteamOS, and I can be done with it
If i remember well, Chimera OS is what steam took inspiration of for steam OS.
It is available for desktop. take a look on it :) .
KDEs Project Banana OS basically sounds like Steamdecks immutable Arch with Plasma
there not many easy results for “arch based distro with KDE how to [do thing]” but there are a lot of Steamdeck tutorials and a SteamOS desktop version would make it better
My yearly “I should try Linux again” cycle would probably stay permanently if Valve makes the OSPeople who just blindly copy and paste random commands without any transferable thinking shouldn’t use computers in the first place.
everyone starts somewhere, it stars mindless then they eventually learn slowly but surely with a lot of mistakes. I did. I nuked my OS several times but now know a lot more about Linux because of it.
If you apply that thinking then 9/10ths of the Linux community wouldn’t have ever started using it.
Hell 99% of the non tech people I know IRL wouldn’t be able to send a text if that line of thinking is extended to them.So they shouldn’t pay their bills, do their taxes, work?
You can’t live without using a computer anymore.They should learn working with computers then.
Just install Bazzite, I think that’s basically SteamOS.
Oh huh, Bazzite’s based on Fedora Atomic. What’s the one that’s just Windows under the hood? I remember being surprised, “why would people want to install THAT on a Steam Deck”?
Everyone migrates to Ubuntu. One finger of the monkey’s paw curls up.
Near? You can install Linux right now, no need to wait for anything to happen.
And that’s because the year of the Linux desktop was when Intel started full upstream contributions of drivers.
No, I literally cannot muster the willpower to switch.
When new OEM PCs comes with Linux pre-installed is when stuff happens. Not before then. Windows 11 adoption will be slow cause of their exclusion of old hardware. That old hardware will be scrapped or people just keep Windows 10 on it, regardless of security warnings.
The Desktop Linux experience, with gaming and all, seems pretty close to fulfilling everyone needs at this point. But it would not surprise me if Microsoft goes around paying OEM manufacturers to not bundle anything but windows with their products.
I recently made the switch and motivated a friend who is still on win7 to go to linux. While installing and setting up his system i realised that you still need some konsole handling skills, that normal windows user not really have. To me thats normal, growing up with dos and win311, but if you started with win 2000 or later. Thats all new stuff.
I think laptops/computers that are all ready setup completely usable, should be a thing, thought.
I think that a lot of people are missing this, my first Windows was Windows XP, so I’m pretty much used to doing everything through a GUI
Same, but I learned (rather quickly mind you) enough of the CLI to get by, and continue learning to this day. I looked up a few “Bash basics” and “linux terminal basics” videos on youtube and followed along like it was a class which really helped. And whenever I have to figure out how to solve an issue I have (for instance my airpods didn’t want to connect through the GUI at first) and it gives me a CLI fix (bluetoothctl in this case) I try to remember it, or I can always go “ah fuck what was that command again…” and search it again, or I put some of those in a textfile called linuxcommands.txt that I can reference back to, or I can try
bluetoothctl -hfor help, orman bluetoothctlfor the manual for bluetoothctl (and that works with most CLI programs.) Honestly sometimes I prefer the CLI now.Now I need to learn all of the symbols and hotkeys and for loops and cool shit like that, but I’ll get there.
But it would not surprise me if Microsoft goes around paying OEM manufacturers to not bundle anything but windows with their products.
They already did that in the 90s
i dont think we’ll have any large amount of preinstalls until the anticheat problem is solved
also you are just simply lying to yourself if you think desktop linux experience is fulfilling - i force my entire family to use linux and trust me the experience is not even close to being fulfilling for everyone
Anticheat is kernel compromise. No one should be using games that use that, or OSes that allow it.
As for fulfillment, unless you need very specific apps to do your job, I’m sure it can be fulfilling with the right DE and distro. For me, I’m using Linux since 1998, and I still prefer Mint over Arch, for example. It just works.
i didnt say “we need kernel anticheat on linux” i said we need a solution for it
Probably because its not preinstalled in more hardware?
its a paradox and the manufacturers arent gonna be the ones to break it - why would they go out of their way to do linux preinstalls? they would gain literally nothing out of it (in fact they might lose money if they have a contract with ms)
Afaik don’t most of the manufacturers contract with windows requiring them to only preinstall windows?
It sounds like Valve is going to release SteamOS, so there could be a number of handhelds with Linux pre-installed soon.
Dell has done this for a while now. You just can’t buy them in store, you have to custom order them.
Taking the dive on my gaming tower. Wish me luck bois
Youll prefer tinkering with the os rather than playing in no time ;)
Posting pictures of riced-out tiling window manager desktops is the hot new game they’re looking for.
You don’t need luck. You’ve got us! (And the Internet to verify our claims lol)
Just triple check every step, learn how to prevent ESD, and pull that useless little sticky plastic protector off the cooler before you install it! (That one gets SO many system builders).
Where’s you’re going you don’t need luck, just a solid enough internet access point to search for solutions!
I remember similar articles when Windows 7 reached end of life. People will complain but mostly adapt to Windows 11, and Linux will gain 0.2% market share.
This time is a little different. A lot of slightly older but really decent hardware won’t be compatible with Window’s TPM requirements. They’re forcing their customers to buy all new hardware for an overall worse experience. Pair that with the upcoming Trump tariffs and you’ll see some people second guess their next choice of OS if it means they can save on a lot of money if they make some concessions on what they want. I’m not saying it’ll be a huge change but at least it’ll keep ticking up the Linux market share enough for some software publishers to start offering their products on the platform like Steam already is.
For most non-tech savvy people, the OS is part of the computer. It comes with win 10, that’s just the way the computer works and it will stay with 10 until the hardware fails or is too slow and they need a new PC. They’re not separate. And if a PC costs more, they’re just going to deal with it longer or give up on a desktop/laptop and do more on their phones.
Will they though ? Me and all my nerd friends straight up ignored windows 8, I’m sure we weren’t alone. I also saw the writing on the wall with windows 11 and went with Linux for my new gaming PC
I ignored Windows 8, and even 10 for a while, but that was because Windows 7 was still working and supported and still kinda is my favorite version of Windows.
Then at some point I just switched to 10 and been using it ever since while installing the occasional distro to see if I can move off of Windows (Answer is still no) or as an emergency desktop bootable USB
When Windows 7 reached EOL in 2012, ChromeOS wasn’t even a year old, MacOS was too expensive, SteamOS wasn’t close on the horizon, tablets weren’t really usable, smartphones were severely underpowered, and most applications didn’t have web-based versions or replacements.
This time around, none of those things are true, and Windows 11 lost market share last month (which is frankly unprecedented).
Plus, even with that dearth of options, people griped and complained and refused for so long that Microsoft made a big marketing deal out of Windows 8.1. And even after that, they offered Windows 7 users free Windows 10 licenses to get them to upgrade.
Linux probably won’t get the crown (though I’d say a bump as high as 1-2% isn’t out of the question). It’ll probably be ChromeOS, if anything, simply because of the commanding lead Google has held for the past decade or so in K12. But in any case, if Microsoft doesn’t shift their strategy, they’re unlikely to win this one; there are a lot of options.
windows 7 reached extended eol in 2020, for security updates only, i believe that’s what they were talking about
I don’t think so. The big switchover push for 7 (like what’s happening now with 10) happened in 2012.
i am incredibly confused by what you mean, Microsoft’s website clearly states the extended end of supoort for 7 was jan 2020 as stated here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-7, and besides, the marketshare for windows 7 was still growing in 2012
by any chance, do you mean a push over to windows 7 from something like xp? or are you talking about a push from 7 to 8, which never really happened as all the focus was on the impending 2014 windows xp end of support date
No. I mean the push to switch away from Windows 7. Windows 8 was released in 2012, which is when Microsoft began pushing users to switch. The end of extended support is almost a footnote; it doesn’t even register as a blip for most users. It’s the release of the successor that begins the big marketing push.
Windows 11 is not that bad in the sense that a lot of its anti features are in Windows 10 now. With some work you can make it functional.
With that being said, Linux. By the time I spend trying to make Windows work I might as well use something that respects my freedom.
Don’t worry, they’ll drop 12 soon to make people prefer 11
If they aren’t smart enough to upgrade to 11 then they aren’t smart enough to switch to Linux
I doubt that people aren’t “smart enough”. I’ve seen the ads for windows 11 on my dad’s PC, they are literally full screen banners that guide you right to the upgrade. It couldn’t be more simple and obnoxious. The truth is that people simply don’t want Windows 11.
I would want Windows 11 if it wasn’t a total privacy nightmare. I have been a Windows user for a long time, but MS scared me away the moment the started requiring online accounts. Half my life is on my computer, they can fuck right off with that. Windows is generally pretty good for work computers, but I rather take my private business elsewhere
Well windowd have gon fown the shitter for work computers lately IMO.
Everything is slow, not the programs you’re running but everything taken care of by the OS. Like right click to get the context menu, why does it take real time to pup up? Launch a script, same thing. It’s like everything you do is first “analysed” before you’re “allowed” to do it. Maybe not even locally.
Also the OS shouldn’t get in the way, like you mistakenly write “python3” in the shell, suddenly the “windows shop” opens up, with the extra fuck you telling you that it hasn’t got that python3. Like wtf.
I dunno bro, I use Linux and I’m dumb af on a good day.
Think about this for a second,Why we use Linux on supercomputers and servers and even our phones and embedded devices,But at home we are forced to use Windows from what i heard its built on stolen code and Microsoft had so much mess ups in the past, and why do manufactures put this stolen code os from a company with alot of mess ups in the past on their Pcs.
Filthy Windowses!
I finally switched. Honestly, the only thing I hate is the audio manager.
Which can easily be replaced 😁
