[HN Gopher] People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Wi...
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People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Windows
Author : breve
Score : 67 points
Date : 2025-11-30 20:14 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.zdnet.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.zdnet.com)
| driggs wrote:
| "By my count"...
|
| Which means pretending that every single "unknown" desktop, which
| is a larger percentage than the Linux desktops, are Linux.
|
| And also by considering ChromeBooks, which _also_ have a larger
| percentage than Linux, are Linux.
| gpm wrote:
| Chromebooks are quite literally linux...
| tpetry wrote:
| They are built on Linux fundamentals but are miles away from
| being a _Linux desktop_.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Oh right they are a Linux laptop.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| They are another somewhat closed ecosystem and becoming
| more closed over time. Better than a TV that runs Linux,
| (so far still) better than Android, worse than any "real"
| Linux distribution.
|
| They are mostly on the wrong side in the war on general-
| purpose computing.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| Honestly we could consider Chromebook just as Android.
| Yes technically they run on Linux kernel but there is so
| much going wrong. It's far from what everyone think when
| saying Linux desktop.
| orwin wrote:
| Until ChromeOS get its own OS (wasn't it supposed to be in
| 2019?), it's still a Linux.
| NewJazz wrote:
| I think aluminum OS is next. Still Linux based.
| skissane wrote:
| Google has been working on Fuchsia, a new open source OS
| which in theory can replace Linux as the base of ChromeOS and
| Android
|
| But it is unclear how committed they still are to this. Some
| suggest it was just a "keep our options open" project or a
| "stop smart people from doing it for our competitors"
| project. They are actually using it in anger on their Nest
| Hub devices, but we don't know if they still plan to take it
| any further than that
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Feels at least an order of magnitude too high!
| Animats wrote:
| The year of Linux on the desktop, at last.
|
| What may make this happen is political risk. The rest of the
| world outside the US doesn't like the excessive dependency of
| Microsoft systems on servers in the US, especially when that may
| mean snooping or disconnection. This used to be just a
| theoretical objection, but under the Trump administration it's a
| practical one.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| "Microsoft president Pavan Davulur tweeted on Nov. 10 that
| 'Windows is evolving into an agentic OS, connecting devices,
| cloud, and AI to unlock intelligent productivity and secure work
| anywhere"
|
| Apple could probably run a Mac vs PC billboard on this tweet
| alone.
| runjake wrote:
| Apple could, but this is more or less their tagline[1], as
| well.
|
| Granted, I think Apple has slightly better execution, but
| that's pretty subjective, I suppose.
|
| 1. https://www.apple.com/os/macos/
| Angostura wrote:
| There a single toggle setting for Apple Intelligence in MacOS
| (currently toggled as 'off' on my machine)
| fantasizr wrote:
| made a it holiday weekend project to install omarchy. It does
| what I need it to so far, web apps and basic dev stuff
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| What I want is some hardware that, if Linux stops working on it,
| it's someone's job to fix that.
|
| Which is why I'm strongly considering a Steam Cube.
| kylec wrote:
| What about a Mac? macOS isn't exactly Linux, but you can run a
| lot of Linux command line things just fine on it, and Apple
| will always make sure macOS works 100% on the Macs they sell.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| How are they at running all of the games I own on Steam?
| simgt wrote:
| What about Framework? They support Fedora and Ubuntu:
| https://frame.work/fr/en/linux
| shermantanktop wrote:
| The great thing about open source is that there's always at
| least one person who can take on the job of fixing your obscure
| hardware problem...you.
|
| The terrible thing is that you are probably unqualified to do
| driver surgery without taking on more work than the problem is
| worth to you to fix.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| Yeah, with two small kids, the last thing I want to spend my
| spare time doing is playing with drivers. I want things that
| just work.
| tiahura wrote:
| Why? I've been using Unix workstations since the motif days
| through gnome whatever, but and every single one has seemed
| clunky as heck compared to the contemporaneous windows. Win 11
| file explorer is 20 years ahead of nautilus. Not to mention all
| of the other windows perks like HiDPI & multi-monitor scaling
| polish, rdp, vastly superior accessibility, ... And you can run
| wsl2 if you need to.
| puika wrote:
| funny, windows 11's explorer has been the most infuriating
| experience for me over the years in all my personal and
| workplace machines (hangs, wont preview whatever files it
| decides doesnt want to, slow context menu startup, and many
| more) and frankly one of the reasons I've been daily driving
| kde+dolphin. I'd say I miss the out of the box cloud
| integration (you can install kio plugins but theyre not in a
| good state now. Dropbox have their own dolphin plugin as well),
| but I really couldn't care less when weighing in everything
| else. multimonitor support in kde wayland is just as good.
| Actually, its better, since you can control monitor brightness
| without a external program like Monitorian. wsl2 has some
| quirks if you're using a company VPN but overall pretty solid.
| Accessibility really is a pain point for linux in general
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I've been hearing about how Linux is going to replace Windows for
| at least 2 decades now. I expect it to finally happen some time
| after we get 'too cheap to meter' fusion power.
| wffurr wrote:
| SPARC is scheduled to start operations in 2026, with the goal
| of demonstrating net power in 2027.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I really hope they are successful. But I'm not holding my
| breath.
| le-mark wrote:
| Consumer grade windows machines have been barely useable, for a
| decade plus, due to pre installed crap ware. I stopped helping
| family members long ago. I tell them install Linux and I'll help
| you. A few have and have been very happy!
| sirjaz wrote:
| Funny a the stats he points to show a smaller number of devices
| being recorded each time. So of course the percentage would go
| up. There are still more Windows devices in active use compared
| to all MacOS/iOS devices.
| Ciantic wrote:
| I switched to Linux in the past month.
|
| First, I installed GNOME based Fedora 43, that was a mistake. I
| got it working "somewhat" like Windows, with Dash to Panel etc.
| widgets, but stability was not there after all the hacks.
|
| Then I figured I try KDE Plasma, and this is so close to Windows
| that I made the switch permanent. Even little things like double-
| clicking on top, or bottom resize handle vertically maximizes the
| window, like in Windows.
|
| KDE is not just better than Windows, but it is way more
| configurable out of the box. I really like window rules, which
| allows to set window locations, always on top settings for
| specific Chrome PWAs or other windows. KDE Settings panel is
| light years ahead of Windows, it has all the settings in one
| place, kind of like the old Control Panel.
|
| There is rough spots, but not that many... I did end up buying
| AMD GPU, as with Nvidia GPU I had bunch of bugs.
|
| I wanted to switch to Linux for a long time now because Windows
| Subsystem for Linux just wasn't good enough, it was mediocre. All
| the development happens with tools that have bash scripts as a
| glue. Windows was a hindrance at this point for me.
|
| Right now I'm trying to learn to write small native Wayland GUI
| apps that use minimalish amount of memory, this is a bit tricky
| compared to Win32, but with new toolkit libraries pretty doable.
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| No one at Apple or Microsoft seems to care to serve the users. We
| are at an interesting point in the history of computers.
|
| This failure mode of capitalism should've been easy to
| anticipate: owners of capital eventually become the customers.
|
| Capitalism is a great device for technology development. Stable
| markets, however, don't generate the returns VCs and public
| company shareholders demand.
|
| For mature stuff like OSes that are mature I predict a return to
| simple commerce: pay money for a good or service without third
| parties. It doesn't need to grow or generate returns.
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