Last Phase of the Desktop Wars? • Hacker News Board

Re: Last Phase of the Desktop Wars?

#31

Post by chucky » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

I don't think MS is porting Edge to Linux because they want to test the waters for running Windows on a Linux kernel as the author speculates. It seems much more likely that Microsoft recognizes the web is an important platform for them to be a player on in the future, and they want web developers to be able to test stuff on Edge regardless of which OS they use.

This is the reason why Edge is available on MacOS and Linux.

Re: Last Phase of the Desktop Wars?

#32

Post by somerandomboi » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

I saw a previous comment mention Chrome OS as improving in terms of market share. Honestly, running a Debian virtual machine over Chrome OS appears to remain a lightweight desktop environment, especially without extensive hardware configurations.

Re: Last Phase of the Desktop Wars?

#33

Post by Shared404 » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

x87678r wrote: post #12

> Linux finally wins the desktop wars ChromeOS is storming along - best desktop version of linux around. If I could easily run IntellJ on it I would switch.

> best desktop version of linux around.

If you don't mind surrendering yourself to Google, at least.

Re: Last Phase of the Desktop Wars?

#34

Post by greyman » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

Just a sidenote, after 25 years of using Windows, I switched to OSX. But following the article logic, that can also be considered a Unix. :-)

Re: Last Phase of the Desktop Wars?

#35

Post by jpalomaki » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

tedyoung wrote: post #23

> "Ten years later, Azure makes Microsoft most of its money." Well, no, not yet. Microsoft doesn't break out Azure separately. It's usually included in their "Intelligent Cloud", which is the largest segment, but that also includes SQL Server (a big money maker), Windows Server, GitHub, and other stuff. "Commercial Cloud" revenue (which is all the cloud portions of their products, from Azure to Office 365 Commercial)…

Also, Azure is running on Windows. While majority of VMs may be running on Linux, the hosts are running Windows.

I would assume Microsoft sees competitive advantage in using their own OS and hypervisor.

Re: Last Phase of the Desktop Wars?

#36

Post by somerandomboi » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #14

So, 2020 might be the year of Linux on the Desktop after all.

Perhaps, although I cannot cite market share statistics.

Re: Last Phase of the Desktop Wars?

#37

Post by emteycz » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

drewmate wrote: post #26

I agree that we'll see the boundaries between Windows and Linux blur, but I don't think we'll ever see Microsoft give up the decades of backwards compatibility that have kept people on Windows since the beginning. There will always be demand for running older Windows apps (games, legacy business software, etc..) on a modern OS, and I don't think Microsoft will cede that space to a competitor (and with good reason!) I…

Microsoft could produce a very well working WINE

Re: Last Phase of the Desktop Wars?

#38

Post by est31 » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

drewmate wrote: post #26

I agree that we'll see the boundaries between Windows and Linux blur, but I don't think we'll ever see Microsoft give up the decades of backwards compatibility that have kept people on Windows since the beginning. There will always be demand for running older Windows apps (games, legacy business software, etc..) on a modern OS, and I don't think Microsoft will cede that space to a competitor (and with good reason!) I…

Wine has become better at running legacy Windows apps than Windows itself.

Re: Last Phase of the Desktop Wars?

#39

Post by sz4kerto » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

This is the Android problem all over again. Some argue that Linux is the most popular graphical desktop/mobile OS. I think, however, that back then when we were dreaming about Linux desktops we wanted the freedom, not necessarily or only the kernel itself.

So if Linux and Unix end up dominating everything in the form of Android, MacOS and Windows, that's not a huge win for the FLOSS community.

Re: Last Phase of the Desktop Wars?

#40

Post by ericmcer » Sat, Sep 26, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

mdifrgechd wrote: post #18

I'm buying a new computer. Currently I have only ubuntu linux machines and was just saying to someone that I would actually consider trying windows and WSL because it would let me use the linux tools I want alongside MS office, and it might be interesting to play with windows versions of things. The reason I wont actually do it though is because I'm sure that windows will be filled with commercially oriented intrusio…

Definitely agree, a Mac you get Mac OS, Ubuntu you get Ubuntu, Windows you get some Frankenstein of the OS, Mcafee, Dell, and various other companies applications all stitched together.