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2022 was the year of Linux on the Desktop?

justingarrison.com

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Re: 2022 was the year of Linux on the Desktop?

#271

Post by dgacmu »

malkia wrote: post #169
malkia wrote: post #152

When I was at Google (2014-2017) - The Linux (I think it was Ubuntu based) just worked. Granted it was mostly java/blaze/little r/js/go, no dedicated graphics chips us (I came there from gamedev background). It was working just fine, and we had option to use Cinnamon or something else. The only thing I remember is that it wasn't that easy (or maybe my memory does not serve me well) to "apt update" anything (and that…

Actually now that I think, I might've had NVIDIA card of sorts. But what I meant to say, I never needed/care what GPU I have (unlike before), so it must've worked fine somehow. Maybe I got once or twice the machine to crash, and it was all the time on.

I had a Titan x in my workstation to around the same time at Google (deep learning). Everything generally worked but then after about two years I ran into a disk space problem that prevented apt stuff from working. But by that point a lot more had moved into desktops-in-the-cloud anyway.

Re: 2022 was the year of Linux on the Desktop?

#272

Post by binkHN »

echelon wrote: post #136
mumblemumble wrote: post #30

If you click through to the link, you'll see that the results add up to 150%. That should be a sign that something odd is going on with this survey result and we need to interpret it with caution. The question was "What is the primary operating system in which you work." (Emphasis mine.) The question itself implies that we should only be able to pick one, and yet the results clearly indicate that more than one was al…

Now that I'm no longer forced to use a Mac at work, all of my work happens on Linux. I only marginally touch Windows and Mac for testing and builds. If I can find a good MDM solution for Linux hardware and software, I'll let the employees at my startup use Linux too. I get a sense that corporate MDM is all that's holding Linux back.

Is Chrome Enterprise for ChromeOS, and the built-in Debian container, an option?

Re: 2022 was the year of Linux on the Desktop?

#273

Post by leppr »

bombela wrote: post #264
aussiesnack wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something those "defending" the harder-to-use/learn thing always bring up. As if affordances must always be relative to prior knowledge. But they're not (always) - some things just are harder to use than others (at least relative to a specific meaning of 'use'). Programming languages - you could argue Rust isn't hard to learn, by pretending that everyone claiming it is are just having trouble adjusting from j…

I wish I could have the graphical stack and mouse handling of MS Windows in general. With the trackpad precision and battery life of Mac on laptop. The fact the mouse scroll wheel doesn't even work well on Linux is just shameful.

What doesn't work well about mouse scroll wheel on Linux? Its behavior is very similar to MacOS, in that it sends scroll events even to unfocused windows.

Re: 2022 was the year of Linux on the Desktop?

#274

Post by palata »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #39

If I'm honest, Linux is...exhausting. I'm technically proficient, but even the "user-friendly" Ubuntu is a pain to work with. Something as simple as changing the mouse scroll speed requires creating a bash script. Software updates rarely work. There are random crashes that take hours to fix. I'm about to give in the towel and get a Mac. I can get it to work because the terminal doesn't scare me, but there's no way I…

The reason why I like Linux is because I can use the terminal a lot. Unfortunately I'm forced to use terrible ElectronJS apps from time to time, though, and more and more programs seem to either not have a TUI or be a full rootfs (as a docker container) because apparently the devs don't know how to properly package them?

I definitely don't recommend Linux for people who don't want to use the terminal. Actually I hate it when they do and try to make Linux look like Windows/macOS. If you want the Windows/macOS experience, use Windows/macOS.

Re: 2022 was the year of Linux on the Desktop?

#275

Post by l0b0 »

lmm wrote: post #225
devmunchies wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux scrub Q, does NVIDIA not use any Linux for themselves? Or is it a financial reason to ignore Linux?

NVidia makes the best Linux driver + graphics card combination going, and always have. If you actually want to play games on Linux, NVidia cards are the way to go. But open-source people don't like them because their driver isn't open-source, and Wayland people don't like them because their driver has limited Wayland support.

Absolutely the opposite experience here. I used Nvidia ~2015-2020, and AMD since. AMD works much better, period. This is with Arch Linux and NixOS.

Re: 2022 was the year of Linux on the Desktop?

#276

Post by palata »

cardanome wrote: post #251
TulliusCicero wrote: post #112

These comments are hilarious. Linux user community: Linux has been fine for casual users for years! Give it to your grandma, it's not a problem! Also Linux user community: Wait, you used an nVidia GPU in your build? What kind of idiot scrub are you? If there's one thing I've seen that's consistent with Linux users over the last two decades, it's been blaming users for all their Linux-related problems.

I will offer a third perspective: Linux has a really horrible user experience on the Desktop but it is the least shit option of the mainstream operating systems. For me the choice is simple because a non-free operating would not be acceptable. And no, I am hardcore ideological about it, I use a Linux Kernel with binary blobs and all but the point is having system that serves me and me alone. Telemetry, advertisement,…

Isn't Linux Mint basically just a different UI on Ubuntu?

I mean there are also alternatives not based on Ubuntu (Arch, Debian, Fedora, Alpine, Void, ...)

Re: 2022 was the year of Linux on the Desktop?

#277

Post by palata »

ajb wrote: post #229
kibwen wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that you don't even need apps, you can just use Zoom and Slack from your web browser. (For Zoom especially, nobody should be trusting their native client in the first place after their security debacles. Your browser is a convenient security boundary.) If your browser locks up to the point where it requires you to restart your machine, that sounds like a much more serious problem.

Came to say that too. Zoom nags you about their app every single time, but it works in a browser.

I like Jitsi, because it is open source and it is not Zoom.

Re: 2022 was the year of Linux on the Desktop?

#278

Post by betaby »

echelon wrote: post #255
azalemeth wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't MDM very much anathema to the Linux user's philosophy? I've avoided it pretty sternly.

For a personal device. Corporate devices are subject to a whole host of regulations. PCI, HIPAA, etc. You can't even touch fintech unless your engineers work on MDM'd devices. You can't trust every single employee to always keep their machine up to date or be on the up and up. Statistically speaking, you'll need it eventually.

Are they? First time I hear that users' desktops are subject to PCI in fin-tech companies.

Re: 2022 was the year of Linux on the Desktop?

#279

Post by palata »

alpaca128 wrote: post #242
whateveracct wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software development is full of anti-intellectualism and friends. So many "professionals" don't think they should Learn New Things. Said "professionals" tend to be excellent org chart climbers otoh.

People don't have enough time in their life to learn about everything they touch and need to say no to some things to get anything done. Maybe those professionals want to learn tools for their actual job instead of fighting with the platform underneath. Just like artists want to draw, not learn how to fix their graphic tablet's broken driver.

Well, a painter probably knows a thing or two about the paint and the canvas, and a musician knows a thing or two about their instrument and... well... music theory.

Doesn't sound crazy to expect a software developer to know a thing or two about their system. Not necessarily down to the device tree, of course. But being stuck at "learning to use a terminal is below my pay grade" feels like the other extreme to me.

Re: 2022 was the year of Linux on the Desktop?

#280

Post by jacquesm »

tmpburning wrote: post #192
jacquesm wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the same thing though, is it? Even desktop Linux is not technically POSIX compliant.

But Android and iOS are complete nightmares in this regard.

I believe that. Imagine the power of having a Unix box in your pocket whereever you go.

It's a pity the Ubuntu phone went nowhere. There is Ubuntu Touch though (haven't used it).

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