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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?

#331

Post by CoolCold »

azalemeth wrote: post #252
sarnowski wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft just released Linux support (Ubuntu) in their MDM Intune. It’s very barebones yet but provides first fundamental capabilities. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/intune/fundamentals/su... https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/intune/user-help/enrol...

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

I see it like that - you can create any car or vehicle to be used on your backyard somewhere in distant village, until you start driving on public roads, selling it to general auditory - then, please, stop being cool kid and start using common practices - i.e. have stop backlights, safety belts, noise levels ...

Linux is just a tool. Yes, just another tool.

I've personally seen multiple, not even single digits of persons, who store they ssh private keys unprotected, not using Full Disk Encryption and so on - most of them even have no idea that booting with `init=/bin/bash` will open their system. Those are average Joe and needs curation.

Industry need to the way to ensure on such things => industry created MDM.

Actually it's finally a sign, someone starts interested in bringing Linux To Desktop. I'm waiting for telemetry to be added - that will assure me of the interest further of Linux as a viable Product, not just concept.

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

#332

Post by CoolCold »

betaby wrote: post #278
echelon wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

start with password complexities, prevention of unauthorized access (i.e. screen locks), full disk encryption, so on, for those users who are close to cards/data management.

Using Linux not making people automagically smarter and setting simple passwords or not enabling disk encryption - that kind of stuff I can easily imagine to happen without external curation.

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

#333

Post by CoolCold »

LarryMullins wrote: post #123
JadeNB wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that recommending Ubuntu is an anachronism from the mid to late 00s. What would you recommend as a modern-day user-friendly Linux experience? I've been looking for something not too demanding to put on an old X220.

To techies who are interested in using Linux, I personally recommend OpenSUSE Tumbleweed because it has up-to-date packages and is relatively stable. Debian Stable is a good choice if you're insensitive to outdated packages. Debian Sid is alright, but in my experience has more breakage than Tumbleweed and recovery from that breakage requires more expertise (Tumbleweed automatically creates btrfs snapshots before and…

> To the average Joe Blow, I don't recommend any Linux distro.

Windows + WSL is pretty neat and very close to be the best of two worlds.

The average Joe, friend of mine, doing mostly SEO stuff (so has some basic web background) was able to start using WSL to run his curl tests, running some tools like sitespeed.io in his docker and things of that sort, without leaving his lovely Windows system.

So I'm pretty assured here.

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

#334

Post by Avamander »

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #41
Avamander wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nvidia with Wayland? That's on you then, man.

Forget it, I'll just install windows.

Doing some basic research beforehand seems reasonable to me.

Generally though, that combination is fairly notorious for quite a while now, due to nvidia not playing ball very well.

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

#335

Post by grey_earthling »

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…

> Software updates rarely work. There are random crashes that take hours to fix.

This (IMO) is precisely why Ubuntu is not a user-friendly distro. Fedora (and especially Silverblue) is much more user-friendly in this regard.

I know it's common to judge Linux in general on the basis of Ubuntu in particular, but I don't think it's a fair assessment.

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

#336

Post by CoolCold »

davrosthedalek wrote: post #60
phpisthebest wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gnome Ubuntu is the "gateway distro for new users"? I would never ever Recommend that to new users. Mint, popOS, and a few others for people coming from Windows would be the "gateway distro for new users" gnome 3 is not for new users, back in the day, gnome 2.4 days maybe that was the case

At this point, the "gateway distro" for new users is running any of those in WSL. There is so much more buy-in if you can someone that they don't have to throw away their laptop and get one with this specific chip selection so that everything works. And if you can tell them that yes, of course, you can run your games at the same time, without fiddling, dual booting, or fear of getting banned for "cheats".

That probably is gateway for curious persons or who really wanna have Linux.

Myself included, and people around me keep using WSL without any slight hint of swapping [back] to Linux Desktop. I even know in person the guy who is on WoA (Windows on Arm) with Surface and WSL - he had enough 5+ years of Gentoo experience.

I've installed WSLg and disabled after ~ 20 minutes - just found nothing to run in GUI mode from Linux. Sure, others may, especially dev guys with JetBrains or whatever IDEs, but I literally couldn't remember anything beyond xeyes and konsole to play around with.

Would be nice to see some stats from Microsoft on WSL auditory/usage.

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

#337

Post by vbezhenar »

pjmlp wrote: post #325
vbezhenar wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can learning of your tools being below your pay grade? Ability to use tools properly is a prerequisite for any professional. That sounds very weird to me.

Most people don't want to be mechanics just to drive to get groceries.

My grandfather was truck driver. He knew his truck as his fingers. He could reassemble drive of his car at weekends. If he wouldn't possess skills to repair his truck, he would die somewhere on the winter road when that truck breaks, so it's not even question of preference, it's question of survivability.

It's not as drastic for programmers, but I, personally, trying to keep that attitude myself and I'm trying to learn systems I'm using to some degree.

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

#338

Post by 3836293648 »

jug wrote: post #217
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…

I have to disagree here and provide another experience. I regularly revisit Linux for desktop (like every five years) and this time I moved 100% from Windows 11 to Fedora 37 and it's been a delight. It's not only a good desktop OS now: I find it better than Windows. Why? * Performance: I think it's more responsive, like the file manager. It doesn't have an innate dependency on scanning every single thing for viruses…

The scroll speed, independent from movement speed, is not in the gnome settings

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

#339

Post by pjmlp »

vbezhenar wrote: post #337
pjmlp wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't want to be mechanics just to drive to get groceries.

My grandfather was truck driver. He knew his truck as his fingers. He could reassemble drive of his car at weekends. If he wouldn't possess skills to repair his truck, he would die somewhere on the winter road when that truck breaks, so it's not even question of preference, it's question of survivability. It's not as drastic for programmers, but I, personally, trying to keep that attitude myself and I'm trying to lea…

I bet most people aren't going to the local supermarket on a long distance truck.

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

#340

Post by flatiron »

JadeNB wrote: post #303
flatiron wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly you should take a stab at arch. There is a cli wizard installer now.

Arch was what I first tried, probably about a decade ago (on the same hardware). I had some networking troubles, the details of which I don't recall, and probably some other failures of understanding on my part.

Totally agree that was your experience. The benefit now is there is a “do you want to install systemd network manager” step which if you say yes will significantly ease your setup. My family and friends I buy used thinkpads and install arch with a windows vm and honestly nobody blinks an eye. 99% of what people do is a web browser so just throw chrome/chromium on there and make sure KDE is setup to bug a bit for updates and yer fine. I won’t go back to giving windows laptops out.
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