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Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

linuxiac.com

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Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#461

Post by [deleted] »

holoduke wrote: post #290
ksala_ wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have to see a single webapp that is as performant and feels the same as a native one. We might get there, and lots of companies are happy to release a half-backed webapp today, but that is definitely not the experience today.

Render speed of browser engines is really good these days on mobile phones. Getting fluid animations is maybe even easier and faster with css than with the Android sdk or ios. Plenty of frameworks out there to create nice SPAs. Some parts still have to be native like Auth, billing etc. But majority of the app can be web.

[deleted]

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#462

Post by JohnFen »

peepee1982 wrote: post #411
hnlmorg wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I will use the OS I like and others will use the OS they prefer. It’s called choice. What stung before was that people were forced to use Windows because of lock-ins, software compatibility, etc. That doesn’t really exist any more. If there is one good thing about web apps, it’s that browsers are now the application run time and browsers are more cross platform than any software libraries that have come before it…

I'm sure as hell locked in. Linux Desktop doesn't even remotely come close to offer the things I ask out of a PC (high quality music production and image editing). On the other hand, both Windows and macOS do. And let's not even get started about work.

I know quite a few graphic artists and musical engineers who use Linux professionally. I think the difference, really, is which tools you're used to using. There aren't really any Linux tools for these sorts of things that work the same as the tools for Windows, so if you're expert with one, you still have a rather large learning curve if you want to use the other. That can be prohibitive.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#463

Post by trimethylpurine »

borissk wrote: post #234
trimethylpurine wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you need SSMS on a Windows client to manage it effectively. Unless you are doing everything cli, which is just not practical in the enterprise. Anyway, running it in Linux is pretty niche. Cool for show and tell, but you need balls of steel if you're going to try running even a small $100 million dollar business on it.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/azure-data-studio/down... It's fully supported by Microsoft on Linux, so if you run into technical problems you have a support line to call.

ADS can't really do this, as others have mentioned. Years in the future, they will get there. It's not remotely capable yet. And even many of the dialogue boxes that they've added recently are just opening in SSMS which still requires Windows.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#464

Post by JohnFen »

Arisaka1 wrote: post #255
self_awareness wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly my thoughts. I think Linux is in a good sweet spot; popular enough so that applications advertise support for Linux, but not popular enough to be spoiled and optimized for the "casual" user.

>but not popular enough to be spoiled and optimized for the "casual" user I'm trying really hard to come up with a scenario where optimizing the desktop experience for the average user is a bad thing. For example, what keeps me on Windows (and WSL2) at the moment is that the freesync/variable refresh rate technology doesn't always behave as you would expect it to be, resulting in games that stutter, frame dip and eat…

> I'm trying really hard to come up with a scenario where optimizing the desktop experience for the average user is a bad thing.

It's a bad thing if you're not an average user, because software aimed at the "average user" tends to be a pain in the butt for the non-average user. I would point to Windows, the entire web browser space, etc., as examples of this.

And it's not just about the average user. It's also about the compromises needed to make a product suitable for mass production. I already see the effects of that on Linux, in the form of things like systemd, snaps, flatpack, etc.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#465

Post by ZunarJ5 »

Ten years ago I started on Linux because my ADHD ass needed pcs last minute at college and the Ubuntu machines were always the ones open whereas the Windows and Mac ones had lines out the door. Though my main pc runs Windows now, I don't think my next one will. I'm continually getting let down with the inflexibility and bloat on these systems, which probably parallels an increase of knowledge and skills. As for Mac, I tried to set up an old iPad last night and nearly put it in the garbage due to the silly restrictions set by the OS. I'm a researcher and keep hearing colleagues complaining about declining computer skills and after trying to use that iPad I understand why. I hope Linux becomes more mainstream in the future. I think it would be a collective net gain.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#466

Post by andsoitis »

ixaxaar wrote: post #12
andsoitis wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumers don't know any of that. The article is about desktop penetration. There was a chance with mobile phones to use and signal Linux, but that didn't happen either. Still, congratulations on hitting 3% desktop share.

> There was a chance with mobile phones to use and signal Linux, but that didn't happen either. What do you mean? Android is Linux!

> What do you mean? Android is Linux!

Yes, which is why I said “and signal”, which is to say it isn’t marketed as such and so consumers don’t know that. To them, they’re running Android OS, for better or worse.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#467

Post by JohnFen »

pkkm wrote: post #406
Nux wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're past the sweet spot, things are starting to go "casual user", you only need to check what Ubuntu and Fedora are pushing,in a way the "windows ification" of Linux: gnome 3/4,systemd+,snapd,telemetry etc.

It's odd that you included systemd in the list. It's something that a casual user isn't going to notice, but that has made life easier for system administrators and desktop tinkerers. With systemd, I can write a few lines of config to turn a simple Python script into a daemon with syslog integration, process monitoring, and resource limits. I understand the concerns about scope creep, but I'd take systemd any day ove…

Systemd was widely adopted because it makes life easier for the distros. It is directly resulting from the increased popularity of Linux putting an increased demand on them.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#468

Post by FinnKuhn »

zirgs wrote: post #254
Dylan16807 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really sounds like you don't understand how the OS is set up on the steam deck. It's a normal desktop environment with a customized version of steam installed. If laptops get to be included (which they usually are), then steamdeck gets to be included. It doesn't replicate "some subset" of the desktop experience. It does everything a small tower can, plus things it can't do.

Steam Deck's desktop environment is barely usable without connecting it to a dock and using an external keyboard and mouse. You won't use it as a daily driver in handheld mode. The virtual keyboard covers half of the screen, the touchscreen is unusable as a mouse and touchpads are inconvenient. Ordinary laptops don't have these problems.

And other desktop computers are usable without a keyboard, mouse and display? I don't think so...

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#469

Post by Gordonjcp »

surajrmal wrote: post #454
Gordonjcp wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And what Linux OS should you target? Linux is an OS. It doesn't matter which distro you pick, because they're all the same.

Steam runs games inside of a container to provide a consistent environment for the game. It largely ignores the OS and only uses the kernel as a result. Linux distros have tons of differences that make it otherwise untenable to target. You need an army of package maintainers to maintain per distro packages and sort out differences which seems to work for oss, but doesn't for commercial closed source software.

This is actually a great way of running stuff in "foreign" distros where you can't guarantee the presence or absence of libraries.

For example DaVinci Resolve is packaged for (now quite old) CentOS but runs just fine installed on Ubuntu, with absolutely no problems at all. The only thing that might catch out the unwary is that CentOS packages a couple of libraries as default which Ubuntu doesn't but if you're savvy enough to edit video you're savvy enough to catch this.

You can also run Resolve in a Docker container so it "sees" a CentOS environment no matter what, and it's transparent across any other distro. There's no real need to do this, although it makes running more than one version easy.

Re: Linux has achieved a 3% desktop market share

#470

Post by jonfw »

Nux wrote: post #166
self_awareness wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly my thoughts. I think Linux is in a good sweet spot; popular enough so that applications advertise support for Linux, but not popular enough to be spoiled and optimized for the "casual" user.

I think we're past the sweet spot, things are starting to go "casual user", you only need to check what Ubuntu and Fedora are pushing,in a way the "windows ification" of Linux: gnome 3/4,systemd+,snapd,telemetry etc.

I don't see what ubuntu takes away from arch, alpine, or gentoo. There are many options
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