Linux

THE YEAR OF LINUX IN THE DESKTOP!

It’s like Lucy and the football.

Unless Linux is the default, it will never become significant in the mainstream. It is however thanks to improvements like these that OEMs can consider selling it pre-installed

Also I would to remind some here that the reason Linux can exist on the desktop today is because it is a very good way for Microsoft to get less antitrust fines. Otherwise the bootloaders would all be locked and there would be one or two devices that are unlocked.

This is also my main concern about the Qualcomm elite x: everybody is saying "hurray it will support Linux" but the actual cpu support was never really the issue. It's the boot process and device trees that is problematic and I don't see this being talked about enough. If it does not adhere to a standard device detection process like with Acpi via Arm System Ready we are cooked for arm laptops.

Because here are many people who did a switch to linux. How did you handle using a cad software like solidworks or fusion360 after switching to linux?

I think it's going to take a Microsoft catastrophe, something that disables machines for at least a few days. I'm thinking maybe a buggy windows update.

I wonder if atomic desktops would change manufacturers' mind. We have to admit LTSes like from Ubuntu failed to make pre-installed Linux popular.

Silverblue contains too much cutting-edge software to be pre-installed as of now, but if Red Hat decides to provide a mechanism for manufacturers to better stabilize Silverblue I'd take it seriously. Automatic updates with cleanly split customization mechanisms, and the source is available. If the PC is just supposed to do web browsing with couple peripherals like a fucking printer (don't ask me why), it might be preferable over Windows. And my relatives can't configure Windows on their own anyway.

At the same time I don't know why Chromebook isn't more popular cus it's probably good enough for 90% of use cases. (The rest is basically elderly people who want 10GB photos in their 2TB SSDs, only to lose them "accidentally". Maybe Chromebook can do that, too, but I just can't recommend it due to corner cases I'm not aware of. I mean, I don't want to test Chromebooks for my relatives.)

Any source regarding "VR being usable" on linux? The current development seems pretty stale and it doesn't seem like that's gonna change anytime soon, especially if you own any Oculus headsets that predates the quest. I do hope the rumors of valve making the deckard are true, but those are just rumors and should be taken with a grain of salt.

The one thing that would drive my parents over the edge is ads in Windows. They already use Firefox and Libreoffice.

• Nvidia 555/560 will be out for a perfect no stutter Nvidia performance

God I really hope that'll be true.

Given the nature of fediverse, this specific category of people might indeed throw away Windows for their private machines.

lol

Been seriously thinking of switching to linux for my desktop. I mostly use it for games. Today I was looking at mods for Mass Effect, and the mod manager says in all caps - LINUX IS NOT SUPPORTED :(

There's probably going to be a lot of that sort of annoyance for years.

Most people don't care. And that says someone who replaced his Windows XP when Vista was the newest shit on the market (I also had a Vista laptop back then). With every Windows version people argued and posted about The Year of Linux Desktop. If you are talking about number of users, then Linux on Desktop will not dethrone Windows in 2024. Most people don't care or the switch is painful in many ways. Don't get your hopes too high. My following argumentation is critical, but I am a Linux fanboy. Have that in mind.

KDE/Gnome reaching stability and usability

What exactly do you mean by that? KDE and Gnome reached usability long time ago. However thanks to Wayland the stability got a huge hit, plus KDE was always a bit wonky in regard that. But otherwise these are great desktops with good usability for a long time now. Way better than what Apple or Windows has to offer.

Windows 10 coming to EOL

This has never mattered. Most people just switch or buy next Windows version.

.Net cross platform (in VSCode or Jetbrains Rider)

This is not new in 2024, or did something happen here?

Better LibreOffice/Word compatibility

Better than what? Than the previous version? This is always the case and people don't switch from Windows to Linux because of that. After all, the application is available on Windows too.

... will be ... before end of 2024 ...

Will be remain to be seen if this is true. If there is one thing I learned is, don't trust estimation when software will be finished.

NTSync coming in Kernel 6.11 for better Wine/Proton game performance and porting.

This has no impact on Proton, but Wine as far as I understand. Proton already has an alternative that is similar to NTSync. So from performance standpoint, it has no impact on Steam games.

Linux is about on-par with windows xp/7 as it stands, and it has been for a while. The reason people haven't switched is OEM and software support.

Better LibreOffice/Word compatibility

Not on the MS side for sure, they've always made sure they don't follow their own spec so they can more easily vendor-lock. Typical EEE from the company that coined it.

Windows 10 coming to EOL

That, per se, no, both XP and 7 kept existing for years, but 11 around the corner with ads and recall... that may steer some people away. Edit: as will inflated minimum system requirements at every release.

Web-native apps (Including Msft Office and Adobe)

Those are OS-agnostic and a way to keep using MS apps. Office is one of the hardest to let go (because of aforementioned reasons), especially in a corporate environment - which, most likely, is the bulk of MS customers in terms of revenue.

.Net cross platform (in VSCode or Jetbrains Rider)

Until they change something. EEE, remember?