Do…do people really think Microsoft is stupid enough to kill off non-cloud based Windows? There are a lot of Windows users who, for either performance reasons, lack of reliable internet, etc. who would never get good use out of a cloud version. Microsoft is more than aware of this and there is no way in hell they’d shoot themselves in the foot like this.
They already tried to just kill win32. Not only did it fail miserably but it’s the reason Valve started looking into Linux to begin with.
They’re too locked in themselves to kill off non-cloud.
Yeah microsoft is unlikely to pull the rug out from under windows users in one go, their strategy is much more likely to be pushing people in the direction they want to move computing slowly and incrementally over a number of years. They appear to want everyone who plays games, does office work, runs a business, or writes code to have a microsoft account, which they can then monetize in various ways using cloud services because that will be the main way they will deliver what people need.
I feel like we are in the middle period of this strategy.
I’m sure this will play out like the office 365 subscription service. Everyone I know uses it as work. Microsoft doesn’t sell to IT people. They sell to middle management and finance departments. Ba ha ha ha.
I also don’t think there’s any chance Apple would move to the cloud. They’re a hardware company…
Sry, Wrong top comment.
This. They might release a cloud version and work towards a future where that is the default, but realising that due future is several decades away.
Cloud only would be unworkable for say, 50% of Australians - I imagine that would be similar in most countries.
I do actually. Not any time soon tho
Yeah…MS understands they still have a huge market in developing countries and moving everything to cloud would be suicide.
That’s not because suddenly, everyone will realize that the Linux desktop is wonderful. Sorry, folks, if it hasn’t happened by now, it never will.
I agree that there will never be a “Year of the Linux desktop” just simply because that’s not how consumer switching works. There will never be one single year where a huge swath of people suddenly switch (short of some dystopian Windows virus or something). It will always be a trickle of more and more people slowly over time switching. Valve and Proton have certainly helped boost numbers in more recent years but it’s still a trickle. Even if it picks up more momentum, it’s still not going to be a tidal wave of users.
Why does it need to be? Plenty of products, systems, habits, customs, etc. have come from obscurity to mainstream over a VERY long period of time. It doesn’t have to be a race.
IDK, if there will ever be one, I think this year or next year is it. Steam Deck seems to have really hit the mainstream, and Linux is overtaking macOS in some stats. GNOME Wayland also works well and has finally solved my variable refresh rate issues (one monitor @60Hz, one with FreeSync at higher refresh). That’s pretty amazing, and worth recognition!
I don’t think Linux will ever become #1 on desktop, nor do I think that’s the intention behind “the year of the Linux desktop.” Linux as a desktop platform is as or more viable than macOS for a majority of users, and it’s competitive with Windows for many if not most.
The only thing left for me is to see major software vendors natively support Linux. That means:
- AAA games support Linux directly - kinda happening with Steam Deck
- Adobe products - probably won’t happen, but I can dream
- Microsoft office - I guess cloud counts, but I’d like to see desktop client support like exists on macOS
- another game store - EGS, GOG, Origin, Xbox Game Pass, should make a native Linux client
And so on. Once major software starts releasing on Linux, I think we’ve won.
GOG not having a native Linux client baffles me, like, there’s this whole bunch of people who clearly care about software freedom and your store focusing on selling DRM-free games will just ignore them? Oh well. At least we have Heroic.
Exactly, and last I checked, it was the most highly upvoted feature on their user voice.
If they made a native Linux client that worked well on Steam Deck, they’d get a ton of customers. In fact, I’d switch from Steam to GOG for most of my purchases.
Probably because GOG/CDPR don’t actually give a fuck about Linux. They made that perfectly clear with the whole “Witcher 3 coming to Linux” fiasco. Maybe I am just bitter, but I feel like even the DRM-free aspect of their business model isn’t through any values they hold. It is just a business decision to corner a niche market.
Another day, another circlejerk post \o/
Looks like someone just discovered Linux after his Windows install fucked up and had to write about it…
HAHAHA same, been using Ubuntu for 3 months, I’m so ticked off, someone never told me Linux excisted!!
looks like somebody didn’t read the article
If you count Android and Chrome OS as Linux, which I do, the Linux desktop accounts for 44.98 percent of the end user market.
I don’t. Simply because Android or ChromeOS apps are not compatible with GNU/Linux, thus they can’t be treated as one platform that developers can’t target directly all of it at once. Same the other way around - Linux apps can run on Android, but it requires containers and some way to display stuff (like a xserver or Wayland compositor running on top of Android).
Even if Android and ChromeOS count as Linux, it’s a stretch to say they’re Linux desktop distributions. ChromeOS is closer to it than Android.
This is actually a really great point. If I have to treat them as different platforms as a developer, since for example my code isn’t platform agnostic/cross-platform for whatever reason, why should these market share studies do it any different? In the end it’s the software or rather the developers/companies deciding if it’s worth their time and money investment these market shares matter for.
well I don’t count android as linux, so no.
If I had to replace my linux desktop with an android “desktop” I’d probably abandon general purpose computing completely. Windows is still infinitely better than android on a desktop.
Some people use their desktop to get shit done, not just to doomscroll passively
Hmm…
If you count Android and Chrome OS as Linux, which I do
Those are not gnu. I care about gnu, not linux, gnu. I can’t even change the fucking size of my tiles on my pixel from huge to normal… i want freedom
That’s not because suddenly, everyone will realize that the Linux desktop is wonderful. Sorry, folks, if it hasn’t happened by now, it never will.
GNOME hasn’t been that beautiful and easy to use as nowadays. When I show it to people, they love it. No joke!
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Nice! I do the same 🥰
Yeah people complain about it being locked down and unconfigurable by default, but I think that most of the general computer users prefer it that way.
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I see the term gnu around but what is it?
Its a set of software tools, that are often bundled together with the Linux-Kernel. Most Distros use them.
Gnu can be used to describe the gnu project, the gnu license or the gnu coreutils. In this context, they mean that Linux by itself isn’t enough to be the a free desktop, and needs the gnu software to be the system they care about. (There can be controversies on whether gnu is needed or not, since it’s possible to create a distro without the coreutils, but let’s not get you confused right now)
A bunch of programs that form the core utilities required to make an OS useful.
What a dystopian future for Windows.
Sorry but Android != Desktop. It’s literally in the name. No one is running Android as their desktop OS, except for the 7 Dex users on the planet.
Not only it’s not Desktop, the Linux kernel is buried under such an alien user space that it’s has nothing to do with a Linux Desktop.
The article is dumb. It states:
If you count Android and Chrome OS as Linux, which I do, the Linux desktop accounts for 44.98 percent of the end user market.
Linux != Linux desktop, and that’s the point of the article, but in their premise they’re equating them.
Hey I dex from time to time. However, the shortcut keys, or lack of, are the big issue for me.
I used Dex for a while as a software developer, it works surprisingly well for most office tasks and at the company I was working at at the time we did most of our work in cloud VMs anyway
With everything moving to the cloud it’s going to become more and more attractive to just have a tablet (with a keyboard case) instead of a laptop/pc and just dock it when you need peripherals I think
That said that’s good for those of us wanting to use Linux as our desktops because we’ll be on basically the same playing field as all the windows users if they go entirely cloud based. No longer any need to use onlyoffice/libreoffice (I like them but my manager seems to think they aren’t fully compatible with office files that we get from clients )
Whats old is new again. Anyone else hear “cloud pc” and think “oh, mainframes” from the 80s? Mind i never used one, but thats where my mind went.
Mainframes peaked by the 70s. 80s bored the fruit of the standalone PC revolution.
My very first thought. At the same time, it brought to mind stories of Richard Stallman’s “blank password” protest shenanigans…
Sounds good to me, I would just deploy linux clients and the end-users can do their “365 cloud stuff” online on it.
What a Linux sysadmin dream, I love it.
I’m using Linux on my main PC, to work, maybe I’m not supposed to do it but anyway 😁 and I’m using Teams of course, and it’s shitty. The old electron app or whatever is not supported anymore, the new PWA does not work well with chromium and I needed to install Edge in Linux just to use Teams. I was a un*x sysadmin and I’m glad I’m not supporting windows/Linux in a company 😋
Teams has a flatpak. Is it shitty, too? And btw. You misunderstand me here, Windows 365 would be a Cloud OS running in whatever (maybe browser), so there will be a use of Teams in the Cloud OS not on the local host.
I know similar use cases. We use for example docker based containers for browsers or libreoffice, they are accessible through domainnames and nobody who surf to this domain has to install these apps.
Edit: we have already Linux clients and It’s so nice to maintain them. I use some ansible playbooks + cockpit and everything runs automatically.
“bro, just trust me,
2020202120222023 will be the year of the Linux desktop!”Keep going back much, much further. I remember hearing that phrase back in the early 2000s, and wouldn’t doubt it if if was referenced as early as 1999.
We’ve been hearing this since 1999.
how many people live in an area where the internet is not good enough for Daas.
If you believe the service area maps provided by most US ISPs, not that many.
oh like those are honest. 🙄
I was hoping the /s would be implied
As much as I’d love to see Linux become a big player in the market, this article is completely wrong on why Microsoft is selling Windows in the cloud and the ultimate result of it.
My bet is that Windows in the cloud is being developed and will be targeted to enterprise clients that already use similar solutions for having secure environments for their employees, such as Citrix or VmWare solutions, or RDP desktops.
They don’t want to kill the desktop with the cloud, they want to steal market from older enterprise big players and increase their cloud dependency among businesses.
I agree, but I also believe that Windows desktop will become increasingly closed and limiting for those who don’t use the Enterprise versions or the new pro edition.
Windows 365 is a contingent against the growth of mobel and MacOS. You are right, it is there for business. It competes with other RDS solutions, but I think the focus is to allow business to keep old tools around while everyone is demanding iPads and MacBooks, without having to go to a third party.
Windows 12 won’t be a thing client with a subscription to a cloud PC. The economics and technology aren’t there. But a good RDS solution tied strongly to M365 is valuable for Mac users and contractors that might not be issued a company computer.
This is becoming more common in the enterprise. And it makes so much more sense in that environment (and where M$ makes most of their money - business side, not consumer).
The consumer market would be trickier to implement with this model. Large portions of the US are still stuck with trash tier isp service.
