Linux surpasses 5% market share on US desktops for the first time - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 03:57:57 pm
content: Linux's momentum is largely driven by user dissatisfaction with Microsoft's ecosystemhttps://www.techspot.com/news/108701-linux-surpasses-5-market-share-us-desktops-first.html

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 04:45:28 pm
content: Yep. The bad thing is that now that it's becoming increasingly difficult to ignore, MS is likely to "fight back" with a vengeance, and I'm not sure I want to see what they're going to come up with.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 05:11:43 pm
content: Linux has over 6% of the desktop market? Yes, you read that right - here's howhttps://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-has-over-6-of-the-desktop-market-yes-you-read-that-right-heres-how/

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 05:12:46 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on July 18, 2025, 04:45:28 pmWindows XP reloadedEverything Microsoft has done to Windows since Windows XP, made Windows worse.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 05:46:29 pm
content: Statcounter - Desktop Operating System Market Share North Americahttps://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/north-america

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 05:50:52 pm
content: Does MS really care? I thought they stopped making money from consumer Windows desktop users long a go. It doesn't appear to be business users, which is their main Windows revenue scream.

author: dferyance
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 06:19:32 pm
content: Microsoft has been actively making Windows worse in many ways. But Linux desktop is horrible. I've tried. I've tried several times. Linux desktop is all about breaking change. Install a Linux distro and everything seems fine. Until you need to upgrade. From glibc issues, gcc upgrades, wayland not being backwards compatible, desktop environments keep changing, config file format changes. Its a mess!Linux desktop is probably good enough if you use a web browser or only software from your distro's package manager, or maybe use it only for Windows applications. But as a desktop os, it's made no progress.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 06:28:42 pm
content: Haiku@amd64 0.005%Haiku@riscv 0.00000002%

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 06:55:13 pm
content: Quotedo wot? my desktop looks almost the same as when i first installed linux about 20 year ago,yea the buggers changed it thinking they knew better,but a few magic incantation restored the calmness

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 07:36:13 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 18, 2025, 05:12:46 pmLike most sweeping generalizations, that's in no way completely true.Yes, they've fucked up a lot of things since then, but most of them are in the user interface, not the underlying OS (kernel, services, etc.).The Windows I use (7--I refuse to go farther than that) is at least as stable as XP if not more so.Anything beyond 7 has, to me, an abominable user interface up with which I will not put.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 07:41:23 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on July 18, 2025, 06:55:13 pmIndeed. It is a matter of choosing a distro not made by 'latest & greatest' maniacs which change everything at a whim and selecting the same desktop environment you where using during the upgrade process (but this should remain the same; at least it is for Debian).The biggest pitfall coming from Windows is expecting Linux to be something similar.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 07:57:28 pm
content: PopOS bysystem76is a GNU/Linux distro with a nice (custom made) wm and desk.Not too bad.

author: abeyer
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 08:05:05 pm
content: Quote from: DiTBho on July 18, 2025, 06:28:42 pmSo, that's you? Only DiTBho could be so masochistic

author: dferyance
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 09:47:23 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on July 18, 2025, 06:55:13 pmI wish I could go back to Gnome 2 with Compiz. I had things the way I liked it and that was before Gnome and KDE decided that computers should be like phones. The only way I know to go back to that is to run an old Linux distro. Modern distros don't have anything like this. Maybe I could hack it, but it would be way harder than changing settings or installing something. Even if I could, would "modern" Linux software even work with that? Very unlikely.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 10:05:50 pm
content: Quote from: dferyance on July 18, 2025, 09:47:23 pmThe easiest way to not have cruft:1) install Ubuntu server (or Fedora server, or ..) that has no GUI.2) install twm or fvwm2 or fluxbox or LightDM or xfce or nextspace or whatever your preferred 25 year old desktop is. Most are just an "apt get" away.

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 10:22:17 pm
content: Disclaimer: the post is highly subjective.The important question: is it good news, bad news, or irrelevant?The good thing is that the platform can no longer be seen as niche. It can’t be ignored or its users seen as a bunch weirdos troubling “normal people” with their “silly demands.” Which also means more disturbance to the market. Great. It gives more opportunity for ideological exposure too.But it’s not all shiny. It’s also a land to be colonized and conquered. As it becomes less obscure and more accessible, as venturing into it becomes easier and less risky, there is a deluge of people seeking opportunities. It’s an old story, repeated over and over through centuries. The value of the penguin is not in the kernel or system services. Not anymore. It is in the ecosystem and the community. If that is destroyed, Linux based systems would be no better than Windows. If you don’t get it, let me remind you: Android is Linux in technical sense.Or, perhaps, it’s irrelevant? Yet another case of journalists quoting numbers without the proper, deeper context and no insight into what they really mean?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 10:33:22 pm
content: Quote from: dferyance on July 18, 2025, 09:47:23 pmNo, choose classic Gnome while logging in.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 10:44:15 pm
content: "What do you anticipate Microsoft will do next?"Microsoft will switch to Linux and keep selling their software on top of Linux. And it will cost the Windows users as much as before.At the same time will the Linux community get face-stomped by hordes of Windows users, all trying to learn everything there is tolearn about Linux and in record-breaking time.Some long-time Linux supporters will switch to Microsoft in a heart beat like cold-hearted back-stabbers, while others diethe slow death of the White Knight in the most epic drama the Linux community has ever seen, before the Linuxcommunity itself disappears and we will all have turned into "the new Windows user".Once it's all done and over, and Microsoft has taken over Linux with its hordes of Windows users, will you either be thenew slave of the Microsoft empire or you will have found refuge under a tiny bridge, just next to the one where all theFreeBSD trolls live, and where you'll then be telling tales of Linux's past.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 10:46:41 pm
content: Quote from: Karel on July 18, 2025, 10:44:15 pmWhat??? How do you figure that?I don't see that happening at all.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 10:57:24 pm
content: Quote from: abeyer on July 18, 2025, 08:05:05 pmYup, but when Linux-v1 and then v2 came out, there were very few users, just a few dozen in the world.Haiku is keeping getting better, so Tomorrow (5 years in the future?)... who knows ...Those who complain about the Linux desktop can't complain about the Haiku desktop.At least because there's only one, and multimedia works flawlessly!

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 11:04:07 pm
content: QuoteDont you need to utter a spell at the command line first to get some missing bits,flashback rings a bell

author: abeyer
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 11:18:05 pm
content: Quote from: DiTBho on July 18, 2025, 10:57:24 pmI'm (mostly) kidding... Haiku actually does look interesting in its own way, and I was always fond of the old Be stuff. Actually got to play with one of the hobbit prototypes once. (that would be the fun stat: what's the BeOS/Hobbit marketshare?)

author: abeyer
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 18, 2025, 11:24:36 pm
content: Quote from: dferyance on July 18, 2025, 09:47:23 pmcinnamon has been my preferred option for a while now... it seems to keep up with just enough of the new stuff to maintain easy compatibility, but with a feel and interface like gnome 2.

author: radiolistener
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 12:01:43 am
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on July 18, 2025, 07:36:13 pmI’d say this is only partially accurate. While Win7 did receive years of patches and its kernel became reasonably stable, it arguably never reached the same level of streamlined reliability as XP after its own service packs. One key drawback of Win7 compared to XP is the proliferation of background services, increased system bloat from telemetry components, and the always-active Defender, which acts independently of user control. Audio API also took a step back in terms of flexibility and performance. Also Win7 eats much more memory for the same tasks.That said, Windows 7 does have real advantages: much better support for multicore CPUs and 64-bit operation, which XP simply didn’t offer back in its prime. Driver availability is another reason many users had to move to 7, as certain hardware lacks XP-compatible drivers.Still performance-wise, XP often delivered slightly better FPS and fewer frame drops in gaming, although it was limited to DirectX 9, restricting some graphical effects. Since Vista, the Windows kernel has increasingly suffered from what I’d call systemic bloat - much like a host increasingly burdened by parasites - with telemetry and Defender components deeply embedded and hard to fully remove.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 12:09:52 am
content: yes I think its when people realized you need to register your account and then you get pop ups.It starts to feel like your PC is infested with malware the way windows works now. I think M$ jumped the shark. And its all like threat based (everything is supposedly for your safety). I think they got hit hard by yes men in the 'product testing' phase and they have a very unrealisitic view of the relationship that a normal person has with a computer. I am pretty sure they just got answers from focus groups/testers that the marketing person wanted to hear. Yes yes, we love everything you came up with ,please give me a raise.I think it reached that point where the company has a unrealistically stupid model of the user. It kind of starts like a joke in product companies, when they start to joke alot about how they exploit the dumbness of the customer to make profit with some engineering decision. It usually is something marginally clever and there is a small number of clueless people that they got appeal from. And then it gets completely overblown, takes center stage, they run with it and they make a product that makes peoples jaw drop (the bad kind). I think they managed that. As soon as a engineer starts talking about how dumb customers are, you might as well hold up a sign that says "hey, we might have a nice paying position for con artists in my department!"I will put it this way, its getting EASY to find linux users IRL in random places. They trust it because android phones worked so well for so long and M$ got progressively more annoying. So it becomes very easy to dump windows. It's not even a big jump because... well you have been using a android for like 20 years right?Thats like a flavor of engineering hire now, the ones that sound like a 20 year old Sigmund freud that can psychoanalyze this supposed dumb customer for 30 minutes strait and proposes like 20 completely unrealistic engineering features that all have major cruxes, all that relate to advertising and databases.. and also seems ethically dubious from even the most cursive analysis (and he has a totally unrealistic view about how practical it is to make complex things out of big data sets, like that its guaranteed, not that you are dealing with uncertain noisy random crap ? You get those when your engineers start talking about seeing the customer as like a mentally stunted bovine.They always seem to think all data is good data, that data is easy to filter, understand and process into useful things. But its not. Actually they are often just growing a peppercorn dry, very expensive to squeeze fruit to supposedly make gallons of juice from. And it makes the relationship between marketing and engineering awful, assuming you have more then 1 normally marginally ethical, respectable and responsible engineer/scientists working in R&D/Eng. The conflict always exists in some form, but when things get out of hand.... the cooperation becomes comical.

author: John B
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 01:56:56 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on July 18, 2025, 10:05:50 pmYep, if you prefer a more visually classic experience you basically choose your own desktop environment to suit.Simple but still fairly modern: Cinnamon, MATEEven simpler: LXDE, XFCEBoth Debian and Linux Mint offer out of the box choices which simplify the setup greatly.However there's no need or reason to run an ancient kernel and distro. Everything under the hood can be up to date while running a fairly retro looking DE.Speaking if which, I have Haiku running in a VM, quite an interesting looking distro, but I don't see how I could run it day to day.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 02:32:34 am
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on July 19, 2025, 12:09:52 amYa know, "coppercone", I used to think that @RJSV was the most off-the-wall, abstract beyond understanding, word-salad-concocting poster here.But now I'm thinking it's actually you who should get that prize.What the hell is that post *about*, anyhow?

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 04:40:04 am
content: Quote from: dferyance on July 18, 2025, 06:19:32 pmThis is why I use a Mac now. But, Linux is still less painful than Windows 10/11.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 04:48:46 am
content: Linux is for people who want freedom of choice. Windows and MAC even more so is for people who want freedom from choice.If Linux became homogeneous like Windows or Mac then would it still be Linux? It would merely be just another operating system and not a lifestyle choice.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 05:07:49 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on July 19, 2025, 04:48:46 amBullshit.I use Windows (7)--by choice--and I certainly don't want "freedom from choice".That is such a tired old trope, it ought to be put in an elder-care institution.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 05:40:01 am
content: Quote from: dferyance on July 18, 2025, 06:19:32 pmThat's true - but then again, you can cope by just install - use - don't worry about it - start again from scratch. In maybe 2 - 5 years, it stops working and then you reinstall and reconfigure everything to suit your taste, but with Windows this cycle is even more hectic (1 - 3 years).It would be nice if you could upgrade indefinitely and everything would just migrate perfectly, but no system has achieved that really, so maybe it's a pipe dream?

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 05:59:44 am
content: Quote from: wilfred on July 19, 2025, 04:48:46 amI'm a Mac user and I still have freedom of choice. I can refuse to sign up for an Apple account if I want to. I can create a local user account, without any trickery, if I want to. I can have granular control over what applications have (and don't have) access to. I can set up and have a fully functional machine, without ever connecting it to the internet if I choose to. I can dump to terminal and sudo my way around everything, if I want to. OS features aren't withheld from me because I refuse to spend money; MacOS is what it is. There is one version that does everything (none of this Home, Pro, Education, Enterprise, IoT Enterprise edition garbage).Windows is the absolute pits these days and they've taken that freedom and control away from the user, and locked it behind M365 licensing paywalls. To add to that, Windows Update will silently remove drivers and applications, not because you asked it to, but "just because". Microsoft is forcing installation of bloatware and applications (like Outlook) even if you don't use it, or didn't ask for it, because "too bad, so sad".Microsoft is the equivalent of that South Park scene where the cable company tells you get fucked because you basically have no other choice but to grin and bare it.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 06:29:59 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on July 19, 2025, 05:59:44 amYes to all that.Just to explain my choice of using Windows: I'm using an obsolete version (7) on purpose, which neatly sidesteps almost all of the bullshit you just described. This version works for me, does what I want it to do, and I'm satisfied. No phoning home, no updates (except what 3rd-party stuff I might find useful).I would definitelynotbe satisfied if I were forced to use any version newer than 7. In that case I'd be seriously looking into switching to *nix.This strategy won't work for a lot of people, but it does work for me.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 08:09:40 am
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on July 19, 2025, 06:29:59 am

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 08:13:14 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on July 19, 2025, 05:59:44 amYou're sort of making my point for me. I wasn't thinking of things like choosing to have an account. With Windows or Mac the vast majority of users just plug it in. You can do that with Linux too but people without "tech support" probably go with what came on the computer.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 08:30:13 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on July 19, 2025, 05:59:44 amYup.I've been a Mac user since my university got a couple of 128k machines in the grad computer room in early 1984, alongside a genuine IBM PC, a Sanyo MBC with as a I recall a real 8086 (not 8088), and a DEC Rainbow with both Z80 & 8088, and a Zilog System 8000 running Unix on a Z8001 (which is where I did my first real Unix and C programing, editing in vi, etc).The Macs came with a cardboard box containing a loose-leaf version of "Inside Macintosh", which I immediately read cover to cover.I programmed professionally on the VAX, on Data General MV/8000 and MV/10000, , on similar Pr1mes, and then starting in 1987 on Mac Plus / SE / II.I played with a friend's Slackware Linux quite early on, and started using it at home myself with the first RedHat release in early 1995 (and then dual-booting my Mac into MkLinux a year later).What I can say about the Mac is that it offered you a rich set of defaults which you can take or leave, not a prison. Just like on MS-DOS or CP/M, when you launched a program on MacOS before MacOS X your program owned the whole machine and could do anything it wanted. Sure, there was a very nice library there in ROM, and also OS routines, but you were free to ignore them.On the Mac, the main loop is in your program. On Windows the main loop is in the OS, and it calls some of your functions when it decides to.It has always been a lie, disinformation, that the Mac restricts your freedom.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 09:20:59 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on July 19, 2025, 08:30:13 amTypically, "Mac restricts your freedom" is more tied to the "hardware", how Steve Jobs interpreted the concept.Back to the 80s (before 1984 for sure), it was the first bloody argument with Woz.The "other Steve" wanted more "expansion buses", and Jobs didn't.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 11:06:28 am
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on July 18, 2025, 07:36:13 pmWhether they've improved other features i.e. kernel, drivers, command line etc. doesn't matter as far as most end users are concerned, because they don't see it. Most users judge Windows on its user interface and on how often it interrupts what they're doing to install updates.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 01:05:06 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on July 19, 2025, 05:40:01 amDebian can be upgraded across major versions quite nicely so a re-install isn't needed at all. Only software that could break is software which relies on older libraries.

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 02:04:17 pm
content: Quote from: dferyance on July 18, 2025, 09:47:23 pmJust install Cinnamon. It's supported on most distributions, and it's basically an up to date Gnome 2.Of course you can also use fvwm or any truly old school window manager but cinnamon has been my go-to for over a decade.

author: chilternview
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 02:06:21 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on July 19, 2025, 08:30:13 amWell, one could argue that Apple restricts your freedom if you create and distribute Mac apps. Even if you don't offer them on the app store, you need to get apps signed these days, and you can only do that with a developer license, which costs $$s.I always find it a little amusing how people get so het up about what OS they use. I use Linux all day for work, accessed via a Windows laptop, which provides mail, web browsing under W11. At home I tend to use a mixture of Windows and Mac (love my M3 Macbook Pro). But it comes down to what is the best app for the task, not what is the best OS.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 02:38:04 pm
content: Quote from: chilternview on July 19, 2025, 02:06:21 pmGosh it's a million years since I wrote a Mac GUI app or paid Apple any money for a developer license or even started XCode.app. Last time I remember was when I wrote something for a local sports club in ... I'm going to say 2013 or so.So I just whipped up a tiny one. No problems. I did have to enter my AppleID and password into XCode and create a certificate or something. ANd it warned me when I ran it the first time.But I now have a stand-alone GUI app I can run outside of XCode. I don't know what happens if I give a copy to someone else.Absolute worst case, I can give them my XCode project and they can download XCode for free and build it themselves.But I can absolutely definitely create and use my own apps if I want to. I just did.

author: chilternview
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 02:48:34 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on July 19, 2025, 02:38:04 pmOh sure you can. But if you want to distribute apps to other users, then binaries need to be signed, and you can only do that with a paid-for Apple developer account.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 02:50:57 pm
content: Oh, now that I think about it, in late 2020 when I got this M1 Mac Mini I wanted to use Ubuntu on it in a VM but there weren't any off the shelf apps for that. Someone had done a quick and dirty app with I think some hard coded disk image and a window size smaller than I liked or something. I grabbed their project off github and added some new features (in Swift, which I'd never used before, but it was obvious), and I think sent back a PR.I certainly didn't give Apple any money then either.Ah yeah, here it is. Pretty trivial change, but it's open source development on github of a program that you want to use personally, the same as for any other platform.https://github.com/brucehoult/SimpleVM/commit/28c6b76aeb0deff6c454e1647bbd33de44e808cfEdit: someone even linked to that lol. Wild days! Now you can just use Docker Desktop and be happy.https://finestructure.co/blog/2020/11/27/running-docker-on-apple-silicon-m1

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 03:00:20 pm
content: Quote from: chilternview on July 19, 2025, 02:48:34 pmI've only wanted to do that when I was being paid a few thousand dollars by someone to write an app, and as I recall it was something like $99 to Apple i.e. utterly trivial. And for this they vetted your app to make sure you weren't giving something malicious to people.A big part of Apple's value proposition is that they try to protect naive users from bad programs. I think that's entirely fair enough.Anyone with even enough nous to install XCode themselves and clone something from github can run and share whatever they want.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2025, 03:10:52 pm
content: Linux isn't for everyone (without some admin's help). If you're looking for a conservative UI stay away from the latest and greatest of the fancy window managers / environments. For example, fvwm is boring in a good way, but still powerful. And I don't worry about Microsoft because the Cloud wouldn't work without linux.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2025, 12:08:32 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on July 19, 2025, 02:38:04 pmFrom what I understand this is another of the overblown internet attention fests that is actually untrue. You can still download and run arbitrary binary, with similar guardrails as windows puts in place.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 20, 2025, 02:39:14 am
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on July 19, 2025, 06:29:59 amLike you, I still keep a Windows 7 machine around just for a few little applications I still use from time to time. It just works for that particular task.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2025, 10:23:56 am
content: Quote from: dferyance on July 18, 2025, 06:19:32 pmsounds like you're using a distro that is not debian (just add backports, and a couple of specific packages like firefox in place of firefox-esr and all the "debian is oooold" nonsense disappear) and/or a distro with gnomekde plasma's look is consistent across versions, XFCE still looks like is stuck in the 90s. It's mainly gnome that changes for change's sakeI'll add: I recently updated debian from 12 to 13.It was really just a matter of editing the apt sources, changing all "bookworm" to "trixie" then sudo apt update, sudo apt upgrade, sudo apt dist-upgrade and reboot.

author: dferyance
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2025, 09:49:04 pm
content: All these people are suggesting I run something that looks like an older desktop environment. The nice thing with Linux is there are plenty of options. But you miss the point. I should be able to just run older Linux software on a modern Linux distro -- not seek out replacements. It should be as simple as install Gnome 2 and Compiz and have it still work. But that's far from easy... if even possible. This is what backwards compatibility is about and something Linux (at least outside of the kernel) doesn't care about.

author: Infraviolet
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2025, 10:58:11 pm
content: chilternview: "But it comes down to what is the best app for the task, not what is the best OS." Absolutely true... though in practice thesedays I find that means you run a Linux OS which you know will just work (once you've initially set it up) then you resort to whatever bodges, Wine compatibility layers or virtual machines you have to so as to get the software you actually need (very often only available for Windows with no native Linux equivalent which quite matches your needs) to run.Upgrading Linux and the problems that can cause has been mentioned in this thread too... but as far as upgrading Linux goes, for the most part you don't. Occasionally, once the distro you have is out of support to the extent that Firefox and/or Chrome start complaining that future updates to the browser won't work with your old Linux OS, then you have to reinstall a fresh version. Sometimes there can indeed be a problem with getting old software to run on the new Linux version, so the once every many-years a reinstall is a bothersome endeavour, but with Linux it is not like you can't simply keep a (very) old version running offline if you need it, the Linux installer iso will still work for the old version. And Linux doesn't get such serious security vulnerabilities as Windows, so in practice, so long as you can keep the BROWSER updated (personally I set up Firefox on Linux by downloading Firefox from Mozilla's site as the "zip" file version, I extract it to a folder and run it, and it then updates itself without needing to go with the same slower cycle at which I apply system apt-get updates) a somewhat out-of-support Linux version is usable online too.It is definitely good to see Linux's market share rising, and now for the opinion I'm sure I've expressed before... If the Linux community wants its share to rise further the main effort for development should be not fancy new styles of GUI, nor other "innovative" things, but simply making a system like Wine but more reliable and built in to the core of a lot more distros. It can't be long with a rising market share before a situation where making it rise any further depends on new Linux users being able to VERY easily bring along the Windows software they were used to.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2025, 11:09:25 pm
content: Quote from: Infraviolet on July 21, 2025, 10:58:11 pmI do not, nor do most Linux developers either, including most who get paid by a company.Why would we? I only care how manycontributorsthere are, counting all sorts of contributions from patches and translations to cash money. Plain ol' users are useless to me, simply adding noise (bad bug reports, horribly incorrect blog posts, misunderstandings about licensing issues and so on –– nothing positive).The only real voices in the "Linux community" (which isn't one, it is a collection of communities) are those who sell stuff for money, but often do not contribute much themselves, that clamor for more Linux users. It is best to consider such voices the TV-shop ads of today.

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2025, 04:04:52 am
content: Quote from: dferyance on July 21, 2025, 09:49:04 pmA retired softdev here, one you might consider a compatibility extremist. But even that extremist understands there is no absolutes and that the reality has its constraints.Backward compatibility has its limit: cost. Expressing it in a blunt way: somebody has to pay for maintenance and it’s not you. Open and community projects are usually available without fee to anybody. Yet their production is not free (as in free beer).It is about 15 years since Gnome 2 development ceased. As a desktop environment it sits between two large groups: dependencies and dependents. You’re asking for all dependencies maintainers, some fittingxkcd 2347, to keep their software compatible with demands of a dead project. And you’re also expecting all software relying on DE’s features to also support such ancient technology. Including handling all its bugs, dealing with reports related to Gnome 2, and either limiting programs’ functionality or using enormous amount of glue logic. How do you expect this to work?Another limiting factor is bloat. Software, if not pruned regularly, steadily grows in size and complexity. At some point it becomes an unmaintainable monstrosity. Full of unexpected relationships, which give birth to bugs (including security vulnerabilities), to performance trouble, and finally to the loss of human control.I’m not sure, what you are trying to achieve either. Your applications would not look like they did 15 years ago, because they’re also not using Gtk 2 anymore. You’d get a few Gtk 2 desktop environment components, but everything else would be Gtk ≥3, looking exactly like it would on Gnome 3 (or broken). You may of course install all the stuff that worked 15 years ago, but for that you need no backward compatibility.From my perspective this is basically like expecting gas stations to maintain a separate leaded gas dispensers, because somebody wishes to drive their 1940s car. Should they also provide water and oats for horses, to be backward compatible? Or, at this point, you’d consider that idea to be simply backward, without “compatble?”

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2025, 03:10:26 pm
content: "Should they also provide water and oats for horses, to be backward compatible?"Good point!It's like supporting "pseudo-color" in GTK, so you can use an old Tektronics terminal (Tek Xpress v7, e.g., XP200, XP300).It was abandoned in ~2005 because it was too complicated to maintain, and it didn't make sense to support it only for a small segment of users, say a hundred or so worldwide.But you could get fresh water and oats for your horse in a ghost town in the United States, revitalized for tourism, or in an old village in Africa or Asia.Different scenarios, different purposes.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2025, 03:28:00 pm
content: QuoteBy that logic youd also expect to run a bit of software written for win 2.0 to run on win 11,good luck with that.

author: dferyance
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2025, 08:13:36 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on July 22, 2025, 03:28:00 pmIf it wasn't for AMD, that would be trivially possible. AMD decided to not retain 16-bit support when running in AMD64 and Intel copied. So this was a CPU design decision and not operating system. I've run quite old Windows software on modern systems perfectly fine. Often it is easier because the applications are simpler and have fewer dependencies (and no Internet server check). It is getting harder over the years, but it still is pretty good.Let's assume I am unreasonable regarding my specific software that I expect to continue to run. The problem cannot be overstated; Linux development culture really doesn't care about backwards compatible. Maybe my scenario is a mild inconvenience for me. But people use computers for all sorts of tasks and needs. If is a challenge to run something that was as widespread and common as Gnome 2, think about how hard it is to run something that is a little more niche. This becomes a dealbreaker when running software where the source code isn't available in order to "fix" for the breaking changes.And it isn't just historical software. I've developed software for Linux before. I honestly don't know what would be a good way to do it such that it would continue to be compatible in years to come. There are some options of bundling dependencies, but there is merit to using system libraries and even that doesn't ensure it won't break. Likely one of the best ways is to use the Win32 API and run with Wine. That seems the least likely to break to me and is telling on the state of Linux development.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2025, 07:46:57 am
content: Quote from: dferyance on July 26, 2025, 08:13:36 pmNo, it tells us that the Linux userspace isn't static, and continues to evolve; that the idea of perpetual backwards compatibility is incompatible with ongoing human innovation and development.Also, the Linux kernel interfaces are generally backwards compatible, except for drivers. This means that using a scripting language like Python for the UI (for minimum forward-porting effort), and all proprietary and heavy computing in dynamically loaded libraries (relying only on kernel interfaces) will be easiest to maintain in the long term. One can then also provide a set of base dynamic libraries that are overridden by any later compatible versions (same major, larger minor and/or patch version), and use e.g. a symlink directory to select between the two, and a launcher shell script to auto-detect missing libraries and adjust the symlinks.In other words, if you want a specific toolchain, specific set of library and application versions to keep working as is for the foreseeable future, you use a virtual machine. Past Linux distributions are still perfectly usable with new machines, again excepting hardware drivers. To produce Linux software that will work in the future and has minimal maintenance cost, youmustdrop the monolithic Windows approach, and applyUnix philosophy, understanding that thingswillchange; instead of fighting against that by limiting yourself to something as nasty as Wine, youdesignfor that change, for modularity and low-cost maintenance of the most likely to change parts.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2025, 12:15:42 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on July 27, 2025, 07:46:57 amor chroot to a dedicated rootfs; this is my tested solution, e.g. to compile 2005-2009 kernels.maybe even containers? To be investigated.

author: Haenk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2025, 12:32:13 pm
content: Quote from: dferyance on July 26, 2025, 08:13:36 pmFunny. We still use our old Filemaker Server-based system. I think it was originally installed on Windows NT4 and slowly moved to higher Windows versions, currently running as a HyperV instance on Windows Server. It is totally fine with the 10G network, and now has several GB of data files, hundreds of thousands of records. Mind you, the server application allows for huge database cache settings. I think 64MB of RAM. (yes, MB, not GB)And it runs, and runs, and runs. Since 25+ years.The frontend runs on Windows 10 and our trusty Mac mini G4. Plenty fast enough.(Due to newer legal requirements, we can not use it for the creation of invoices; so it is only inventory keeping / delivery sheet printing now...)

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2025, 12:39:51 pm
content: Quote from: Haenk on July 28, 2025, 12:32:13 pmA minimum of 20 years old!

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 31, 2025, 06:27:26 am
content: someone else understood my pointhttps://www.theregister.com/2025/07/28/windows_11_is_a_minefield/and discussions, whatever slashdot is worth nowadays, if the discussion is not derailed within 15 min by a political robot or smear machinehttps://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/07/28/166238/windows-11-is-a-minefield-of-micro-aggressions-in-the-shipping-lane-of-progressLike I said, if someone saw windows 11 in 2004, they would think its out of control malware that completely compromised the system. Like if someone took BonziBuddy and gave it anabolic steroids and nuclear radiation. Like Bane, from the batman comics.I think linux will grow more and more.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 03, 2025, 09:25:29 pm
content: It seems KDE is Making their Own GNU/Linux DistroSeehere

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 04, 2025, 06:28:16 am
content: Quote from: DiTBho on August 03, 2025, 09:25:29 pmIf it doesn't use X.org, I don't want it...

author: chilternview
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 04, 2025, 07:33:31 am
content: Quote from: Karel on July 18, 2025, 10:44:15 pmUnlikely. Microsoft has demonstrated over the years that it is keen to preserve backwards compatibility, hence the horrible kludges in code that exist.

author: petrinch
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 04, 2025, 07:27:30 pm
content: Quote from: Karel on July 18, 2025, 03:57:57 pmOops! You didn’t actually look at the data, did you? Because TechSpot’s declared source at analytics.usa.gov doesn’t track “desktop” visits specifically, just visits, with nearly a third of those visits coming from mobile devices. Not surprisingly then, users running Windows and IOS operating systems share two-thirds of the total visits while users of Android (16.7%), Linux (4.7%) and ChromeOS (1%) combine for a little less than a quarter. Interesting, but then we already knew that Android phones were popular. Unfortunately there’s no trend data available at analytics.usa.gov to suggest there’s more to the story than simply that.As for the acknowledged source of desktop os trends, you can download it directly from StatCounter in csv format."Date","Windows","OS X","Unknown","Linux","Chrome OS","macOS","Other"2024-07,72.1,14.92,7.13,4.44,1.41,0,0.012024-08,71.46,15.48,6.77,4.55,1.73,0,0.012024-09,73.35,15.45,4.47,4.48,2.25,0,0.012024-10,73.39,15.52,4.66,4.3,2.13,0,0.012024-11,72.94,15.38,5.4,4.04,2.24,0,0.012024-12,73.38,14.16,6.43,4.13,1.89,0,0.012025-01,71.9,15.02,7.43,3.72,1.92,0,0.012025-02,70.62,15.74,8.01,3.81,1.81,0,02025-03,71.68,13.59,6.78,3.98,1.86,2.11,02025-04,71.06,10.06,7.19,4.27,1.84,5.58,02025-05,70.21,10.24,8.16,4.06,1.83,5.5,02025-06,70.14,9.87,9.17,4.09,1.24,5.48,02025-07,71.88,8.69,9.63,3.88,1.02,4.9,0.01Don’t feel too bad. TechSpot didn’t really look at this data either because it’s primarily in the business of writing headlines that draw clicks. Alas, it seems that in fact the desktop share for Linux has DECLINED from 4.41% to 3.88% over the past year and is now roughly where it was 20 years ago. Go figure!I love Linux myself as a development tool, mind you, but this business of pretending that it’s anything on the desktop but a niche for techies or a fallback option for free-as-in-free-beer enthusiasts is silly.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 04, 2025, 09:52:31 pm
content: Code:"Date","Windows","OS X","Linux","Chrome OS","Unknown","macOS","Other"2024-07,63.6,24.75,3.72,3,4.93,0,0.012024-08,61.67,25.58,4.22,4.3,4.22,0,0.012024-09,61.9,25.6,4.23,5.53,2.73,0,0.012024-10,61.96,25.48,4.47,5.47,2.61,0,02024-11,64.91,24.14,3.68,4.76,2.51,0,02024-12,68.38,20.73,4.16,3.88,2.84,0,02025-01,66.04,22.38,3.91,4.3,3.36,0,02025-02,64.23,23.12,4.48,4.58,3.58,0,02025-03,65.27,19.71,4.44,4.37,3.02,3.2,02025-04,65.59,14.49,4.86,4.39,3.17,7.49,02025-05,63.83,16.28,4.47,4.48,3.64,7.3,02025-06,63.28,16.5,5.04,2.69,4.77,7.72,02025-07,64.8,14.84,5.21,2.24,4.82,8.08,0.01https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/united-states-of-america

author: petrinch
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 04, 2025, 11:26:48 pm
content: The worldwide market share data I shared is more reliable —also the North America data. As for the US-only data you show, I don’t know a sole who believes that the OsX market share has collapsed from 24% to 14% in the space of 6 months. I strongly suspect that the entire bogus argument for a Linux “surge “ is based on that data glitch. But grasp at whatever straw suits you, I suppose

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 01:24:50 am
content: Quote from: Haenk on July 28, 2025, 12:32:13 pmFileMaker! Gees, that's a blast from the past. The last time I touched that would have been around 1999-2000, when FileMaker Pro 5 was a thing. I'm pretty sure the database sat on a Novell NetWare server.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 06:31:51 am
content: Quote from: petrinch on August 04, 2025, 11:26:48 pmThank you, you are very kind.I don't belong to the group of GNU/Linux enthousiasts that wants to see it becomes the most used os in the world.GNU/Linux is made by engineers for engineers. Windows on the other hand is made (also) for gamers and housewives.Everybody should be free to use the os of his choice without anybody (government/tax-office, banks, tv-streaming services) tellingyou which os to use.

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 08:40:46 am
content: Quote from: petrinch on August 04, 2025, 11:26:48 pmNo need to treat it too seriously.This is toy data; the kind suitable for government officials and housewife magazines. It wouldn’t pass even basic scrunity in proper research. Not because a platform dropped 10 p.p. quickly, as this can happen quite easily, but because such data nearly always lacks provenance. Where this happens to be somehow established, it quite often fails to be representative.This year we have a surge of machine learning bot farms. All that is needed for a platform “rise in popularity” is an operator of such a bot farm to use one platform instead of another.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 08:58:42 am
content: Quote from: golden_labels on August 05, 2025, 08:40:46 am.. spoof the user agent string

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 09:36:08 am
content: Spoofing is intentional. In this case I doubt it would be: ML bot farms don’t care about affecting stats. It’s just that some User-Agent has to be chosen and it randomly happens to be one platform and not the other.Of course that is under assumption the stats are based on User-Agent. With espionage techniques deployed in 2020s, this is not the most likely scenario. But the image remains valid, as the same would happen in other circumstances.

author: petrinch
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 11:57:53 am
content: Quote from: Karel on August 05, 2025, 06:31:51 amExactly right. Which makes me wonder why you’d bother stirring up the free-beer fanboys with a thread like this.Once upon a time ago, Linux on the desktop might have made sense to non-engineers who only wanted to browse or who only needed a few serviceable apps to send email and watch videos. But then along came mobile phones and tablets that asked no one to make so inconsequential a choice as which operating system they preferred, only what color they wanted — and that was the end of that.

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 12:37:03 pm
content: You ask Karel about “stirring” and then put, out of the blue and clearly without anything prompting that, phrase “free-beer fanboys” in your message? Because misrepresenting somebody’s beliefs and values is not stirring, right? And it’s just an accident, a totally not intentional utterance?

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2025, 01:20:35 pm
content: Quote from: petrinch on August 05, 2025, 11:57:53 amThat's what I mostly use my Linux home computer for, although I also use it for LTSpice, which works very well under WINE and there's KiCad , which I've not used much. I prefer a desktop over a tablet or phone, because I find it more ergonomic. I chose Linux because it doesn't disrupt me to load endless updates which introduce other problems. I can decide when I update, when I know I'll have time to sort it out on the odd occasion it introduces a bug.Yes, I know I don't fit the typical profile of either a Windows or Linux user.

author: steve30
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2025, 03:38:53 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on August 05, 2025, 01:24:50 amHalcyon, then you will be pleased to know that I still use FileMaker Pro 3 on my Windows XP box.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2025, 11:38:42 am
content: Long live the Norton Commander!Pic fromhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2025, 11:50:47 am
content: Quote from: RoGeorge on August 11, 2025, 11:38:42 amLooks like what I get into by accident when I mistype "mv"

author: Zoli
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2025, 05:55:56 am
content: Quote from: brucehoult on August 11, 2025, 11:50:47 amI think you mean "mc"

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2025, 06:08:15 am
content: Quote from: Zoli on August 12, 2025, 05:55:56 amIf I can't type it's probably after midnight.