Windows 11 is dying....

[CatalinaWOW]

People are not switching to Linux in their droves. The open source world has a problem: no standardization. You can't run 3D CAD on linux, the vendors just won't risk such a fractured and fractious bunch of people to provide the thing that if it goes slightly wrong screws them and all of their customers.

Utter nonsense. Lots of software companies prove it is perfectly possible to distribute software to run on Linux. Every FPGA vendor has their tools working on Linux. And take browsers like Firefox and Chrome. That is just the tip of the iceberg. No need to compile anything. Don't confuse not knowing how to use Linux with Linux being useless in general.

OK, find me a professional 3D CAD program that runs on linux. Right so that is my employer out. How many electronics CAD packages are there for linux? Apart from KiCad I don't know of any and KiCad is not a professional package or at least it is not a package that a business is likely to use unless as in my case the electronics engineer (me) gets to choose. Right so that is engineering out.

Programming, of course as the software user is a programmer, yes sure Linux is a doddle.

The general public? People like to all use the same system so that they can compare notes and tell each other about how to do things and how great it is. If everyone is on a different desktop then they won't have access to the same programs.

If you just want to browse the internet and do emails then sure, by definition every phone is linux and a basic desktop machine is fine.

I don't I know anyone that uses Linux for any reason other than they actively don't like windows or are anti capitalism bla bla bla and hate microsoft. None of the general public looks at their options and goes "I think I like the Linux option better", they just want to use whatever is the easiest and supported. For Linux to take over you need a huge commercial drive, some new product that makes you use it and that is nice to use.

I completely agree until the last sentence.  If Linux standardized enough so that everyone from grandma to the gum chewing high schooler could use the same programs and share help on how to print their photos and listen to their music and so on Linux could grow greatly.   That is what Mandrake attempted, and the what  Ubuntu set out to do.  But the Linux ethos is orthogonal to standardization.  So it seems unlikely to happen.

The result is that someone like me, who wants to leave Windows hasn't.  Because despite an engineering and programming background I can't make a program like Lightburn work under Linux.  Lightburn has a dedicated Linux version, but there is some nuance to installation, and some requirements on distro and version number that keeps it from happening.   I'm sure it is possible, and if I spent enough time on the FAQs and forums I would eventually get it working.  But if the barrier is too high for me, think how unscaleable it is for those with less technical background.

[hans]

What about Mac then? Many arguments also apply for that with the exact same reasons. Plenty of people get a Mac because it is not Windows. That is all the reasons you need.
I think  (relatively speaking) only few video/image editing folks are around that want to use with Apple ProRes using hardware encoders from their cameras.

Linux is a much larger niche though. And my personal gripes with it is that some people become all rosemary and can't criticize its obvious flaws. I've used Linux daily for over 10 years, and although I never had something dramatic happen, I've had to daily workaround annoying quirks and bugs which over time have ground me down..
And one of the annoying one is exactly Simon's argument. Its still has a home garage tinkering vibe to it. It may be a fairly high-spec home garage.. but the tool selection is more limited than Linux, and there is a lot of reliance on emulation or virtualization software to get 'foreign' software to work. If you tell Altium, Autodesk, Inventor you have problem running their software through Wine or Virtualbox, I guess they will shrug and tell you to just get a Windows machine. IME the ecosystem for Mac is slightly bigger, and if my tax records software crashes on Mac, I can at least call them up and don't have to jump through 100 hoops to explain why.

I know likes such as SteamOS may change the future of Linux in the coming years. I hear from plenty of gamer folks that they grow absolutely tired of spyware, nagware and AI riddled shitcan that Windows is these days. But 95% program support is not enough for people. It needs to near darn 100% for people to jump over. I think if an OS can deliver that, while also providing a consistent, stable and non-quirky experience, that it will be a no-brainer for many people.

[Simon]

The point is that no linux developer gives a toss weather or not you use their OS, they do it because it's what they do for fun.

The first thing that gets something adopted is that someone has something to gain from them doing so and spends a huge amount of money up front getting it out there. At this point success is more down to luck than how much money you throw at it, you would just be trying to sell people something they never asked for.

People are generally highly tolerant of garbage, that is why windows is garbage.

[ebastler]

Plenty of people get a Mac because it is not Windows.

Every single Mac fan I know prefers the Mac because of the better usability compared to Windows, including a fully-integrated ecosystem (desktop & mobile devices, backup infrastructure, content stores). I have never heard that as an argument in favor of Linux. 

[ejeffrey]

Yes, I'm serious, but I admit that I was thinking mostly about desktop computing rather than mobile computing. What you are describing (Web browsing, messaging) are content consumption activities and mostly take place on Android and iOS devices.

As for desktops, I think I am a fairly typical user, and I don't think I have a single app that - overtly or covertly - runs "in the cloud". Let's see:

You may not, which is fine.  But plenty of people do.

MS Visual Studio and Delphi for Windows software development

A ton of software development is not for windows, and that has been common to use "thin clients" all along, even if that's just SSH + emacs.  Windows software development itself is a decreasing niche vs web development.  But VSCode has a web version.  It's usually self hosted, not public cloud but still thin client, and plenty of businesses have thin client development workflows.

Arduino and VisualMicro for microcontroller programming

Arduino IDE has a cloud version.  And there are arduino plugins for VSCode as well.

MS Office 2019 for word processing, spreadsheets, etc

From what statistics you can find online, Google Workspace (cloud only) has a 50% market share worldwide, vs 45% for MS.  In the US google workspace is dominant in education and small business but MS Office is still more popular for the fortune 500.  But that's not counting the MS Office users who primarily use the thin client versions -- the workplaces I know that use MS Office are tending to default to the web version for new users, but still have a large fraction of desktop application users.  On the other hand, I would be _shocked_ if more than 5% of small businesses founded in the last 10 years primarily use the desktop versions MS office. 

Affinity and Corel Paint Shop Pro for graphics creation and editing
Soundforge Audio Studio, Audacity and Pocket MIDI for audio creation and editing
Cyberlink Power Director for video creation and editing
Siemens Solid Edge and KICAD for CAD work

I don't know of any pro grade could options for these, although there are plenty of cloud based photo/graphics editors for casual use. 

For mechanical CAD, again, OnShape has a very small market share -- CAD customers are mostly big established companies that have been doing this for decades and they are continuing to use the tools they have.  But it's proof that a lot of things that even 10 years ago you might have said are "impossible" to do as a thin client are now possible.  And OnShape is growing, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a major player in another 10 years.

So yes, I'm serious. Are you seriously telling me that most desktop users do all that "in the cloud"?

I'm saying there has been a dramatic move to thin client tools in the past 10 years and if you 'haven't seen evidence" of that, then you just aren't looking.  I think many, perhaps most people still have a handful of more special purpose tools that aren't readily available as a cloud service. Plenty of people use local apps because they prefer them, or that's just the tool they were used to.  But the list of "must do locally" is constantly diminishing.

[Haenk]

I see more and more often people dont have a PC or even a laptop at home. The phone does most of what they want to do.

I expected this for many years to eventually happen. However I expected the manufacturers to push more into the "breakout box" thing - connect your phone to a monitor, keyboard, mouse - and have your "more than powerful enough" desktop replacement. Though technically, you could use BT and wireless mirroring nowadays, so no extra box needed.
I think Samsung had that a couple of years ago, but it flopped.
Really, only gamers and a few poweruser really do need a desktop system now.
And (other than AI and search engines) the "mainframe aspect" is not the same, as the local machines are plenty powerful by themselves and cheap, so there is no need to dumb them down.
Replacing the desktop systems for gamers and poweruser is a thing as well - with the internet being fast enough, real time hires graphics can be streamed now...

[TUMEMBER]

Same hardware platform. Cow 11 "wins."

[Zero999]

I see more and more often people dont have a PC or even a laptop at home. The phone does most of what they want to do.

I expected this for many years to eventually happen. However I expected the manufacturers to push more into the "breakout box" thing - connect your phone to a monitor, keyboard, mouse - and have your "more than powerful enough" desktop replacement. Though technically, you could use BT and wireless mirroring nowadays, so no extra box needed.
I think Samsung had that a couple of years ago, but it flopped.
Really, only gamers and a few poweruser really do need a desktop system now.
And (other than AI and search engines) the "mainframe aspect" is not the same, as the local machines are plenty powerful by themselves and cheap, so there is no need to dumb them down.
Replacing the desktop systems for gamers and poweruser is a thing as well - with the internet being fast enough, real time hires graphics can be streamed now...

I don't like using phones because they're touch screen, I find I become frustrated very quickly because it doesn't always register my fingers properly, so I can definitely see a market for that, but I suppose it's cheaper just to buy a desktop PC.

Same hardware platform. Cow 11 "wins."

Did you watch the same video as I did? Windows 8.1 is the fastest and Windows 11 the slowest.

It's obviously for old hardware. There might be less of a difference on a system with more memory.

[Simon]

I see more and more often people dont have a PC or even a laptop at home. The phone does most of what they want to do.

I expected this for many years to eventually happen. However I expected the manufacturers to push more into the "breakout box" thing - connect your phone to a monitor, keyboard, mouse - and have your "more than powerful enough" desktop replacement. Though technically, you could use BT and wireless mirroring nowadays, so no extra box needed.
I think Samsung had that a couple of years ago, but it flopped.
Really, only gamers and a few poweruser really do need a desktop system now.
And (other than AI and search engines) the "mainframe aspect" is not the same, as the local machines are plenty powerful by themselves and cheap, so there is no need to dumb them down.
Replacing the desktop systems for gamers and poweruser is a thing as well - with the internet being fast enough, real time hires graphics can be streamed now...

So you can stream 2x 4k monitors ? that will be expensive. Miracast uses 25+ Mbps, so that is 50-70 Mbps for 2 monitors over the internet. It must be real time, so my mouse movements need to reach the shared server, be interpreted and then come back in 20ms over the internet to my screen having been compressed and decompressed. Don't be utterly ridiculous! This is so expensive and resource demanding. A total waste of electricity never mind the power demands of AI datacentres, the average desktop will go from a low power device to a power hungry abomination.

The hardware required to run such a remote system is basically the hardware that is used for a basic computer these days but you can use that hardware for something rather than just handling the IO that right now is done at a fraction of that overhead.

The point is that to replicate a basic to decent desktop setup will take at least what is already used in computers. Workstations are no longer a thing although they are coming back the opposite way around as the average PC is now being built to be cheaper and less capable as so much is now possible for so little that it is a novelty now to make a low power PC.

[TUMEMBER]

Same hardware platform. Cow 11 "wins."

Did you watch the same video as I did? Windows 8.1 is the fastest and Windows 11 the slowest.

It's obviously for old hardware. There might be less of a difference on a system with more memory.

Did you notice the quotation marks in "wins"?
I have the same opinion as you.

[PlainName]

I see more and more often people dont have a PC or even a laptop at home. The phone does most of what they want to do.

I expected this for many years to eventually happen. However I expected the manufacturers to push more into the "breakout box" thing - connect your phone to a monitor, keyboard, mouse - and have your "more than powerful enough" desktop replacement. Though technically, you could use BT and wireless mirroring nowadays, so no extra box needed.
I think Samsung had that a couple of years ago, but it flopped.
Really, only gamers and a few poweruser really do need a desktop system now.
And (other than AI and search engines) the "mainframe aspect" is not the same, as the local machines are plenty powerful by themselves and cheap, so there is no need to dumb them down.
Replacing the desktop systems for gamers and poweruser is a thing as well - with the internet being fast enough, real time hires graphics can be streamed now...

So you can stream 2x 4k monitors ? that will be expensive. Miracast uses 25+ Mbps, so that is 50-70 Mbps for 2 monitors over the internet. It must be real time, so my mouse movements need to reach the shared server, be interpreted and then come back in 20ms over the internet to my screen having been compressed and decompressed. Don't be utterly ridiculous! This is so expensive and resource demanding. A total waste of electricity never mind the power demands of AI datacentres, the average desktop will go from a low power device to a power hungry abomination.

70Mbps isn't a lot nowadays, but it's very doubtful that they would do that - they would merely stream the changes between frames (just like every existing video streamer does now). Mouse movement would be handled locally, and a click is probably fast enough to get upstream and cause something to happen quicker than your reactions would notice (unless you play games).

Only significant difference between the average phone and previous thin clients is the phone is smaller and faster.

[Analog Kid]

I'm telling that most desktop users don't do all that at all, except maybe the office suite, which they don't need either, because it's available in the cloud.

You (and me, and many other folks here) are in the minority, that's what I'm pretty sure about.

I second that emotion, although I have no hard data to back that up.
But surely the mass migration--among the general population, not the narrow sliver that comprises techies and geeks like us--to non-desktop devices (phones/tablets) surely indicates the way forward. Which of course is much more cloud-based.

People like us (like me) who actually use non-cloud applications on a general-purpose computer are very much in the minority. Even among businesses, with the exception, perhaps, of the ranks of code monkeys churning out code in the back room.

Everyone else can happily (they think) subsist on thin clients and everything-in-the-cloud.

Or on a local area network. Typical example, I think, is when you go to see the doctor; all their computers in the exam rooms are the thinnest of clients, with all the applications lodged on their server--maybe--or perhaps that too is in the cloud.

[Simon]

70Mbps isn't a lot nowadays, but it's very doubtful that they would do that - they would merely stream the changes between frames (just like every existing video streamer does now). Mouse movement would be handled locally, and a click is probably fast enough to get upstream and cause something to happen quicker than your reactions would notice (unless you play games).

Only significant difference between the average phone and previous thin clients is the phone is smaller and faster.

During the pandemic I had to work from home remote controlling my work pc. It was insane, 4k was out of the question, even HD was a shit show. Long story short I ended up installing a local hooky copy of the 3D CAD software. 70 Mbps is a lot when it has to be low latency. The internet is not low latency, it may appear so when your demands are small and you are not competing with many people. Move everything out of the PC to a server and it will get very expensive to match current system performance of cheap machines. Why do it? we are talking about a complete change in how infrastructure is used and it will be heavily used to get us back to where we are.

You can buy a computer for £200 that has plenty of performance for the average user, your "terminal" will cost as much.

[PlainName]

You can buy a computer for £200 that has plenty of performance for the average user, your "terminal" will cost as much.

Cost of computer isn't really relevant. It's whether we are allowed to run stuff on it that counts. With the trend towards subscription it's only a short hop to 'cloud too', so they have maximum control over your funds.

During the pandemic I had to work from home remote controlling my work pc. It was insane, 4k was out of the question, even HD was a shit show

That's because it's dealing with video. Think about X11 and, instead, sending window information. The info necessary to put up a window of some colour at a specific size and position is many, many times less than this paragraph. And once it's up it doesn't need to be constantly refreshed.

[DimitriP]

surely indicates the way forward. Which of course is much more cloud-based.

ok, ok...here is the thing....over the decades, present for a few of them, there is always some way "forward".
"everyone" was moving to the suburbs, everyone was buying station wagons, then minivans, then SUVs, then twin cab trucks, Porsche, Ferrari Maserati even Rols Royce have an SUV (Ugly as f**k, but it exists)...it's he way forward.

Pehaps fom most the way "forward" is not determined by some sort of compass, but which way everyone else is going.
That's where we get into trouble.
Neither on premise servers, nor remote hosted a'la rackspace, nor "cloud hosted" ie amazon/google/azure is alway a universal solution.
The big money is trying to get "everyone" to switch from something, to something else , and then to whatever the new something else wiil be.

After getting inendated with "cloud" propaganda", maybe 2-4 years ago the "new" "new-thing" was "Hybrid Cloud".
AKA, now that we got your cloud money, we'll also sell you a bunch of on-premise servers too! A Win-Win!!

For sure the only way forward is not to stick to what works, but whatever direction causes the "industry" to sell more stuff.
progress!

[ejeffrey]

OK, find me a professional 3D CAD program that runs on linux. Right so that is my employer out.

Onshape is web based but runs fine on Linux. But you are correct that there is no "professional" 3D cad tool that runs natively on Linux.

How many electronics CAD packages are there for linux? Apart from KiCad I don't know of any and KiCad is not a professional package or at least it is not a package that a business is likely to use unless as in my case the electronics engineer (me) gets to choose. Right so that is engineering out.

So this part is completely wrong.

Cadence Allegro runs on Linux.  Keysight ADS runs on Linux.  HFSS and comsol both run on Linux.  Sonnet EM runs on Linux.  Cadence virtuoso _only_ runs on Linux. 

The only pro EDA tools I know of that lack a Linux version are altium and microwave office.

[Analog Kid]

surely indicates the way forward. Which of course is much more cloud-based.

Pehaps fom most the way "forward" is not determined by some sort of compass, but which way everyone else is going.

[snip]

For sure the only way forward is not to stick to what works, but whatever direction causes the "industry" to sell more stuff.
progress!

Look: I'm not saying that this is the "way forward" I would prefer, but you know what? Nobody asked me.
I'm saying this is (probably) the way forward for all of us schmos, like it or not.
And yes, it is due as much to herd instinct and corporate greed as anything else.

I'm just reading the handwriting on the wall.

[Electrodynamic]

The XP interface was the best.

I'm running windows 10 and a free program called "Classic shell" so my interface looks just like XP. I tried learning the new windows interface but it sucks, there is no other way to put it, it just sucks.

Windows isn't going anywhere and the majority of programs are designed to operate on windows. I thought about switching but I'm too invested in it with CAD, CFD, CNC and countless other windows based programs.

[Jeroen3]

Windows isn't going anywhere and the majority of programs are designed to operate on windows. I thought about switching but I'm too invested in it with CAD, CFD, CNC and countless other windows based programs.

designed 

No, they are tech-debt locked on Windows.
Most of them probably use .NET Framework or DirectX which is only available on Windows.

[Simon]

The way it works is that joe public determines what happens. Joe public want the cool stuff, so corporates dress up whatever will make the most money as the next best thing. Joe public not wanting to be left behind falls for the pitch. And so critical mass is achieved, whether it's any good or not. Unfortunately everything about our existence is measure by money or value or what seems to be best, the actual facts are secondary.

[Simon]

I drive a cupra born, anyone who see's it tells me how great it looks, it I tell them it's not worth the £40k it costs they will say "but it looks nice". Fact, it is inferior to a renault zoe that comes in at £30k......

[PlainName]

Most of them probably use .NET Framework or DirectX which is only available on Windows.

.NET is available for Linux and Mac.

[Jeroen3]

Most of them probably use .NET Framework or DirectX which is only available on Windows.

.NET is available for Linux and Mac.

.NET Framework is not.
There are three version, they are all called .NET.
Microsoft 

[Ranayna]

I'm wondering, how much of that video is fakenews?
If so many desktops have been migrated to Linux, why don't we see that on statcounter?

Several reasons come to mind why statcounter statistics in particular might be skewed.
It can only look at the Browsers user-agent identifier that is sent when visiting a website running the statcounter codesnippet.

There is an incentive for Linux browsers to outright *lie* in their user-agents. There are some websites that do not want to work if they recognize a linux header, but work fine with a fake header saying it's windows.
Secondly, for now i suspect that the average linux user is somewhat more intent on data privacy. Blocking third party scripts is common then. If the statcounter script is blocked, it won't see a thing.

Supposedly a similar thing happened within Windows itself. As a reason why you can't move the taskbar horizontally anymore, it was said by Microsoft, that their telemetry shows that barely anyone uses the taskbar that way. Well... *I* was using it that war and still sorely miss it, but all my Windows telemetry is blocked, and I suspect that to be the case for a large part of "power users".

[ebastler]

I'm wondering, how much of that video is fakenews?

When I looked at the click-baity title and still photo and the AI-laden production with its urgent voice-over, I was wondering how much of that video is true. And after I looked at the 16 most recent videos from that Youtube channel, my guess is "not much at all".

EDIT: Proudly brought to you by Nouman Malik, "CEO - KNSAAE DIGITAL, Self-Made Millionaire at 20". KNSAAE DIGITAL, Pakistan's top YouTube Automation company. When I try to bring up their website, it redirects to a fake version of the major German public news service, with made-up scandalized content.

So, while the discussion in this thread may bring some interesting perspective -- I think it is safe to fully discount that video in the original post.