Hell freezes over...

[Simon]

Yes. We need to stop thinking like nerds and think like strategists.

Oh god, what have i been saying for pages? This not about Linuxes capability but the way it is offered and managed - or not.

Is Linux ready for the desktop? Of course. Has always been. Linus wrote Linux as his desktop and that's what he's been using ever since. Others, including me, jumped on the bandwagon long ago and never looked back.


But Microsoft dominates the desktop market and is sitting on top of more than 100 Billion $ cash. Such a costly war serves no purpose. Besides, the desktop marketing is shrinking.

also been saying this for pages. But he let everyone do with it as they please so now the average non technical user has 100+ distro's to choose from and will just wlk away from such a choice.

No the desktop userbase is not shrinking! sales of PC computers are. Come and tell me it's shrinking when M$ have told you that they have less licences activated than before. People build their own and now "a computer" is a laptop NOT a desktop PC.

The only way to make significant inroads in this market is to come up with some disruptive solution that Microsoft can't control.

So it's already clear why Linux has only 2% on the desktop when it is proved that Linux is perfectly capable to replace Windows.

Disruptive? god I hate that word, it's what people use to describe ideas they have that have 0 value or practicality.

[nctnico]

More facts:
Most industrial/professional EDA is available for Linux.
For example:

• Zuken CR-5000 & CR-7000
• Cadence Allegro
• Keysight ADS

The (mediocre) altium designer and Orcad are exceptions.

Not quite.. Orcad PCB Editor is Allegro and it runs on Linux. I've seen some screenshots of what seems to be a new schematics package for Orcad and it wouldn't surprise me if that runs on Linux. Dunno whether it will be an improvement over the good old Orcad Capture but we'll see.

Orcad PCB doesn't run on Linux. Orcad schematic capture runs on Linux, but you have to use the much more expensive Allegro if you stick with Linux. The new, stripped down version, rebranded as Orcad PCB, runs only on Windows.

Well Cadence naming for their products isn't very clear but what I'm currently running on Linux is called Orcad PCB Editor / Orcad PCB Designer which is Allegro. I don't know what package they sell for $430. The current schematic capture package (up to version 17.2) definitely doesn't run on Linux natively.

[Simon]

Yep. Problem with the desktop is it's shitty, difficult to program for, clunky and unreliable. And not only that the guardian of the realm is comic book guy from the simpsons on the average day.

So a laptop is different to program from a PC? I have 2 laptops but use my PC out of choice. It cost only 25% more than my most powerful laptop but has much more computing power and speed. my 8+8 Ryzen cores more than trump my 2+2 i7 not to mention faster RAM and dedicated graphics. Try and tell a 3D CAD person to use a laptop and they will look at you like: "what the"

[Mr. Scram]

I guess you have never heard of Redhat. They do just that.

I've heard of it as have many other people. The problem is that most have heard of it instead of using it on their desktops.

[bd139]

Yep. Problem with the desktop is it's shitty, difficult to program for, clunky and unreliable. And not only that the guardian of the realm is comic book guy from the simpsons on the average day.

So a laptop is different to program from a PC? I have 2 laptops but use my PC out of choice. It cost only 25% more than my most powerful laptop but has much more computing power and speed. my 8+8 Ryzen cores more than trump my 2+2 i7 not to mention faster RAM and dedicated graphics. Try and tell a 3D CAD person to use a laptop and they will look at you like: "what the"

Sorry the "linux desktop experience" not the hardware. I'd rather use a "desktop form factor" PC myself but I don't have the room for one and I do a lot of work in random places and on the road. As most of my power is heavy compute, I use my laptop as a terminal and fire up a beast of a machine in AWS as required.

I prefer desktop PCs because it means no pissing around with batteries and power management and they tend to last a lot longer.

[Simon]

So if the desktop PC/laptop is hard to program for what are people supposed to use for "serious" work. As you say your laptop is not even good enough.

[nctnico]

I guess you have never heard of Redhat. They do just that.

I've heard of it as have many other people. The problem is that most have heard of it instead of using it on their desktops.

And? It disproves your claim that you can't get enterprise level support for Linux. Besides that companies are free to provide such support along with their software products.

[Mr. Scram]

So if the desktop PC/laptop is hard to program for what are people supposed to use for "serious" work. As you say your laptop is not even good enough.

He's talking about Linux specifically. I thought that was clear.

[Simon]

So if the desktop PC/laptop is hard to program for what are people supposed to use for "serious" work. As you say your laptop is not even good enough.

He's talking about Linux specifically. I thought that was clear.

Sorry are we saying linux is hard to program on desktop environments or that desktop environments in general are hard to program for?

[Mr. Scram]

And? It disproves your claim that you can't get enterprise level support for Linux. Besides that companies are free to provide such support along with their software products.

Be careful not to misinterpret what people say. There is no Linux enterprise level support for applications like Solidworks and the hardware and drivers it needs so a lot of companies won't even consider it. With a marginal market share Dassault isn't going to develop for it either which is where the fragmentation starts hurting. They understandably have no interest in supporting the full software and hardware stack on their own to sell to a miniscule market. They're not in it for idealistic reasons.

[Mr. Scram]

Sorry are we saying linux is hard to program on desktop environments or that desktop environments in general are hard to program for?

I quote "linux desktop experience".

[Simon]

And? It disproves your claim that you can't get enterprise level support for Linux. Besides that companies are free to provide such support along with their software products.

Be careful not to misinterpret what people say. There is no Linux enterprise level support for applications like Solidworks and the hardware and drivers it needs so a lot of companies won't even consider it. With a marginal market share Dassault isn't going to develop for it either which is where the fragmentation starts hurting. They understandably have no interest in supporting the full software and hardware stack on their own to sell to a miniscule market.

Funny, that's what i said but apparently any linux program will work on any linux and be just as easy as a windows program.

[bsfeechannel]

Nope. It's actually mostly Redhat behind Linux.

Nope. It's the whole world. Including Microsoft.

I don't know why a surprising amount of people are so adamant the disappointing market adoption of Linux on desktop is some evil plot instead of looking at the product.

There's no evil plot. Just marketing forces at play.

But he let everyone do with it as they please so now the average non technical user has 100+ distro's to choose from and will just wlk away from such a choice.

If Linux came bundled with the hardware like Windows, MacOS or Android do, what choice of distro you'd be talking about? What Android distro do I have to chose?

Why vendors don't want to bundle Linux on the desktop? Because of all those options? Give me a break. They don't care about that. It's precisely their job to eliminate all those options.

Look at Android. Google standardize Linux and offer that to vendors. Vendors take care of all the incompatibilities with their hardware and offer the user a polished product.

You want an app on your Android phone or tablet? Just download it from Google store. Another way to narrow down incompatibilities between apps and the OS.

Disruptive? god I hate that word, it's what people use to describe ideas they have that have 0 value or practicality.

Hate not. Disruptive here means original. But I used that word exactly to show that Linux is not going to happen on the desktop. Not because of the reasons people are pointing out. If that were the case, Android would never have happened. If that were the case, MacOS would have killed Windows long ago.

[Mr. Scram]

Funny, that's what i said but apparently any linux program will work on any linux and be just as easy as a windows program.

Even when it would work on every single distro the market share would be too small. As discussed before it's also a matter of full on support rather than merely working. These companies want their asses properly covered and that means top to bottom hardware and software support.

[bd139]

So if the desktop PC/laptop is hard to program for what are people supposed to use for "serious" work. As you say your laptop is not even good enough.

He's talking about Linux specifically. I thought that was clear.

Sorry are we saying linux is hard to program on desktop environments or that desktop environments in general are hard to program for?

I am saying that Linux desktop environments are hard to program for. It's difficult to produce anything consistent, functional, polished with accessibility concerns covered etc. This is why things like Electron are rather popular now as that gives you all that and portability and less of an ass ache: https://electronjs.org/

Nope. It's actually mostly Redhat behind Linux.

Nope. It's the whole world. Including Microsoft.

I disagree. That's the illusion redhat want people to see but they basically waltzed in and standardised a lot of stuff according to their viewpoint and now run an operating of employing and coercing people to build to those standards. They are 100% right that we need a single Linux though for market purposes.

Microsoft defines pretty much nothing. The only thing they comtribute is Hyper-V drivers, SCVMM tools and toolchain they want you to use and hope you will pay for Azure. The core is off limits. Because redhat own it.

[nctnico]

And? It disproves your claim that you can't get enterprise level support for Linux. Besides that companies are free to provide such support along with their software products.

Be careful not to misinterpret what people say. There is no Linux enterprise level support for applications like Solidworks and the hardware and drivers it needs so a lot of companies won't even consider it. With a marginal market share Dassault isn't going to develop for it either which is where the fragmentation starts hurting. They understandably have no interest in supporting the full software and hardware stack on their own to sell to a miniscule market. They're not in it for idealistic reasons.

Now you are moving goal posts again. Why would Dassault not be able to do what others are doing (Cadence, Xilinx, Altera, Eclipse, etc, etc)?. After all as any Unix the APIs / libraries used by Linux software are based on well established industry standards. I guess what you are after is the ability to have trained support engineers who can help customers to get going. If they don't want to do that they can simply specify the customer needs to use Redhat enterprise Linux and get support from there. For other Linux distros customers are on their own. It is similar when companies saying their Windows program can only run on Windows 7. It will likely run on Windows XP and Windows 10 (with or without some extra effort) but no guarantees. The same goes for certain hardware configurations but Windows and Linux are no different in that respect. IOW: please stop the superficial FUD.


The primary reason companies like Dassault have not yet released Linux versions is higly probable due to the fact they never looked beyond Windows and therefore never developed their software to be cross-platform. Given the fact other major CAD companies do release Linux versions of their software is a clear indication it is worth the effort of having & supporting Linux as an OS. Googling 'Solidworks Linux' gives over 7 million hits so it is not like there is no demand to run Solidworks on Linux.

[bsfeechannel]

I disagree. That's the illusion redhat want people to see but they basically waltzed in and standardised a lot of stuff according to their viewpoint and now run an operating of employing and coercing people to build to those standards. They are 100% right that we need a single Linux though for market purposes.

Let's get down to the numbers.



So, Red Hat is one of the most prolific contributors to the kernel, but Linux is very, very far from being "mostly Red Hat". To begin with, Intel is the number one with 13.1%. You can see companies from all over the world. It is interesting to notice the amount of people not tied to companies. If we consider none, unknown and consultants, we have 15,6%, even more than Intel.

So, Linux is simply awesome. It managed to gather together who is who in the world of technology.

[Mr. Scram]

Now you are moving goal posts again. Why would Dassault not be able to do what others are doing (Cadence, Xilinx, Altera, Eclipse, etc, etc)?. After all as any Unix the APIs / libraries used by Linux software are based on well established industry standards. I guess what you are after is the ability to have trained support engineers who can help customers to get going. If they don't want to do that they can simply specify the customer needs to use Redhat enterprise Linux and get support from there. For other Linux distros customers are on their own. It is similar when companies saying their Windows program can only run on Windows 7. It will likely run on Windows XP and Windows 10 (with or without some extra effort) but no guarantees. The same goes for certain hardware configurations but Windows and Linux are no different in that respect. IOW: please stop the superficial FUD.


The primary reason companies like Dassault have not yet released Linux versions is higly probably due to the fact they never looked beyond Windows and therefore never developed their software to be cross-platform. Given the fact other major CAD companies do release Linux versions of their software is a clear indication it is worth the effort of having & supporting Linux as an OS. Googling 'Solidworks Linux' gives over 7 million hits so it is not like there is no demand to run Solidworks on Linux.

What goalposts? It's not anywhere near happening for obvious reasons and it won't be for the foreseeable future. It has nothing to do with looking beyond Windows or any such thing and is simply a sane business decision not to support a miniscule market. Anyone calling that FUD is likely part of the problem. It's not Windows and it's not Dassault. It's the already tiny Linux desktop market share hopelessly fragmented.

That many of these fragments are Comic Book Guy empires doesn't help either. I'd love to see a meaningful change and major third party player support but the whole premise of Linux for many contributors is that it's customisable to their personal wishes and desires. Having a central killer distro around which third party developers can rally goes against this so it doesn't appear that this is likely to happen. People would rather work on their own pet projects than to focus their efforts and projects inevitably seem to fork into smaller ones as they reach a certain size. The many different distros and quality of some of them are amazing if you consider their nature but it seems the very model and premise of it all needs to change for a push into the desktop market.

[Bud]

Nope. It's actually mostly Redhat behind Linux.

Nope. It's the whole world. Including Microsoft.

Microsoft has a support phone number. Can you provide a support phone number of your "world" 

[olkipukki]

The primary reason companies like Dassault have not yet released Linux versions is higly probable due to the fact they never looked beyond Windows and therefore never developed their software to be cross-platform.

I would say, they cannot figure out what does that's means 'Linux'   

Given the fact other major CAD companies do release Linux versions of their software is a clear indication it is worth the effort of having & supporting Linux as an OS. Googling 'Solidworks Linux' gives over 7 million hits so it is not like there is no demand to run Solidworks on Linux.

What distro you will use in a small shop? What about SME and an enterprise?

Not sure about 'major CAD' releases, but :
 - Siemens NX supports Red Hat / SUSE commercials only
 - BricsCAD supports Ubuntu only

[Karel]

More facts:

Companies that rely on Linux and want payed support contracts, go either to Redhat, Suse or Ubuntu.

Most industrial grade software that runs on Linux is certified for at least one of these.

[FreddieChopin]

Nope. It's actually mostly Redhat behind Linux.

Nope. It's the whole world. Including Microsoft.

Microsoft has a support phone number. Can you provide a support phone number of your "world" 

https://lmgtfy.com/?q=ubuntu+phone+number

literary first result +44 20 7630 2400

[bd139]

Microsoft support is terrible. I mean really the worst. Random advice on the internet is much better. Even their partner support is terrible when you pay the £185 incident cost.

The best way to get support from MS is shitposting on Hacker News after Scott G replies to something.

[Karel]

Small shops that don't want a payed support contract but need compatibility can use the following free alternatives:

Redhat:   CentOS
Suse:      Opensuse Leap
Ubuntu:  Ubuntu LTS

[techman-001]

Microsoft support is terrible. I mean really the worst. Random advice on the internet is much better. Even their partner support is terrible when you pay the £185 incident cost.

The best way to get support from MS is shitposting on Hacker News after Scott G replies to something.

http://www.dba-oracle.com/oracle_news/2005_9_19_microsoft_psychic.htm

    This article compares two support numbers: Microsoft Technical Support and the Psychic Friends Network. As a result of this research, we have come to the following conclusions:

        1 ) that Microsoft Technical Support and the Psychic Friends Network are about equal in their ability to provide technical assistance for Microsoft products over the phone ;

        2 ) that the Psychic Friends Net work has a distinct edge over Microsoft in the areas of courtesy, response time, and cost of support; but

        3) that Microsoft has a generally better refund policy if they fail to solve your problem.

    In terms of technical expertise, we found that a Microsoft technician using Knowledge Base was about as helpful as a Psychic Friends reader using Tarot Cards. All in all, however, the Psychic Friends Net work proved to be a much friendlier organization than Microsoft Technical Support.