Hell freezes over...

[techman-001]

Linus Torvades made the biggest mistake ever when he decided to let anyone use it for free and do what they like with it.

It would not exist in its current, extraordinarily useful form if he hadn't.

But it's useless to the average user. The only people using Linux are linux fanatics or people that just need to brows the web. Linus has no interest in anything but the kernel. So actually it is not a unified system.

The usual answer to any issue is to go fix it myself as though the average linux user can code. Obviously you have to be a coder to use linux.......

I've seen this type of argument over the last 40 years and I believe that there is no such thing as a 'average user' when it comes to computing.

I believe there are only USERS and ADMINS.

USERS do what they have been trained to do to use programs on a computer, spreadsheet, browser or click a menu on a car production line and fit a seat for example. If the computer doesn't work, they need the help of a admin.

ADMINS understand the computer, operating systems and programs they can diagnose problems and fix them.

Whether the Computer is Linux, Mac or Windows,  these roles and specialties are exactly the same.

It's just more Windows FUD that Windows USERS are also ADMINS by some incredible magic property of Microsoft. They're not, in fact Linux users are far more knowledgeable than Windows users who are far more knowledgeable than MAC users about the computers and software they use .... in general.

Enough of this ridiculous assertion that Windows is in any way superior to anything ... it's not. Windows is only marketed better, it is just another product shoved down your throat by highly paid sales and marketing experts who work for a company that has made trillions of dollars selling white goods to the unwashed masses.

Linux by comparison does not market anything, it is just a kernel. If you want to build a Linux Workstation, you'll need to be a Linux admin, and if you're a Linux admin, you will have no problems.

[Simon]

Who said windows was superior. Windows has one thing only going for it: world dominance. The question is why can't a competitor achieve something near that. I am not an admin on my windows computer at work. If you think my employer wants to go through the nightmare of getting programs to work on their chosen distro that is hopefully supported by the progrm then think again. Even people willing to pay money are reluctant to touch Linux.

My Dad struggles with windows, can you imagine him on linux where doing anything requires a command line. For some reason command lisne stuff is the only way to go but that is because it is not intuitive like the graphical settings panels of windows. This means that only some people know how to do anything important making them important. Home users do not want any of that shit.

[Monkeh]

My Dad struggles with windows, can you imagine him on linux where doing anything requires a command line. For some reason command lisne stuff is the only way to go but that is because it is not intuitive like the graphical settings panels of windows. This means that only some people know how to do anything important making them important. Home users do not want any of that shit.

Intuitive? Windows? It takes half an hour to find the actual settings they've tried to hide behind fancy new phone-style interfaces, and when you do half of it is broken anyway.

And no, the use of a command line to do things on Linux is not to 'make people important' - it's because it's easy to implement, functional, and portable. People have better things to do than write a 15 layer deep GUI interface to toggle a setting.

[Simon]

GUI's are user friendly. that is why windows became popular.

[bd139]

Intuitive? Windows? It takes half an hour to find the actual settings they've tried to hide behind fancy new phone-style interfaces, and when you do half of it is broken anyway.

And no, the use of a command line to do things on Linux is not to 'make people important' - it's because it's easy to implement, functional, and portable. People have better things to do than write a 15 layer deep GUI interface to toggle a setting.

I've got to laugh about that because despite windows being a pile of crap, dotfiles, DSLs and meta-languages galore. That's all I'm saying. I'm pretty adept at arguing with them but I don't like having several of them in my head.

As for the command line, it's filled with nuances galore.

The main advantages of Linux are: free, it stays like you left it, everything is transparent enough for it to support full automation. Pretty it is not!

[Simon]

The general public like pretty and easy. The general public do not use Linux. I would not use linux for linux, I would use it as another choice of OS to windows because i am struggling with the worlds most dominant OS.

[Nominal Animal]

Even as a Linux admin I use windows...

Does that say more about you or Linux? 

(I don't have a clear opinion on that. I know others like you; some Linux admins who use Macs but detest windows; and some like myself who (almost) exclusively use Linux; but not many enough to see any tendencies.  I do know that people, myself included, project our preferences, as if they were the consequence of the quality of the tools we have.  We humans are excellent at that sort of delusions.)

[Nominal Animal]

The general public like pretty and easy. The general public do not use Linux. I would not use linux for linux, I would use it as another choice of OS to windows because i am struggling with the worlds most dominant OS.

How are you struggling with Android?

[rstofer]

Linux has a huge share here because of licensing costs, not technical merit. Can you imagine how much companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon would have to pay Microsoft in licensing fees if they used Windows Server instead of Linux?

Linux is not a huge share anywhere.  It is running on less than 2% of desktops worldwide.  More that 25 years in the market, priced for free and they can't even give it away!  There are a number of reasons for this!

I have it on a desktop and a couple of laptops plus, of course, some Raspberry Pi's but I actually USE Win 7 and Win 10.  The Linux desktops don't get used all that often.

[nctnico]

But in reality the underlying libraries and software are the same so you can get most software to run on any Linux distribution.

So to be clear that means that even though a distro is not officially supported it will work regardless?

Yes because every distro uses the same software under the hood. And most software vendors are smart enough to provide their own libraries with their software instead on depending on what is actually installed on the machine itself. So if you have a working kernel, basic C library and -if it is a program with a GUI- a working X-windows install then every piece of Linux software should just work.

[Monkeh]

Linux has a huge share here because of licensing costs, not technical merit. Can you imagine how much companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon would have to pay Microsoft in licensing fees if they used Windows Server instead of Linux?

Linux is not a huge share anywhere.

Nonsense. Check the context of what you're quoting.

More that 25 years in the market, priced for free and they can't even give it away!  There are a number of reasons for this!

Yeah, they can't even give it away. It's only on a few billion devices. And nearly every supercomputer.

[nctnico]

Linux has a huge share here because of licensing costs, not technical merit. Can you imagine how much companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon would have to pay Microsoft in licensing fees if they used Windows Server instead of Linux?

Linux is not a huge share anywhere.

Please quit this nonsense. Repeating it doesn't make it true. Linux is so big in engineering that all major software companies have or are working on Linux versions of their software. They are doing this because customers want it and they are losing sales.

[james_s]

Indeed, the only place where Linux does not have a large share is the consumer desktop (and laptop) segment. When Joe Consumer needs a computer, they go to Walmart, Costco, Best Buy, Amazon, etc and buy one and it almost invariably comes with Windows. The average person just doesn't care, they use what it comes with and when it breaks they dump it and buy a new one. The other big reason is gaming, Windows still offers the best game support by a wide margin, this may change at some point but for the time being Linux is likely to remain small on the consumer desktop.

Everywhere else is a completely different story. The largest and wealthiest tech companies in the world with exception of Microsoft itself are mostly on Linux on the back end and in engineering.

[Monkeh]

Indeed, the only place where Linux does not have a large share is the consumer desktop (and laptop) segment. When Joe Consumer needs a computer, they go to Walmart, Costco, Best Buy, Amazon, etc and buy one and it almost invariably comes with Windows.

And with Microsoft's well established anti-competitive behaviour in this market that's no surprise. Should some company decide to try and make a single GUI to rule the *nix world and market it, Microsoft will swiftly attempt to wreck it. Several companies, including Dell, have made efforts to offer Linux as an option and it was made financially unviable.. by Microsoft.

[bsfeechannel]

The only people using Linux are linux fanatics or people that just need to brows the web.

I use Linux because the alternative has nothing better to offer. I do just about everything anyone else who uses Windows does. From video editing to desktop publishing.

For the record, several of my computers are dual boot. I occasionally run Windows to update it once or twice a year and that's it.

If there were any compelling reason to use Windows, I would have ditched Linux long ago.

Linus has no interest in anything but the kernel. So actually it is not a unified system.

If you think Linux is not dominant on the desktop because of the lack of unity or Linus Torvalds restricted interest,  you need more information.

Read Wired Magazine's "The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth", published in November 2000.

My favorite part in this long article is this:

In 1995, as Paul Maritz' 26-year-old technical assistant, Chris Jones had been among the Microsoft contingent that attended the infamous June meeting at Netscape. Jones claimed that nothing untoward had happened there. Indeed, he told me that the very idea that he'd been part of some "Microsoft mafia" trying to intimidate Netscape into dividing the browser market was "ludicrous" on its face. The Microsoft team was made up mostly of junior-level staff like him. The Netscape side was led by Barksdale, an "impressive guy who'd been doing business for a long time." Jones said, "I think the perspectives on who was being intimidated in that meeting differ." Taken at face value, the comment was a telling reflection of the insularity of the Microsoft culture. Regardless of Barksdale's age and experience, Netscape was a money-losing startup, and Microsoft was—well, Microsoft. When Jones walked in the door, what the Netscape people saw wasn't some 26-year-old kid; they saw a 26-year-old kid who spoke for Maritz, one of the most powerful executives in the software industry.

And that was how the DOJ saw Jones too.

The bold letters are mine.

Netscape was a disrupting technology at the time. I have this issue of Wired Magazine in print.

The usual answer to any issue is to go fix it myself as though the average linux user can code. Obviously you have to be a coder to use linux.......

This is the same answer I get as an average Windows user when Windows doesn't work. If Windows misbehave there's not a Microsoft hot-line I can dial to to make a tech knock at my door in half an hour with a smile and a tool kit to solve the problem in five minutes.

Last week I spent two hours on the net trying to find a solution to make a specific application to agree with Windows. To no avail.

The same application runs smoothly on Linux without any need for adjustments or tinkering with registries. I value my time.

[bd139]

Even as a Linux admin I use windows...

Does that say more about you or Linux? 

(I don't have a clear opinion on that. I know others like you; some Linux admins who use Macs but detest windows; and some like myself who (almost) exclusively use Linux; but not many enough to see any tendencies.  I do know that people, myself included, project our preferences, as if they were the consequence of the quality of the tools we have.  We humans are excellent at that sort of delusions.)

I was a Mac user for a long time. Had a top of the line 15" retina MBP. Then I bust the screen and found it cost more than a ThinkPad  . Figured I'd just flog it and buy a MacBook Air but that went back to Apple within 2 weeks because they keyboard ffuucckkeed uppp wiiith thhhiiiss hoorrribblle key duplication issue

It made a good large screen multimeter though



Main reason it's windows on a thinkpad it's the only thing that runs LTspice, Office, iTunes and doesn't give me a rash (macs do that).

Also wise move: never take your work home. And that's Linux 

[Halcyon]

But in reality the underlying libraries and software are the same so you can get most software to run on any Linux distribution.

So to be clear that means that even though a distro is not officially supported it will work regardless?

For the most part, yes. When I switched from Windows to Linux, I only had to find substitutes for a small number of programs, everything else had a native Linux version.

Linux is not a huge share anywhere.  It is running on less than 2% of desktops worldwide.  More that 25 years in the market, priced for free and they can't even give it away!  There are a number of reasons for this!

In the consumer market, yes Linux has a small (but significant) share, but if you look at the trend over the last few years, that market share has been on a steady increase. Even some gamers are taking up Linux as their primary operating system. Windows 10 isn't the only reason for this, but it's a pretty big one. There are many people out there willing to learn an entirely new "ecosystem" just to avoid using Windows 10 and I'm one of those people.

But it's useless to the average user. The only people using Linux are linux fanatics or people that just need to brows the web.

I wouldn't say that at all. With Distos like Ubuntu, Mint, Manjaro, Fedora and others, installing and using the system is easy. My best mates wife uses Linux because that's what's on the family computer and finds it simple to navigate. Gone are the days where you have to use command line to do simple tasks or compile your own drivers/software. I'd even go as far as saying that the Applications menu in XFCE is far simpler and cleaner than the Windows 10 start menu.

[techman-001]

Linux has a huge share here because of licensing costs, not technical merit. Can you imagine how much companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon would have to pay Microsoft in licensing fees if they used Windows Server instead of Linux?

Linux is not a huge share anywhere.  It is running on less than 2% of desktops worldwide.  More that 25 years in the market, priced for free and they can't even give it away!  There are a number of reasons for this!

Agreed,  on the Desktop, Windows dominates, you are totally correct but the *actual* reason is very well known, it is no mystery.

The *only* reason that Linux is not utterly dominant on desktops everywhere is because of the illegal monopoly stranglehold of Microsoft in the retail PC market.

There is NO other reason.

You can walk into any tech store and buy Windows PC's and Laptops with Windows pre-installed and working and it has always been that way. While you're in the same store, look for the Linux alternatives, where are they ?

Where are the preinstalled Linux PC's and laptops, the one that are CHEAPER than the Windows ones on the same hardware because Linux is Free ?

They are nowhere to be seen, Microsoft will either withdraw that retailers 'Windows discount' or sue them for 'breach of contract' if they offer Linux alongside Windows.

If anyone wants a pre-installed Linux PC or Laptop on the same hardware that they can buy Windows on, they have to build it themselves ... if they can get thru the layers of Windows only hardware lock-in that Microsoft has so carefully put in place.

If they want a laptop, they will have to buy a laptop with Windows preinstalled and wipe it to do so and Microsoft gets a sale anyway, this is well known as the "Windows Tax".

Linux is "not a huge share anywhere",  seriously ?

What OS utterly dominates in the Mobile Phone market ?    (Android) Linux.
What OS totally dominates on tablets ?  (android) Linux
What OS totally dominates on Chromebooks ? Linux
What OS totally dominates in routers, WiFi Ap's, managed switches, IoT devices, car infotainment, airline infotainment, gps devices ?    ... Embedded Linux
What OS totally dominates in the cloud ? Linux
What OS is Google built on ? Linux
Even the Arduino system you love so much is GPL licensed because it was developed using Linux components.

I could go on, hopefully you will get the idea.

[bsfeechannel]

Among some very essential Chinese tools (in China), only WPS and WeChat offer multi-OS with usable capability and stability. 9 out of 10 Chinese online banking services require an ActiveX or Windows version of Firefox/Chrome password widget in DLL format.

Fortunately, in the free world we have other options.

Windows is much less bloated than Linux, at least than a typical out of the box desktop Linux for noobs. You can certainly get a cleaner system by using Arch or Gentoo, but I would stick to noob Linux like Fedora or Ubuntu.

Let's see. I have Windows and Linux on this machine. I absolutely stripped down the Windows installation, leaving only very few applications, cleaned and defragmented the HD. No office, no nothing. It occupies 33GB. It takes forever to boot and and runs like a snail.

Linux, after 8 years of continuous use and the installation of countless applications, occupies just 9GB. Runs fast and works with simply whatever hardware I connect to the computer.

So in my dictionary the definition of bloat is when an almost useless OS is almost four times larger and way slower that a fully functional OS plenty of running apps.

I give up my partial freedom of speech

Never seen someone so proud of losing their civil rights.

[Black Phoenix]

Guys, guys, off topic but can we please stick to the topic in question and left the politics aside?

It exist a topic here that is already heavy politics about the trade war, so can we keep the rest of the forum without ideologies?

Thank you.

[bsfeechannel]

We have a uniform Windows fleet, so software R&D cost can be cheaper than doing that thrice, so we use more up to date software while relinquishing rights of choice. I'm okay with that.

This is news. A monopoly striving to outperform itself? Thought that's the job of competition. I need to rethink my concepts.

Since when speed is a function to size?

Who said that?

1TB SSD is nowadays less than $100, so who cares?

You do. You said Linux is bloated, i.e., inflated, swollen, dilated. I showed it is not.

My macOS boots in 20 seconds with a 1TB SSD, and the Windows it runs boots in 5 seconds within it. FYI, Ubuntu takes ~10s to boot using the same hypervisor (Parallels 14).

Even after Windows gives you a screen, it keeps booting. It keeps running something that occupies the CPU for quite some time.

I always use a fast computer (never more than 3 yrs old, mostly less than 2 yrs old before being used as a home server, then sold), so my pursue is absolute fast on good hardware, not "not sluggish" on a slow computer.

So, in 3 years time your computer will be sluggish. Your computer runs Windows.

In 8 years time my computer will still be fast. My computer runs Linux.

Conclusion: Windows is the worst addition to your hardware.

MOD: Content removed

[bsfeechannel]

Guys, guys, off topic but can we please stick to the topic in question and left the politics aside?

It exist a topic here that is already heavy politics about the trade war, so can we keep the rest of the forum without ideologies?

Thank you.

He started it! 

[bsfeechannel]

No. We are discussing the relation between Microsoft and Linux. You are discussing your only topic: China.

[bsfeechannel]

I recommend you to learn what is natural monopoly, and to see why electrical energy market in California is a disaster. A classic freedom over efficiency disaster.

"Natural" monopolies are heavily regulated. Microsoft are not a natural monopoly. They are a competitor just like any other.

Bloated in terms of speed, not in terms of size. Windows is huge because it stores all versions of differently optimized DLLs for different versions together to get the optimum efficiency. That's called side by side, or SxS.

This is called marketing speak. Linux is faster and has a smaller footprint in the HD and memory than Windows. Windows requires much faster (and expensive) hardware to be on par with Linux.

The logical conclusion is that Linux is more efficient. However, in the marketing reality distortion field, all of this bloatware is necessary because Windows is "optimally efficient". You, Microsoft and I know that this is bullshit.

So what? I can run programs, that's what I care about. And FYI, I never had to fear a system upgrade nukes my system with Windows, despite the rumors. update-grub gave me more than countable grieves.

Well. I think I have been luckier than you. I've never had a problem with update-grub.

When you get LO or OOo the same speed of MS Office then we can then talk.
Or any other editor rest of VIM faster than NP++.
Or just any games in OGL faster than DX.

Congratulations. You finally found a niche for Windows.

I'll stop replying political posts.

That's more like it.

[Karel]

Some facts:

1. Linux is the most used operating system in the world.

2. If you take Android out of the equation, Linux is still the most used operating system in the world.
    (Even on MS Azure, more than 50% of the instances are running/using linux....)

3. The only place where Linux isn't king, is the traditional desktop.