this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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First RCS now this, today has been wild

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[–] Djtecha@lemm.ee 47 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Once steam covers 90% of games windows becomes irrelevant.

[–] atthecoast@feddit.nl 41 points 1 year ago (5 children)

So what you’re saying is, 2024 will be the year of Linux on the desktop?

[–] skulkingaround@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I know that phrase is the most beaten dead horse around at this point but the year of the Linux desktop is going to be different depending on what your requirements are.

If you just need to browse the web, it's been there for over a decade. Same for most dev work.

For gaming, it's already there for most titles. Pretty much everything I try works now unless it has anticheat. It's been in a pretty good state for 2 or 3 years now at least.

For media creation and specialized software, it's not there yet. The big stuff like adobe will probably never get ported and the free alternatives vary wildly in quality. Blender is awesome. GIMP is not. There's also issues like lacking color management and iffy HDR support.

[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I do wonder about that, Gen Z and Alpha are less tech savvy than millennials, so there's non zero odds that it doesn't work out because Linux isn't easily accessible in the tablet/phone space yet.

And no android doesn't count

Mobile Linux is a thing, though I think it would take governments mandating unlocked/user-unlockable bootloaders to gain literally Any market share. It would also probably take a compatibility layer for running Android apps similar to Wine in desktop Linux, but Android already runs a Linux kernel, so projects like Waydroid are most of the way there already by just running Android inside a container.

[–] psud@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They are also less wealthy than X and millennial were at first computer purchase age. GNU/Linux is cheap

[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The OS is but the hardware ya gotta install it on could be another story, especially with gaming distros becoming more and more common

[–] psud@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Sure for gaming you want a pretty expensive machine, but for a user who wants web and email a used low end laptop will perform great

[–] HW07@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think we need rock-solid Wayland before we can expect TYLD. So I'm feeling 2026 minimum, then add a couple for some padding; so 2028 realistically. Think of how far we've come in 5 years, then imagine 5 years more.

If Nvidia's consumer GPU market share dropped a bit too, that'd help.

[–] frostinger@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Why do you think that Wayland is necessary for adoption? In my opinion it is the missing hardware drivers, compatability issues and "getting your hands dirty" while constantly tweaking stuff. Yeah it got better over the years, but most people want things to just work.

[–] HW07@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wayland is necessary because Wayland will be necessary in the near future, if it was next year then that would put a lot of people who don't know about X.Org and Wayland through a major shift which could rock-the-boat a bit too much and cause them to go back to Windows for the "just works" experience.

[–] Djtecha@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Look, I just finally tried steam on Linux and the game booted up. I am absolutely amazed as I thought I'd never see that day. Also windows is somehow just getting worse and worse. It's like they just want an entire ad platform. They lost me at this point. I have 0 need for any ms products again and that's a great feeling.

[–] frostinger@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

but WHY is it necessary??

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 year ago

But which distro though?

[–] Matombo@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

yes he did and if it doesn't happen we can shame him for all eternety, but i'm right with you there buddy: 2024 lets gooooooo!

[–] sederx@programming.dev 6 points 1 year ago

it already is irrelevant for many people

[–] Giooschi@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As long as many important games fall into that 10% many gamers won't consider Linux.

Not to mention Adobe/Office/CAD suites that will prevent others from switching.

And finally most pcs are sold with windows preinstalled and the vast majority of people don't even know that other OS even exist.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

Also a lot of high end medical equipment. Some stuff will only work/communicate with Windows XP, even today, for instance.

[–] baked_tea@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

For gamers-only maybe lmao

E: and people willing to spend several hours a month wondering why their OS broke again

[–] Johanno@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you don't tinker like the usual Linux user your os won't break more often than windows

[–] kadu@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Explain that to my Ubuntu install that killed itself over a package dependency no longer existing in the repo.

[–] Johanno@feddit.de -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As I said, not more often than windows

[–] kadu@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A normal software installation never broke a Windows install in my life.

[–] Sheeple@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah people often forget the sheer amount of quality checks and testing that windows updates go through. Sure it might do annoying things like changing your default browser but it never truly breaks.

There's also the fact that Windows native antivirus is so good that installing antivirus software is actually a downgrade. On Linux meanwhile you gotta run third party antivirus.

[–] Djtecha@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Windows updates break my clock... Idk about this claim that it doesn't break stuff.

[–] baked_tea@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This comment is a prime example of a drowning man trying to pull up by the straw

[–] Djtecha@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

I don't follow... And that's not an actual expression

[–] Johanno@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In my experience windows just breaks as often. Depending on hardware and software used.

Yes it might be better for windows 11 I haven't run that yet. And windows 10 almost never broke either so it is maybe better now

[–] baked_tea@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It literally almost never happens for windows yet Linux is generally most famous by this one thing

[–] Johanno@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It should not happen if you use debian, Ubuntu or Mint stable. As long you don't do anything exotic it should not break, at not since 2018.

And if it breaks remember you compare free software made by volunteers (and paid employees from companies) with much less money and they still manage to compete with the multi billion dollar company Microsoft.

[–] baked_tea@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
  1. It was on ~~Ubuntu~~ Debian

  2. Is exactly what I'm trying to say.. this is why Linux will not be ever better unless it is an actual product that can have real money poured into it. Except they don't really "manage to compete". Unless you count 1vs99 as non-laughable competition. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to use something else but as of right now, nothing can really compare with stability and being "plug and play"

[–] psud@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Hmm. My partner's Linux machine is perfectly stable and has been for a decade. I administer it for them, but that's just running updates and distribution upgrades every now and then

My server takes more effort, as distribution upgrades sometimes break stuff, for example the mailing list manager I have used for a long time became deprecated and was disabled on the recent LTS upgrade

My laptop running Ubuntu from the factory is perfectly fine, I'll probably make it less stable by moving it to Debian

[–] Djtecha@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

If you stick to Ubuntu you usually don't have that problem IMHO.