Linux Marketshare is Above 2-Percent For Third Month in a Row (omgubuntu.co.uk)

For the third month in a row the share of worldwide desktop computer users running Linux has been above two percent -- up from one percent -- according to data from web analytics company Net Market Share. From a OMGUbuntu report: We reported back in July that Linux marketshare had passed two percent for the first time, and that figure remains the highest they've ever reported for Linux, at 2.33 percent. But the share for September 2016 was almost as good at 2.23 percent. It's the third consecutive month that Linux marketshare has been above 2 percent. Those of us who use Linux as our primary desktop computing platform can take a degree of pride in these figures. They do show a clear trend towards Linux, rather than away from it. But we should also remember that statistics, numbers and reporting methods vary between analytics companies and that all figures, however positive, remain open to interpretation and debate.

Comments

2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[tnok85]

Or will it be 2017?

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly is the condition for you to consider a year "The Year of the Linux Desktop"?

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares about the desktop? Linux is already king of the tablet, the phone, the kiosk, the datacenter, the supercomputer, the embedded devices, the Internet... it just goes on and on. Windows can have the desktop... for now.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[tnok85]

I haven't been on Slashdot in a long time, but that used to be a joke around here whenever there was an optimistic news story about Linux on the desktop. I love (prefer) Linux on the desktop. Software requirements holding me back from fully embracing it.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[methano]

Linux, Desktop of the Future!

And always will be!

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Shane_Optima]

I haven't been on Slashdot in a long time, but that used to be a joke around here whenever there was an optimistic news story about Linux on the desktop. I love (prefer) Linux on the desktop. Software requirements holding me back from fully embracing it.

If the software in question isn't terribly performance intensive, that isn't a very compelling reason any more. You've plenty of virtualization options at your disposal, some ridiculously easy to set up (Virtualbox).

If the cumbersome-ness of the UI or of moving data between VMs has been holding you back, I humbly suggest you consider Qubes OS, which has been promoted so heavily as a security-focused distro that many people have failed to emphasize that it's also one of the best hypervisors around from a usability standpoint. Templates (your choice of Fedora or Debian) greatly streamline the updating process and it's very easy to share the clipboard (securely) or send files to another VM on the fly, but most importantly there's one single desktop (XFCE or KDE) with one taskbar, and color-coded windows can be freely mixed from multiple Linux and Windows 7 VMs (Windows 10 compatibility in the works, but in the meantime it can still be run as an HVM.)

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[rhodium_mir]

If the software in question isn't terribly performance intensive, that isn't a very compelling reason any more. You've plenty of virtualization options at your disposal, some ridiculously easy to set up (Virtualbox).

Why would I want to run Linux if I'm just going to run a Windows VM on it?

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Sperbels]

I care. I would prefer not to have to use Windows 10 on my desktop.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Shane_Optima]

Because you don't have to run all of your applications in Windows? You can do the absolute minimum amount of work in Windows, only the stuff that you need Windows for, and then right-click to instantly send those files over to a Linux VM. The extra work involved is trivial. If you're apathetic about the differences between Windows and Linux desktops then that might not be much of a win[1] , but tnok85 (the person I was replying to) said that he preferred Linux desktops.

Also, even if you only ran Windows 7 in Qubes (not using any Linux VMs other than the built in connectivity ones that are already configured for you), it's still actually a "Linux Desktop". You never have to look at the start button if you don't want to--all of your Windows 7 applications can appear seamlessly in KDE or XFCE.

Also, Qubes' template system can be applied to Windows 7 in addition to Linux VMs. You can[2] very easily create multiple Windows VMs based on the same base image. There are a lot of ways you could use this functionality, but one possibility is one Windows VM could be strictly offline for security, one could be a regular online Win7 VM, and a third one could exclusively use a VPN or Tor ProxyVM for internet connectivity. And any application you install in the Win7 template would automatically propagate to all VMs based on that template (multiple templates are possible, either from-scratch or by cloning.)

Almost all of this is doable using GUI tools (I think you might need a tiny amount of CLI usage for setting up a Win7 template but there are guides available.


1. Except to the extent that using a hypervisor like Qubes is *great* for easy portability and security. System==>BackupVMs==>[just a few clicks later]==> done. Your entire environment is now be copied over and transferable to any other physical machine running Qubes. No CLI fiddling required (unless you want to), and you can even encrypt the backup without jumping through any extra hoops.

2. Well, the precise legality of this is... a gray area, but certainly you could do this legally if you had the right license from MS, or multiple licenses.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Yvan256]

It really doesn't matter, the desktop is dying.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Shane_Optima]

Who the hell modded this (and this) troll? I'm not annoyed so much as confused. A rabid pro-Windows user or something?

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[PrimaryConsult]

Best of both worlds?

I boot into my windows VM about once every 2-3 months but I can see the appeal for those who need to run just one omnipresent app in Windows.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Build a table with your software needs.

If you're used to programming on WIndows, then your problem is that you know too much. It would be easy for you to learn the Linux way, but you're burdened by years of acquaintance with MS-related things.

If you're not a programmer, just a (power) user, things are way easier:

Use case Ö Linux way Ä Notes
pdf reading etc. Ö installed by default in most Linux versions Ä KDE's Okular is great
editing text Ö installed by default in most Linux versions Ä kwrite, leafpad among the nicest
browsing Ö Chrome, Chromium (free version), Firefox
watch online videos Ä Chrome, Chromium (free version), Firefox Ö for protected content like Netflix, use Chrome (64-bit only)
watch local videos/CDs Ä VLC, Mplayer, among others
office like Word Ö Libreoffice Writer Ä install Microsoft fonts for greater compatibility
office like Excel Ö Libreoffice Calc
drawing (shapes) Ä Libreoffice Draw or Inkscape or Dia Ö Dia is kinda like Visio
drawing like Photoshop Ä GIMP or Krita Ö enough for 90% of tasks
email Ä use webmail or Thunderbird Ö there are many other apps -- e.g. Claws
scanning Ä Simple Scan or XSane Ö Simple Scan is enough for daily life
music playing Ä complete like Amarok and simple abound Ö I just use VLC
audio editing Ä Audacity
file manager Ö Dolphin, Midnight Commander (retro)
calculator Ä Galculator Ö does RPN
games Ä lots and lots

These are just examples, you have other needs -- and there are lots of apps, too.

Slashdot said "Filter error: Please use fewer junk characters." because I used vertical pipes as table lines. And blanks are considered junk, too.
Other graphic symbols are removed (even ones used in legal texts). Accented letters used in East Europe (like ^ over c) are also removed. I wonder if Russian would be, too. Anyway, those German letters worked... you can import the text to a spreadsheet and use them as separators.

Such an amount of work to post a simple table.

I wonder: if we cannot post code here -- and code requires lots of space to show structure in the most clear way -- what is Slashdot for? Trolling?

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Shane_Optima]

Seriously, you people modding this down... post AC to explain why. You've got me curious now.

Do you think I'm lying? The context of this conversation is someone who already says he PREFERS Linux desktops but is stuck with Windows due to some applications he needs. I'm explaining an elegant solution for his situation, not trying to convince anyone who is convinced that Linux desktops are far inferior to Windows' current desktop.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're not a programmer, just a (power) user, things are way easier:

You didn't even start to list the capabilities of the Linux universe. Maybe doing a disservice to the occasional lurker looking for information [take no offense, please]

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

> You didn't even start to list the capabilities of the Linux universe. Maybe doing a disservice to the occasional lurker looking for information [take no offense, please]

No offense taken. And you're right, there's an entire universe, so there's no reason to be offended.

I just wanted to give a brief look (hence the short table) and with that show that a Linux desktop is not much different from a Windows or Mac one.

People can adapt. Day by day until all main tricks are mastered... I guess a user would be feeling at home after some 4 months (and certainly much less if she/he is a teenager with time to spare).

From then on, it's like you say, exploring a never-ending land full of novelties, new technologies -- and even reviving old computers. It's much more enriching than Windows, for instance.

Now that I think, may that's the problem: we need a lamer, more limited Linux to serve as a bridge for those coming from Windows. It needs not to be identical, but it needs to be as limited as Windows is. When a user gets proficient at this simplified/small Linux -- then it would be time to get to a more advanced version.

Thanks for your comment, which gave me this idea. Maybe we can start from something already going in that direction -- like Zorin -- and simplify it further... I'll be giving some thought to that.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I still run my 1991 Amiga 3000 desktop, eh? Still boots fine, still works, still does everything I need it to do. I mean, what other system offers up to 49 devices at up to 80MBps? Damn right, lil cowboy.

Disclaimer: If you happen to run an OS that fits in under 2MB, this may work. YMMV. IMHO. HAHAHA. SUCKAZ.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that I think, may that's the problem: we need a lamer, more limited Linux to serve as a bridge for those coming from Windows. It needs not to be identical, but it needs to be as limited as Windows is. When a user gets proficient at this simplified/small Linux -- then it would be time to get to a more advanced version.

And I completely agree with you.

All the best.

Same AC

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[tepples]

Try these:

* PDF, not just viewing, but form filling and submission. I'm told recent Evince and Okular can fill forms to some extent, but it's not complete.
* Watch local BDMV (Blu-ray Disc)
* Fill in Amazon's Excel spreadsheets with validation macros
* Debug NES programs (FCEUX SDL version lacks a debugger, but FCEUX in Wine has one)
* Play online multiplayer with friends who own copies of Windows PC games that happen not to have been ported to Linux
* Develop desktop applications that run on users' PCs, without having to issue a copy of VirtualBox and Linux to each user

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[antdude]

What are the software requirements?

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[nbritton]

If the software in question isn't terribly performance intensive, that isn't a very compelling reason any more. You've plenty of virtualization options at your disposal, some ridiculously easy to set up (Virtualbox).

Why would I want to run Linux if I'm just going to run a Windows VM on it?

Why would I want to run anything in a VM when I can run it all natively on a Mac?

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[brainpicnic]

Make your shit easier to use and it might be.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[smallfries]

Holy shit - user ids are over 4M now?!?

I have no idea how long that implies your account has been here, but I'll reply as if you are fairly new so feel free to ignore this if it is obvious to you. The moderation system is not meant to be a robust measurement of the quality of a comment. It's meant to be a lightweight feedback that means we don't have to browse at +4 to avoid the GNAA trolls and other filth who lurk in the lower levels.

There are two ways the moderation system is used:
* drive-by moderation when people burn off their points quickly and express an opinion of your post. Hopefully this converges to reasonable average over time.
* trolls with legions of sock-puppet accounts that attempt to harass particular users they've argued with.

Beyond that, I wouldn't take it too seriously. Qubes sounds quite interesting, I'll take a look at it later so thanks for the pointer. My problem is somewhat different to the OP - I'm running an ubuntu desktop on a machine that I would prefer to be running debian. Sadly I can't make debian stable on the skylake it uses as the microcode update isn't working, hence the sledgehammer approach of sticking ubuntu on it.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Shane_Optima]

I had two people different mod me troll in fairly quick succession long before anyone modded me up (plus another troll mod on another reply in this chain), so I felt the need to request a clarification. Obviously yes, it's the internet and people will do stupid shit but they didn't seem like posts that should have been particularly controversial.

Qubes isn't 100% perfect; there are a couple usability points that Joanna has apparently sacrificed in the name of security, namely GPU passthrough for Windows (e.g. for 3d gaming) and automatic icon transfer to Dom0 (improving, but still far from perfect.) And there are a handful of relatively minor bugs I've seen, but overall the learning curve is remarkably shallow for what it's actually doing behind the scenes (and also the performance has been utterly astonishing, at least for someone like me who is coming over from Virtualbox.) Everything is very GUI-centric, and of the things that still require the CLI it's generally pretty straightforward (with well-written man pages) and Joanna has expressed the intention to eventually have it all doable via GUI.

It is supposedly possible to build an Ubuntu template for Qubes but I've never tried. Qubes ships with Debian 8 but I think 7 and 9 are available as well, so if Debian unstable fixes the issue that might be the best way forward if you wanted to try Qubes.

Of course, almost any distro is easily installable as an HVM (which is the label Qubes and Xen uses for a "second desktop" approach akin to Virtualbox or QEMU / KVM), but you won't have the window mixing, clipboard sharing, PV / PVH drivers (necessary for the near-native speeds Qubes' templates offer) or easy file sharing functional right out of the box.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Shane_Optima]

I had two people different

Yoda speak I know not why did I.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Shane_Optima]

Also, to clarify, Dom0[1] is currently based on Fedora. So, depending on the details of that Skylake issue, you might not need to do anything special.

1. This can be very roughly thought of as the "host OS" but Qubes has managed to move a lot of stuff out of Dom0 for security reasons (most notably net connectivity--for updates, Dom0 has to use a special proxy through one of its VMs. From my understanding, Dom0 itself has no network driver whatsoever.)

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

You can do the absolute minimum amount of work in Windows, only the stuff that you need Windows for, and then right-click to instantly send those files over to a Linux VM.

I'm a Mac user. What is this "right-click" of which you speak?

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

and then right-click to instantly send those files over to a Linux VM.

Why bother with sending files?

Wouldn't you simply set up the guest Linux VM so that it has access to the same file system as the host Windows system?

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds awesome! I'm going to have to check this out. Thanks for bringing it up.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, one by one:

> * PDF, not just viewing, but form filling and submission. I'm told recent Evince and Okular can fill forms to some extent, but it's not complete.

Viewing is done and working well, as already mentioned. Form filling can be done in a variety of ways, from using an online tool (unsafe as someone might get critical information) to PDF readers (not only Adobe's) annotation feature to Libreoffice Draw to fill data into text boxes. Submitting if done on paper is easy; if done electronically, then the online tool might be the best alternative.

I've read such form fields are being dropped from the pdf standard; in my experience, we are already past that technology. I deal with a lot of oficial user interaction, both as a Linux user at home and in various systems in a Windows-only environment at work: I only find server-based form-filling, where data is inserted, validated and directly input to a database (optionally with an intermediary "load" step, for additional verifications).

Even in public departments, where forms are still used, one usually interacts with asp pages (or php) and the resulting filled form is printed to a simple pdf file as a receipt -- which then can be printed, as I have occasion to need it.

> * Watch local BDMV (Blu-ray Disc)

OK, this is akin to the IE/Edge-only ability to play HD video from Netflix. It sucks, but in most cases we may need to downgrade the video experience to a lower-quality one (such as the one called "HD-ready", 1280x720). In many settings, that should be suffice, either because your hardware is limited anyway or because the original source is/was distributed with lower quality (to avoid piracy, I suppose).

Now that Youtube has started to offer 4K content (and, yes, I don't have a link good enough to watch it), one wonders what will happen to disks, be it Blue ray or conventional.

Read this article to learn that even Windows doesn't care much about that format anymore:

http://www.howtogeek.com/240487/how-to-play-dvds-and-blu-rays-on-linux/

> * Fill in Amazon's Excel spreadsheets with validation macros

Well, if Amazon or any other corporation gives you Microsoft-based files with macros, that is a sure sign you are into some trouble. Actually, that is one reason people started to use .net, .asp or .php-based pages server validation (because a wicked user could bypass local/Excel validation and you'll have to re-validate it again anyway!).

> * Debug NES programs (FCEUX SDL version lacks a debugger, but FCEUX in Wine has one)

I'm not familiar with NES programming, but that is ancient, everybody and his dog should know how to it by now; I'd need to explore the vast array of Linux debugging tools before being able to answer this one.

> * Play online multiplayer with friends who own copies of Windows PC games that happen not to have been ported to Linux

Well, that's the same with any other Windows-only software. And by the way, Windows is also useless if such friends are using Apple (iOS or OS X) based software (or Android-based, BTW).

We probably should stop talking about games on Windows since some time, as the world is moving to more portable platforms. It is easy to realize that both Apple and Google will leverage their mobile dominance into other areas, games being one of the first. Am I the only one to see that?

> * Develop desktop applications that run on users' PCs, without having to issue a copy of VirtualBox and Linux to each user

I'd say that's what Firefox, Chrome and Libreoffice are (no virtualization involved), but actually anyone can do it by opting between the two major toolkits (gtk or Qt). Or Java, as it works on a wider range of OSes.

The bottom line is there will always be corner cases which Linux won't cover (or will cover later, but not now). This does not mean Linux cannot solve 95% of all daily needs. Also, there are many things that Window won't be able to do, but on Linux are trivial.

All in all, using Windows is not as obligatory as it once was. As Microsoft itself started to release software for other platforms (Android, for instance), this is only accelerate from now on.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

> All the best.
> Same AC

Likewise!

And BTW, Google seems to be moving onto the desktop with Andromeda OS. Maybe that will be the bridge we need.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

I care. I would prefer not to have to use Windows 10 on my desktop.

You don't have to. Even if you buy a computer with Windows 10, it's pretty simple to replace it with Linux. There's a Linux distribution for everyone's comfort level.

I'd recommend that you practice user data backup & restore as part of your initial setup/distribution choice. If you are not doing that you will lose your data at some point (& would under Windows too).

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Shane_Optima]

I never brought up a Windows host. The person I was reply to specifically wanted a Linux desktop.

With Virtualbox using Guest Additions yes, you can have shared folders. I'm sure something equivalent exists in QEMU/KVM. If you need truly simultaneous access to the same file from both Linux and Windows then this would be the easiest solution (although if you were familiar with Xen I'm sure you could modify Qubes to do the same.)

Qubes is designed with high security in mind, and so its default configuration requires you to manually approve whenever any VM wants to interact with another one (this is pretty darn fast in practice.) Short of altering how Xen is working behind the scenes, you could doubtless write some scripts to mimic some basic form of folder sharing if need be, although to avoid seeing the GUI prompts you'd need to modify Dom0 as well.

The "host" in Qubes, Dom0, is based on Fedora Linux, but it isn't intended to be used for regular work. If you had anything performance-intensive you could use it pretty much normally (and that would be the only good reason to even consider using Dom0 for anything other than hypervisor and desktop management stuff), though for security reasons it was intentionally designed to not have any network access. Qubes is currently based on Xen, which is a type 1 hypervisor and while it's commonplace for people to think of Dom0 in Xen as being the equivalent of the host OS in a Virtualbox / VMWare / QEMU setup, this is not quite true as hardware drivers can be exclusively put in VMs outside of Dom0 which, in combination with protection via vt-d (which Qubes does make use of), is an extremely secure way of doing things.

A focus on security concerns does have a slight impact on usability in Qubes here and there, but for the vast majority of usage cases (i.e. unless you're switching between Windows and Linux to work on the same set of files a couple dozen times an hour) it's much easier than juggling multiple desktops using something like Virtualbox. Qubes' VMs are much faster, too, even though Virtualbox claims to be using paravirt drivers as well now.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Shane_Optima]

Also, being able to send arbitrary files through the file browser (right-click menu) or command line could, depending on the typical tasks encountered, be a bit more flexible than simply sharing select folders, although I've already acknowledged that instantaneous, simultaneous access to the same files could obviously be a boon in some setups.

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[tepples]

Even in public departments, where forms are still used, one usually interacts with asp pages (or php) and the resulting filled form is printed to a simple pdf file as a receipt

In some cases this is true. But other cases still rely on PDF form submission from within the PDF reader. In these cases, it's either Adobe Reader or don't do business unless and until the PDF form submission is no longer required, possibly for years.

[Blu-ray] is akin to the IE/Edge-only ability to play HD video from Netflix. It sucks, but in most cases we may need to downgrade the video experience to a lower-quality one (such as the one called "HD-ready", 1280x720)

In the case of movies on disc, which is still an important feature for people who live outside the service area of fiber, cable, and DSL, the next step down from 1920x1080 is DVD, which is 704x480 (or 704x576 if you live in a 50 Hz region).

Actually, that is one reason people started to use .net, .asp or .php-based pages server validation (because a wicked user could bypass local/Excel validation and you'll have to re-validate it again anyway!).

Amazon Marketplace Web Service does revalidate the seller's feed on the server after it has been uploaded. A preliminary validation on the client, however, saves time in two ways: the seller doesn't have to wait for the processing report from the server indicating boneheaded errors, and the prevalidation prevents a clearly malformed feed from counting against a seller's feed upload quota. It's the same concept as validating an HTML form with JavaScript on the client to quickly catch obvious errors before revalidating it on the server to enforce business rules, except JavaScript is replaced with Excel to avoid having to deal with browsers' security restrictions on clipboard use.

And by the way, Windows is also useless if such friends are using Apple (iOS or OS X) based software (or Android-based, BTW).

I was under the impression that many video games were developed for desktop and laptop computers rather than smartphones because not all genres are particularly amenable to control with nothing but the touch screen and device rotation. I was under the further impression that far more games were exclusive to Windows than to macOS.

We probably should stop talking about games on Windows since some time, as the world is moving to more portable platforms

Such as laptop computers that run Windows.

Develop desktop applications that run on users' PCs, without having to issue a copy of VirtualBox and Linux to each user

I'd say that's what Firefox, Chrome and Libreoffice are (no virtualization involved),

As for Chrome, Google has announced a plan to phase out Chrome Apps on all platforms other than Chrome OS. This puts it in the same category as Firefox. As for Firefox, the Web platform is still missing many features for security reasons, such as clipboard access, access to specialized devices that use USB or Bluetooth connections, and ability to connect to servers operated by unaffiliated third parties such as those running protocols other than HTTP or without a CORS header. Besides, you'd still need to either have users install an HTTP server on localhost to serve the application to Firefox or include the cost of a cellular data plan in the price of the application. As for LibreOffice, more Windows users use Excel than it, and choosing to support Excel and not LibreOffice rather than LibreOffice and not Excel saves support costs.

but actually anyone can do it by opting between the two major toolkits (gtk or Qt).

Good luck running a binary for GTK for Windows or Qt for Windows on anything but Windows. Or did you mean developers should spill their trade secrets by publishing source code for users o

Re:2016: Year of the Linux Desktop

[Anonymous Coward]

> it's either Adobe Reader or don't do business unless and until the PDF form submission is no longer required

Somehow I'm unable to believe some business would lose a client over such a technicality; more probably they have a direct phone for impaired people or the like.

> In the case of movies on disc, which is still an important feature for people who live outside the service area of fiber

OK, then the user must use Linux to play the blue ray, like described over the net.

> except JavaScript is replaced with Excel to avoid having to deal with browsers' security restrictions on clipboard use.

You are aware that lots (and I mean lots as in every single one) site provides a shopping cart, aren't you? Using an Excel validating spreadsheet may even be useful for wholesale purchases, and companies simply have no problem in keeping a Windows computer in a corner for eventual use.

> I was under the impression that many video games were developed for desktop and laptop computers rather than smartphones because not all genres are particularly amenable to control with nothing but the touch screen and device rotation.

It's 2016. We got Chromecast and Bluetooth keyboards & mouses. How long do you think the conventional Windows computer will still hold for people who can arrive at home and have instant, automatic connection to a TV and such input devices.

> I was under the further impression that far more games were exclusive to Windows than to macOS.

Isn't MacOS discontinued? I guess Apple is more concerned with iOS these days considering the obscene amount of value they get from Appstores (?sp).

>> We probably should stop talking about games on Windows since some time, as the world is moving to more portable platforms

> Such as laptop computers that run Windows.

I say that to my friends when they're talking about smartphones... the screen is bigger, easier to read etc. etc. etc. They don't even stop to answer me. The mere thought of carrying a notebook these days compared to a smartphone (no matter how big) looks like an anachronism. It's over, I know that, the average Joe knows it and what is worst: even Microsoft knows it -- that was the Windows Phone primary motivation, too bad it didn't work, but they're having the best idea which porting their programs to iOS and Android.

>>> Develop desktop applications that run on users' PCs, without having to issue a copy of VirtualBox and Linux to each user

>> I'd say that's what Firefox, Chrome and Libreoffice are (no virtualization involved),

> As for Chrome, Google has announced a plan to phase out Chrome Apps on all platforms other than Chrome OS.

I was not talking about platforms but rather about the programs themselves. People code applications for Linux and if they're good the distributions include them (what's one more in 50,000+?). The user merely installs it. Linux has had application stores way before others (tbh, I don't know it's a Linux thing). Even Microsoft is trying to copy the idea. Traditional software installation on Windows is a pain in comparison.

Heck, if I want to creat an interesting app, I'd do it very easily. I don't need a publisher or anything. If I make it e.g. for Ubuntu, it will probably will be available for Mint etc. Piece of cake.

> Good luck running a binary for GTK for Windows or Qt for Windows on anything but Windows.

You realize those platforms came from Linux, rigtht? Developing for gtk or Qt on Linux is insanely easy for any developer wanting to have it on that OS. No big deal at all. Of course, the binaries won't be compatible between OSes, but for the author which has the source, no problem.

> Or did you mean developers should spill their trade secrets by publishing source code for users of non-Windows platforms to recompile?

No, I didn't. In certain markets, for a certain amount of time, companies can and probably will profit from closed source -- even if they plan t

OSX

[phantomfive]

It wouldn't surprise me if this trend continues, as Microsoft doesn't care as much about Windows anymore, and Apple has gone kind of crazy.

When Microsoft releases Excel for Linux, you'll know that its time has arrived.

Re:OSX

[tnok85]

The only thing holding me back from a Linux desktop at home is gaming. Too many games just don't run well enough - even with a beast of a system, can't get 144hz reliably without any glitches. :( I run it in a VM 24/7 though, and do all of my internet browsing and most of my work in it. But Windows has to be on the hardware for me.

Re:OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

By the time Excel is out for Linux, Wayland will be in common use, and Wayland only supporst 32-bit color. 16-color apps like modern Excel won't run on Wayland.

Re:OSX

[lactose99]

Steam and multi-platform SDKs like Unity have made some pretty remarkable inroads on Linux gaming these days, much much more so than the Loki days of old.

Re: OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

they already released powershell

Re:OSX

[thegarbz]

as Microsoft doesn't care as much about Windows anymore

Microsoft cares a lot about windows. What they don't care about is what end users think about it.

Re:OSX

[matbury]

By the time Excel is out for Linux, Wayland will be in common use, and Wayland only supporst 32-bit color. 16-color apps like modern Excel won't run on Wayland.

Or perhaps they'll realise that they can do everything they need in LibreOffice.

Re:OSX

[Alain Williams]

When Microsoft releases Excel for Linux, you'll know that its time has arrived.

For many corporate users the big thing that they need is seamless interoperation of email -- what they really mean is the groupware (calendaring, etc) that is wrapped up in a proprietary MAPI protocol. A free solution to MS exchange (all of it, not just the easy bits) that talks to MS desktops and free Linux desktop software that talks to MS exchange is long overdue.

Re:OSX

[phantomfive]

Not like in the Ballmer days. Windows is only a small part of Microsoft revenue now.

Re:OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

2 percent is really low number and does not ChromeOS and Android devices which use Linux kernels.

Re:OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

> What they don't care about is what end users think about it.

And why would they? They care about what _buyers_ think, because they want them to buy Windows.

A user is a buyer already won and serves no purpose.

Alas, the sooner he gets unhappy about what he bought, the sooner he will be foo... motivated to buy the next version.

Re:OSX

[Gavagai80]

Excel runs in EGA color?

Re: OSX

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that you are talking about emails for a second, but the I saw that you are talking about MS Exchange messanger /s
Both Evolution and Thunderbird with a proper plugin work just fine with MAPI.

Re:OSX

[thegarbz]

That could have a lot to do with them giving it away. It may be a small part of their revenue but it's a core part of their strategy. e.g. Windows forms a core part of their ever growing hardware division (Surface line), it is forming the basis for their xbox division, and ... just for completeness sake I'll mention the pitiful smartphone attempts. Just because Microsoft has entered a new market where business customers with some serious money are participating (enterprise cloud services) doesn't mean they can happily move along and let windows die.

But yes I would agree that in the Ballmer days windows was the core focus because Microsoft was completely inept at entering any other market other than the xbox.

Re:OSX

[NormalVisual]

The only thing holding me back from a Linux desktop at home is gaming.

Gaming is one sticky point for me, but the primary thing keeping me on Windows right now is audio/music production. Ardour is a nice package (although not really comparable to stuff like ProTools) and I really do appreciate the work that's gone into it, but despite the great strides made with packages like dssi-vst and vst-bridge, there are still plenty of VST plugins that don't work properly (or at all). That's assuming you have an audio interface that will work under Linux to begin with. If you have a package that uses an iLok, you're pretty much SOL from the start.

Re:OSX

[phantomfive]

Just because Microsoft has entered a new market where business customers with some serious money are participating (enterprise cloud services) doesn't mean they can happily move along and let windows die.

Nah, not yet, but that will happen if things continue going as they are. The trend direction is promising.

Re: OSX

[untoreh]

If your mobo/CPU supports vtd and you are determined to set it up, you can switch your setup, lin on bare and win on VM, then you can play at close to bare win perfs with vga passthrough, it is easier with two monitors and an integrated GPU for basic desktop usage

What is the driving forces?

[jellomizer]

I am trying to figure out what the driving forces are.
Granted Windows 10 is just clumsy and OS X is getting just as bad. However I haven't seen any real improvements in Linux during this year of note.
The same problems with supported drivers and systems is still there, and no real UI improvements or new features.

Perhaps people are just choosing Linux vs. Upgrading their Windows PC.

Re:What is the driving forces?

[110010001000]

Some of it is cost. Windows + Office is EXPENSIVE. Since digital computers aren't increasing in power much, and won't ever be now that Moores Law is dead, now is the time for Linux to "catch up".

Re:What is the driving forces?

[DeBaas]

, and no real UI improvements or new features.

Which is exactly the point. Those 'improvements' are to many just an unnecessary complication. The UI of W2K was fine, WinXp could be set to look like it it.

I've put some family members on Ubuntu Mate. They love, they just use the computer for internet. The UI is more familiar than Windows 10, it doesn't get slower over time and there is a lot less worry for them for malware.

Re:What is the driving forces?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 is pretty terrible. Really.

Apple only seems to care about the iPhone anymore. The iFad is over and iMac and Macbooks are getting ever more difficult to fix/upgrade/pay for.

Oh...and everything runs in a browser now...so the OS doesn't really matter anymore. So people can put Ubuntu/Mint on their older hardware and watch is come back to life again.

Re:What is the driving forces?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chromebooks?

Ever single child in my daughter's school was assigned one at the beginning of the year. And we're a public school in the boonies of Pennsylvania, not some preppy private school

Re:What is the driving forces?

[arth1]

I am trying to figure out what the driving forces are.

Gnome 2 has finally become stable, in the Mate incarnation.
More likely, Steam and similar have modified the market somewhat, combined with Windows 10 being such a fustercluck that people look elsewhere.

Anyhow, the title is misleading as it doesn't qualify it to desktops. Linux marketshare for servers and Linux marketshare for mobile devices are certainly much higher than that.

Re:What is the driving forces?

[ilsaloving]

It basically boils down to neither Microsoft nor Apple providing a decent value proposition anymore.

Microsoft is doing everything they can to make people despise Windows 10, and while I like OSX just fine, it's as if Apple has completely lost it WRT hardware.

So you have a choice between using Microsoft Mediocre Crap or Apple Expensive Crap. Having been an Apple user for well over a decade, I'm thinking that my next machine will have to be a Dell XPS /w Ubuntu.

Re:What is the driving forces?

[subk]

I could easily reiterate what others have said, but one thing I have not heard mention of... Myself and many of my colleagues run Linux on our desktops because it is a geek move. Let's face it, as engineers, we are all trying to out-geek each other. Running Arch Linux with an esoteric desktop environment like Enlightenment at your desk adds several points to one's geek factor.

Re:What is the driving forces?

[malditaenvidia]

and no real UI improvements or new features.

It varies from DE to DE.

Re:What is the driving forces?

[Mitreya]

Those 'improvements' are to many just an unnecessary complication. The UI of W2K was fine

Actually, these improvements are not so much complications as they are an act of war against users. Every time I accidentally open the (a-parrot-exploded theme) Paint on Windows 8 I spend half a minute trying to close it.
I miss W2K...

Re:What is the driving forces?

[hawguy]

It basically boils down to neither Microsoft nor Apple providing a decent value proposition anymore.

Microsoft is doing everything they can to make people despise Windows 10, and while I like OSX just fine, it's as if Apple has completely lost it WRT hardware.

So you have a choice between using Microsoft Mediocre Crap or Apple Expensive Crap. Having been an Apple user for well over a decade, I'm thinking that my next machine will have to be a Dell XPS /w Ubuntu.

Agreed on the OSX hardware thing - I've been anxiously awaiting for the new MacbookPro's to come out so I could finally get more than 16GB of RAM. Only to find out that Apple decided that 16GB is enough for everyone, so the new MBP has the same limit.

Looks like I'll be shopping around for a Linux laptop with 32 or 64GB of RAM. I'm very happy with OSX, but I also want more than 16GB of memory.

Re:What is the driving forces?

[Anonymous Coward]

> The same problems with supported drivers and systems is still there,...

Which problems?

Usually, once it works, it keeps working... and working... and working...

And I had two devices -- a wi-fi adapter and a webcam -- which started to work by themselves (with Linux improving, that is).

> and no real UI improvements or new features.

Maybe you can elaborate on that? Because what I've seen on Windows cannot be called "improvements". Rather, they are regressions -- specially the dreaded ribbon, the incompatibilities between docx and old doc files, and the tiles interface (is it called Metro?).

But, you have a point: they're all bad features, but they certainly are new. I need them like I need new taxes.

Re:What is the driving forces?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows is only a hundred bucks over the life of the machine. Office is about a hundred bucks a year, or ~$300 once-off - all in Aussie dollars. So 40% off where you don't have the Australia tax to contend with. It's lunch money.

Re:What is the driving forces?

[DraconPern]

You get windows when you buy a computer, which you'll pay anyways if you buy a computer for Linux.  Office365 with desktop app is 8.25 a month.  I don't see how it is expensive.  Do you live in parent's basement or something?

Re:What is the driving forces?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I don't see how it is expensive.

Use Linux and you'll know.

Windows charges an expensive price during usage, when things go wrong, updates make your machine slower, you lose your data or simply won't be allowed to do some things -- either because the EULA prohibits you or just because Windows will not allow you to do it.

There's a reason people who build supercomputers use Linux. They usually get loads of money from their government (it's a race you know...).

They use Linux because it is better. Just that.

Re:What is the driving forces?

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation Required.

Anecdotal evidence to the contrary:
I recently was in charge of purchasing a couple Dell computers. Shipping with Linux (Ubuntu was the only offered flavor, but it's still Linux) instead of Windows decreased the price of each unit by about $100 - about what you'd expect to pay for a Windows license.

Re:What is the driving forces?

[KiloByte]

Actually, these improvements are not so much complications as they are an act of war against users.

So Windows users will find Gnome3 just at home.

Re:What is the driving forces?

[Anonymous Coward]

Talking about actual computers, not web-powered thin clients.

Re:What is the driving forces?

[mz721]

Do you live in parent's basement or something?

Windows costs a lot more in terms of downloads. I'm not in a big city, I'm relying on satellite and similar technologies, and in a digitally backward country (Australia) and the extra many GB that Win downloads/uploads every month adds real money to my internet bill. And my computer is a box assembled to spec, and windows would have cost me extra. So you're wrong. You live in your parents' (note position of apostrophe, although it could be just the one parent, I guess) basement and don't pay your own bills, or something?

Re:What is the driving forces?

[vandamme]

Windows is only cheap if your time is worth nothing!

Re:What is the driving forces?

[Anonymous Coward]

The kernel and internals (WSL, DX12/Vulkan, etc.) of Win10 plus the UI and lack of spyware of Win2k would be a world crushing success for Microsoft, but they'll never do it because it would be a concession that they've utterly wasted the last seventeen years of interface development.

Not suprising

[110010001000]

This isn't suprising...I'm using Linux right now and it has been rock solid sta

Re:Not suprising

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he was cut-off by AI.

Re:Not suprising

[hcs_$reboot]

I suspect you were the one doing that not so funny joke about the Samsung Note 7 tendency to

Re:Not suprising

[Anonymous Coward]

so you upgraded to KDE5 too?

msmash story?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does the rise in Linux usage coincide with the rising sea levels that will undoubtedly wipe out human existence within a mere decade?

Re:msmash story?

[Hognoxious]

I think pirates figure in it somewhere.

Re:msmash story?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same kind of coincidence as the decline of pirates of the high seas and FSM sightings have with those rising sea levels.

All hail His Flying Noodliness.

More user friendly

[hcs_$reboot]

Compared to a few years ago, Linux and the distros are more user friendly, more hardware support (less missing drivers), lots of free software, and many "main" applications have been improved a lot (think Gimp, Libre Office, wine...) . That gives a chance to users to try Linux and see for themselves that it's fast, reliable and has a lot of good open source software. Unfortunately for many demanding games, Windows is still the only alternative.

Re:More user friendly

[chipschap]

The idea that Linux doesn't have enough software to be usable keeps coming up, and I don't get it.

Yes, there are things that just won't run on Linux, and in some cases there are no alternatives (particularly the case with verticals like, I don't know, dental records software or running a television studio, and certainly many games). But if you look at a mainstream user, who does web, email, maybe touches up some photos, writes some letters, does some spreadsheets, scans some documents, plays some music, watches some videos --- you get the picture --- everything is there and then some.

Hardware support out of the box beats Windows as far as I can see. I plug new stuff into Linux and it works. Windows, I've got to install a driver. Yes, there are a few items that won't work with Linux, or require additional software (as is the case with Windows) but they are becoming rarer, and often can be avoided.

I won't get into "the year of Linux on the desktop" --- that's likely never, given the entrenchment of Windows --- but unusable due to lack of software? That's a generalization that's false a lot more often than true.

Re:More user friendly

[Mitreya]

Linux and the distros are more user friendly

I think the all the diversity is hurting Linux

I just spent a couple of hours debugging Hadoop on Amazon Linux. Student used a different Linux version from the one I recommended/tested and something (best guess Java of same 1.7.0_111 version but from a different build) was causing strange crashes.

That's not the kind of thing you see on Windows when you install software.

Re:More user friendly

[green1]

If by "a few years ago" you mean 2 decades, maybe. But really Linux has been more user friendly than Windows for a very long time, with more support for hardware than Windows, and many great applications.

I stopped using Windows at home in 2000 and haven't looked back, any time I am forced to use it (eg. at work or at a friend's place) I cringe at how much harder it is to do anything on Windows than on Linux.

Re:More user friendly

[Anonymous Coward]

Because installing Java on windows means installing Oracle Java.
If you don't like the choice of having an alternative to oracle's binary you're an enemy of the people.

Re:More user friendly

[Shane_Optima]

Diversity also greatly helped Linux. You have to be very, very careful with the "diversity is bad--we must reduce choices so people aren't overwhelmed!" argument... that's what got us GNOME 3.

(And I personally believe that GNOME 3 and Unity, which would've never come about if not for GNOME 3, together constitute the worst thing that's ever happened to the desktop Linux ecosystem.)

Re:More user friendly

[Shane_Optima]

Also, that sounds more like a Java problem than a Linux problem.

Re:More user friendly

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea that Linux doesn't have enough software to be usable keeps coming up, and I don't get it.

There is no decent e-mail client, but there is no decent e-mail client on Windows as well. I'm forced to use Outlook, I hate it every day, and I still did not find anything better. Skype for Linux is in very poor shape. These two are very important for my daily work routine, so I had to move from Linux to Windows and I now run Linux in a virtual machine.

Re:More user friendly

[Hognoxious]

Sounds more like an idiot problem. If you base the course on Dead Rat 6.6 and the dumbass student insists on running Umbongo 23.1 Farty Ferret then he's an idiot for doing that and the teacher's an idiot for not telling him to sod off.

Re:More user friendly

[grumpy-cowboy]

No decent email client? What do you need in addition to : read, write, reply and forward email?

Re:More user friendly

[chipschap]

Skype lagged for a long time but it's usable and there has been a new Linux release, finally. You can make audio and video calls without any trouble. I don't know what else you need in that regard. In the interim I started using Google Talk and that works without a hitch.

If you don't want to use a webmail service, Thunderbird works. I used it for quite some time. As the other poster said, what do you need? If you really, really need total customization and endless choice, there's gnus. (Not really joking about that; I use it now and it sings and dances if you have the patience to train it.)

Re:More user friendly

[Dutch Gun]

The people who only do web, e-mail, etc... many are ditching PCs altogether and using their smartphones or tablets. That's why desktop PCs are a declining market (although that's very different from 'dying', which escapes many pundits). Essentially, a significant percentage of number of people don't actually *need* a fully powered computers unless:

a) They require specialty software. A lot of line of business / internal software runs on Windows stacks, and it makes sense for people to have compatible systems at home. Or maybe you have a digital audio workstation with Cakewalk Sonar installed. Linux isn't an option for specialized software like that where you can't afford compatibility glitches.

b) They want a high-end gaming machine, in which case Windows is still king. Yes, Linux is making strides, but it's still nowhere close to Windows. Even Mac seems to have a better selection of games, as far as I can tell.

I attribute Windows success these days due to simple inertia more than anything, as well as being well-entrenched in business and enterprise. It's extremely difficult and costly to make a wholesale switch to a new OS on a mass scale, with completely new infrastructure, software, and support.

Re:More user friendly

[Mitreya]

Also, that sounds more like a Java problem than a Linux problem.

I will risk another downmod
By this logic, "Video games not running on Linux" is the games' (or the gamer's?) problem and not a Linux problem.

Re:More user friendly

[Shane_Optima]

By this logic, "Video games not running on Linux" is the games' (or the gamer's?) problem and not a Linux problem.

What is (/was) the point of Java? What was the ONE GODDAMNED THING it was supposed to do that other, much faster / more expressive / more powerful languages couldn't do?

Windows-only games were designed to be Windows-only. Java was supposed to be portable and consistent, damn it. The OP said that it failed to run properly on the exact same version of the JVM ("1.7.0_111") because it was "a different build." I'm not entirely sure how that should be parsed, but blaming "Linux" as a whole is not my first instinct.

Re:More user friendly

[Anonymous Coward]

Diversity has both helped and harmed Linux. Any honest assessment of the state of Linux has to acknowledge that.

To the bad:

- multiple, pointlessly different packaging and update systems (don't bother telling me how your package system is better than another because of some minor technical advantage. No one cares but you);
- a frankly weird obsession with text editors. I've used too many to count. All the teeth gnashing over editor preference accomplishes nothing;
- what's with the Heinz 57 filesystems? Do we really need the glut of filesystem choices offered? No, not really;
- distro proliferation which only confuses newbies. How many distros are there anyway, a thousand?

In that context, the choice between Gnome, KDE and Unity is an easy one to make. At least there are only 3 to choose from!

All that choice waters down the time available to work on the functionality and polish of each product. It also confuses casual or new users who just want the system to work. Asking a new user, "Do you want Green, Blue, White, Red, Aqua, Black, Yellow, Magenta, Loquat or Kumquat sauce with your plantains?" is loading them down cognitively, when they don't need that burden. And this doesn't happen once, it happens over and over and over again. You wind up having to teach the client the meaning of the choices first, before you can offer the choices.

This is something that Apple does very well. They have a small list of product offerings, most of which are very high quality and functionally rich. Frankly it's hard to go wrong with the new user then. Linux could learn a lesson here, not by becoming Apple in any way, but just to stop bombarding new users with pointless choices they aren't ready for.

Re:More user friendly

[Shane_Optima]

This is something that Apple does very well.

I disagree they do it particularly well. They clearly overcompensate. The correct solution is to hide choice, not remove choice. They remove choice not because it makes life easier for their users, but because it induces a uniformity of experience... it's a branding choice, not a usability enhancement, but the fact that OS X has good usability (plus some *nix internals that some people appreciate) has blinded many people to this distinction.

The limitations of Apple's approach would become immediately clear if they had a real competitor but Microsoft doesn't compete on anything but lock-in and Linux has much less funding and is geared towards a different sort of user.

what's with the Heinz 57 filesystems? Do we really need the glut of filesystem choices offered? No, not really;

Uh, except Linux users (of the more user friendly distros including, but not limited to, Ubuntu and its derivatives) haven't had to worry about this for at least ten years unless they've wanted to. No GUI installer senselessly badgers you about the file system. That's nonsense.

There are some usability areas that are painfully lacking... I recently complained at length about Linux file browsers being uselessly the same in their flaws, and I still don't understand why passwords are required to install official security updates. Even Mint requires that a password be entered the last time I checked. If there's a concern about an attacker surreptitiously updating the system in a malicious way then... well there are several responses to that argument, and several resolutions, but forcing the user to constantly type in their password for routine actions is not a good way of doing this. All it does is cause unnecessary delays in the installation of important security updates.

Re:More user friendly

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor built-in driver support was an issue with Windows XP, but that's because it was around for so long. On recent versions of Windows you don't hunt for drivers.

Re:More user friendly

[Anonymous Coward]

> Student used a different Linux version from the one I recommended/tested and something (best guess Java of same 1.7.0_111 version but from a different build) was causing strange crashes.

> That's not the kind of thing you see on Windows when you install software.

Hahaha, you haven't seen much, did you?

At work, Windows only, and two Java versions installed. Yes, two. Because some apps require a previous one, and other apps require the most recent one. Internal apps, not the kind you say "well, just switch to another app" (besides, you don't just install apps there, it's a controlled environment -- with Windows... how secure can that be?). Of course, the apps must be manually configured to use the appropriate one, or else they crash. Just like on Linux.

Besides, we're using IE 9, 11 and Edge (and it was IE 6 before, that jewel of safe browsing). The only "advantage" I can think of is making it easier for "them" to spy and monitor us. Other than that, maybe someone in procurement is sadistic, who knows?

Re: More user friendly

[Billly Gates]

What's not to get?

Can it run outlook, word, excel, PowerPoint, autocad, Photoshop, and games?

Please do not sight running crappy wine configs or a VM. If you have to do that than why leave Windows in the first place?

Re: More user friendly

[Billly Gates]

You click on Windows it runs

That is idiot proofness that users like.

Re: More user friendly

[Shane_Optima]

You click on Windows it runs

That is idiot proofness that users like.

On every single version of Windows everywhere?

Windows has never been idiotproof, nor is it a very good embodiment of the "it just works" design philosophy.

Re:More user friendly

[tepples]

Linux has [...] more support for hardware than Windows

Granted, with respect to all hardware in existence. But which has more support for hardware sold in Best Buy, Staples, or other major U.S. retail electronics chains in the fourth quarter of 2016? Because that's what the typical home or small office user considering a switch from Windows to X11/Linux is up against.

Re:More user friendly

[Anonymous Coward]

(Not original AC)

Decent integration with the other things you use business email for, like your calendar, notes/todo app, with your DMS, managed signatures and policy deployment, etc. Outlook is the gold standard in that regard.

Gmail has some nice search and smart folder features that are partially available in Mail.app on OSX and (to a slightly lower degree) in Outlook. Mail.app search via Spotlight is far better than Outlook but they're both pretty snappy these days, not much slower than Gmail (which is almost instant).

Just a couple of examples of things you expect from a real email client, especially if you're holding 10 years worth of work email and need to drive several partially-automated workflows.

Re: More user friendly

[chipschap]

What's not to get?

Can it run outlook, word, excel, PowerPoint, autocad, Photoshop, and games?

Games have been discussed as a real exception, and autocad may be as well, but how many people need autocad?

As to the rest --- all the office stuff --- there's plenty of it for Linux, as is well known.

But if you insist on native Microsoft applications, you're right, just run Windows.

Re:More user friendly

[Blaskowicz]

It's happening again with Windows 7. Some people have to download and install USB or ethernet controller drivers.

Re:More user friendly

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux more user friendly? Has more hardware support? I like Linux quite a bit, but let's not be delusional here.

[quote]I stopped using Windows at home in 2000[/quote]

It doesn't seem like you're qualified to be making a judgement here.

Re:More user friendly

[green1]

Someone who uses Linux exclusively at home isn't in a position to judge how easy it is to use?

Or someone who uses Windows at work and Linux at home isn't in a position to compare the two?

Re:More user friendly

[green1]

Because we all know that there is never a case where someone tries to use last year's printer/scanner/etc/etc with this year's windows version, that's never happened....

You know how I got my scanner? My parents couldn't use it any more. Not because they didn't want to, but because there are no Windows drivers for it for the current version of windows. It works great on Linux.

Every single thumb drive you plug in to windows wastes time trying to install drivers, and even moving it to a different USB port seems to require going through the whole process all over again. On Linux you plug almost anything in to the computer and it just works, no fiddling with drivers, no waiting for it to install, just works.

Re:More user friendly

[tepples]

tl;dr: Windows for new hardware that doesn't use a generic class driver and Linux for hand-me-downs.

Re:More user friendly

[Grishnakh]

Yep, it's somewhat similar to the PDF situation on Windows: if you want to be able to view PDFs in Windows, that generally means installing Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, which is a horribly bloated and slow piece of software. You can't just click on a PDF in your file browser and have it instantly pop up, you have to wait around for ages for Adobe to load up. On Linux, there's several lightweight PDF viewers that load up instantly. On my KDE desktop, using Okular is fast and easy.

Zip files are another place that's a big pain in the ass on Windows. They're generally ultra-fast and transparent on Linux, or I can manipulate them on the command line easily. I can easily just type "zip filename.zip file file2 path/file3" and it's done. With Windows, you generally have to use WinZip, so then to create a zipfile you use Explorer, then right-click, find the WinZip menu entry, then the selection to add files, and then you have to sit and wait for a while for it to "load WinZip extensions".

Honestly, everything on Windows is so damn bloated and slow, it's extremely frustrating to use. Don't get me started on McAfee software, another Windows necessity.

Re:More user friendly

[Grishnakh]

Exactly. I gave an old laptop to a female friend a couple months ago, loaded with Linux Mint KDE edition. I sat down with her, showed her how to do all that stuff on there: web browsing, photo viewing, file management with Dolphin, watching videos with VLC, etc. There was something she wanted to do (I forget now, maybe photo editing) and I showed her how to do it with some free software, and she was surprised as she thought she'd have to buy some software. She hadn't quite wrapped her head around the idea that all this stuff is free on Linux and you don't need to buy some software package to do every little thing like you do on Windows.

Re:More user friendly

[Grishnakh]

Except for Outlook, email clients in general have really gone down the tubes in the last 5 years or so because of lack of attention, due to everyone switching to webmail (esp. GMail). Email clients are simply dying out; it's too convenient to be able to read your email on any computer, and also on your mobile phone. You simply can't do that with an old-fashioned PC-based email client.

Outlook is the sole exception. But as you've complained, Outlook just plain sucks to use. It always has, and always will. It's like the modern version of Lotus Notes; big, clunky, crappy "enterprise" software that no one in their right mind likes using, but remains in use because of corporate inertia and because it ticks off all the corporate-acquisition checkboxes.

Skype has released a new Linux client that's supposed to work pretty well; you might want to try that.

Also, some businesses that are tied to Outlook have OWA (Outlook Web Access) which lets you access your Outlook email with a web browser.

Re:More user friendly

[Grishnakh]

Oh, I should add: after I gave it to her and got her set up, I haven't had to go over to help her with it any more. Maybe I should have set her up with Windows instead, so I'd have an excuse to be over there every other day....

VT-d

[Anonymous Coward]

If your system has VT-d, you could try GPU passthrough to a Windows VM.

Linux host uses the integrated Intel graphics, Windows VM uses your AMD/nVidia card.

It's the closing of platforms and being patronized

[Anonymous Coward]

It will continue, though very slowly. People don't mind paying directly or indirectly for an OS and they don't mind whether it's open source or not, but many people don't want to be patronized and want to be able to run whatever software whenever they want. That's why some of them are slowly turning to Linux.

oh snap!

[Gravis Zero]

They called it Linux instead of GNU/Linux! Stallman's gonna lose his shit again.

Re:oh snap!

[Anonymous Coward]

With System D it's not gnu anymore. SystemD is both clever and funny, get over it.

Re:oh snap!

[rubycodez]

SystemD is GNU licensed, therefore it is GNU PUU

Re: oh snap!

[Billly Gates]

I use Freebsd and I do not have that problem :-)

Re:oh snap!

[tepples]

In practice, "desktop Linux" implies GNU/Linux and X11/Linux. But given the level of pedantry among some Slashdot users, I personally tend to be more careful lest I run into people who sincerely suggest to use an Android tablet with a keyboard as a close substitute for an X11/Linux laptop.

Lotus 1-2-3

[jfdavis668]

Maybe they will release an update of Lotus 1-2-3 for Linux!

Re:Lotus 1-2-3

[wkwilley2]

Windows can keep that cancer.

It's the Windows 10 bump

[cfalcon]

While Windows 10 has been pushed into many computers accidentally on purpose, to many of us, Windows 10 was the final straw for our personal machines. While the awful privacy invasions and security issues of the new OS aren't anywhere close enough to force all, most, or frankly even many users to flee, plenty of Windows users are looking for an out- and those that have use cases that are compatible with Linux have moved (and in smaller numbers are still moving) for that reason.

So I think we are seeing a Windows 10 bump. Certainly Linux desktop is vastly superior to where it was a few years ago, but that's not normally the sort of thing that pushes for a change. We'll probably see it again in a couple years when Microsoft tightens its coils some more- hopefully the desktop Linux experience will be even better then!

Re:It's the Windows 10 bump

[thegarbz]

to many of us

Key word there is "us", here on Slashdot.

By comparison the typical user would happily buy Windows 10 on credit card, install it hold up the credit card pointing their new PC, take a selfy and post it on Facebook for all to see.

Re:It's the Windows 10 bump

[cb88]

The Linux desktop has declined in quality, and usability... while the range of Linux drivers available has went up. There just isn't even any justification for the sheer bloat present in the current GUI toolkits and libraries.

Evidence of the decline in usability is the sheer excitement that KDE1 was met with upon it's recent rerelease... sure nearly any Linux desktop properly configured is better than windows 10's interface. But that still doesn't make the modern desktop environments good.

KDE1 + antialiased and hinted fonts would genuinely be good. Personally, for awhile I used e16 as a desktop it mostly was quite nice, lightweight on resources (several megabytes of ram and negligible CPU) and *unintrusive*. I don't think the same can be said for any modern desktop at all.

Re:It's the Windows 10 bump

[cfalcon]

> By comparison the typical user would ...be completely irrelevant to a 2% marketshare. We are well within the explanatory powers of Windows 10 being a spyware festival of rotten meat. I addressed this in my op with " While the awful privacy invasions and security issues of the new OS aren't anywhere close enough to force all, most, or frankly even many users to flee"....

Re:It's the Windows 10 bump

[Anonymous Coward]

Tried to convince myself that win10 can't be all that bad, and tried to just get along with it. Then I decided there were tiles on the start menu I didn't need there and tried to drag some stuff around, it all locked up and lost the shortcut, greyed out the entire tile panel, and took a lot of messing around to activate it again. This was on a fresh new install of win10, so somewhat unexpected.

Googled some other people's experiences, found a suggestion to switch to tablet mode to adjust the tiles then switch back. No! you cannot switch to tablet mode unless you disable extra monitors, it only works on 1. Not going to bother with that.

Found a new band I liked, decided to try this windows app store thing to see if I could buy an album. Account setup with credit card was buggy beyond belief and it took several days trying to fix the app store before it crashed altogether and was completely unviewable. Removed the icons for the app store and never tried again.

To add insult to injury, if you log a problem description on their support forums some non-english-speaking "support" person comes along and posts the most childishly stupid templated responses, like, "Please click on the Windows icon on the bottom left of your screen to access the menu", and other useless shit. I mean, I have done some tricky troubleshooting trawling thru various Linux forums and such, but they don't usually have some idiot employed to paste templated answers based on 1 or 2 keywords in your question but completely disregarding the context or actual meaning.

Been using Windows since the first version used in business. I don't expect an ever increasing amount of fuck-around time required just to make it work. That should have been a reducing requirement. Win 10 was a huge turn-off.

Re: It's the Windows 10 bump

[Billly Gates]

Not really.

Back in the good old days pre 2011 gnome 2 with compiz and init was pretty cool. SystemD and gnome 3 brought me to Windows 7.

To this day I am still on Windows and run Freebsd as a VM. I do not trust gnu/Linux much as making it not suck is not a priority and the Windows 10 GUI is Paradise over gnome 3 or kde

Re:It's the Windows 10 bump

[Anonymous Coward]

KDE1 + antialiased and hinted fonts would genuinely be good. Personally, for awhile I used e16 as a desktop it mostly was quite nice, lightweight on resources (several megabytes of ram and negligible CPU) and *unintrusive*. I don't think the same can be said for any modern desktop at all.

Well, you're in luck: KDE1 was ported to modern distros as part of the KDE 20 year anniversary. (or here if you want info on building it yourself.)

Re: It's the Windows 10 bump

[erapert]

SystemD and gnome 3 brought me to Windows 7.

1. Seriously? You left Linux because of some trolls going on about systemd? Do you realize that you just explained that you don't think for yourself? Why would you admit something so embarrassing about yourself?
2. Why did you get upset at Gnome 3? Just install a different desktop. Did you know that you can install any desktop you want on practically any distro you want? You don't have to use Unity on Ubuntu. You don't have to use Gnome on Fedora. Now I'm starting to doubt that you actually used Linux at all.
3. You didn't like what all the trolls said about SystemD so you went to W7?! That makes no sense! If you hate how systemd is "un-unix" or "bloated" or "designed by fascists" or "coded by sjws" why would you go to W7 which is much much worse?!

Are you shilling or trolling?

Re:More like 90%?

[ilsaloving]

Apparently you missed the part where the summary said "Desktop computer users".

Good Timing

[Tempest_2084]

Talk about timing, I'm installing Linux as we speak (Ubuntu). I'm surfing slashdot on my phone while I wait.

Re:Good Timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Coincidentally, I'm reading an article about Linux on the desktop and surfing slashdot too!

Re:Good Timing

[erapert]

Welcome (back?) to the community.

Just in PCs, right?

[ichthus]

Yeah, let's look at Linux market share in:

- smart phones
- set-top boxes and DVRs
- point-of-sale terminals

Re:Just in PCs, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, let's look at Linux market share in:

  - smart phones
  - set-top boxes and DVRs
  - point-of-sale terminals

Are you trying to prove something? Why?

The numbers should be higher

[Anonymous Coward]

I would imagine some who've moved did so for privacy concerns, so how many others are blocking this data collection/spoofing to a common browser and OS. I've got Palemoon on Mint declaring it's Firefox on Win 10.

Re:More like 90%?

[CannonballHead]

Reading summaries is hard :)

Governments may be responsible

[matbury]

Governments are by far the biggest procurers of operating systems. There's an EU draft directive that says that member states must favour free and open source IT solutions. So far, the various flavours of Ubuntu have been the favoured option. My bet is that EU governments switching to Ubuntu is mostly responsible for pushing the usage stats up recently.

Android is nothing like a desktop linux

[perpenso]

Linux is already king of the tablet, the phone, ...

Linux is not the king of the tablet or phone. It is the peasant behind the scenes doing a few tasks. Android is the king of the tablet and phone and Android is not Linux, it is an operating system in its own right. Android is nothing like a desktop linux.

Re:Android is nothing like a desktop linux

[nofx911]

Linux is the peasant behind the scene on everything, including "Desktop Linux"!

Linux has always been a basic OS. While bootable without any additional applications or libraries it is not very functional. At the very least you will add a libc implementation and from there many other libraries, applications and possibly window managers to have a usable user interface. I agree that Android is not GNU/Linux (probably the most common form of CLI/GUI "Desktop Linux"), but in GNU/Linux, Linux is still the peasant behind the scene.

Linux is not *BSD/Windows/etc where the development team creates a whole package from the kernel up to the user interface, it is just the core, the "peasant" doing the hard work of managing system memory, networking and disc io, etc. Unless you are doing system development, or very low level application development, as a programmer you probably would almost never interact directly with Linux.

Yes, the media has turned Linux into a complete OS, but that has nothing to do with the actual Linux software and what it does. The media just did not like saying GNU/Linux which is generally what they were referring with when they would say Linux...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Android is nothing like a desktop linux

[perpenso]

"Linux" can refer to the complete operating system or just the kernel. Linus Torvalds does so, other leading community people do so, various leading linux web sites and magazines do so, etc. The context is clear from the discussion. For example this article discussing desktop linux would indicate the context is the complete operating system and not the merely the kernel.

Re: Android is nothing like a desktop linux

[Anonymous Coward]

What toolset needs to be included in order for you to accept it as Linux operating system? If you could explain your logic behind it, that wuould be greatly appreciated.

Re: Android is nothing like a desktop linux

[Zero__Kelvin]

I have built complete Android images from the source, and I can assure you, Android is indeed a Linux based OS. It has a Linux kernel and GNU user space tools. So please stop spreading misinformation. Thanks.

Re:Android is nothing like a desktop linux

[mrchaotica]

I agree that Android is not GNU/Linux (probably the most common form of CLI/GUI "Desktop Linux")

The most common "Desktop Linux" is probably Chrome OS.

Linux 85% of new sales, desktop moved to lap, pock

[raymorris]

85% of devices sold last year ran Linux. The desktop is now in your lap and in your pocket, running Linux. Windows is more popular on systems with IDE drives, PalmOS is most popular on Treo systems, Linux is most popular on supercomputers, Windows is most popular on systems that weigh between 8 and 20 pounds. Linux is most popular.

Next story / complaint: Linux isn't popular on systems installed by major corporations headquartered in Redmond. Um, okay, but anyway 85% of all new devices run Linux, period.

Libreoffice doesn't cut it

[Anonymous Coward]

... perhaps they'll realise that they can do everything they need in LibreOffice.

Alas, NO! I have several MSO files that crash in LO and one, a tax spreadsheet, that runs but gave an incorrect answer saying I owed several thousands too much in taxes.

No I am not an MS apologist- I hate Windows 10 with its built-in keylogger, the "ribbon" GUI of the newer MSO; the use of Excel for scientific calculation is a crime. I would love to banish Windows and MSO, but LO just doesn't cut it.

Re:Libreoffice doesn't cut it

[matbury]

I've been using LibreOffice for years and do some statistical analyses on it. I've never had a wrong answer or anything out of the ordinary where the problem didn't originate between the keyboard and the chair.

Re:Libreoffice doesn't cut it

[matbury]

BTW, the Zotero https://www.zotero.org/ plugin for LibreOffice works much better in LibreOffice Writer than in MS Word.

Re:Libreoffice doesn't cut it

[mz721]

It's not apples with apples to judge LO by how well it imports MSO files. That's like saying _you're_ illiterate if you can't read _my_ terrible handwriting. How well would that spreadsheet have run had it been developed in LO from the beginning? Can LO do all the calculations required? _That_ is a fair comparison. Yes, ability to import MSO files is important for LO to gain market share, and yes it is important if it's to be useful every day because of the vast number of MSO files out there (and often you can't reliably take them from one version of MSO to another!) but it should not be used as a criterion for judging the capability of the office suite. It may well be able to do every calculation you need. How well does MSO import LO files? Badly? Oh, it must be broken.

Re:Libreoffice doesn't cut it

[Anonymous Coward]

Gnumeric may work?

Could be even better

[hcs_$reboot]

Could be higher if the hardware was not sold with a mandatory OS (Windows / Mac OS)

Re:Could be even better

[hcs_$reboot]

Could be even higher if the hardware was sold with a mandatory OS (Linux)

Re:Could be even better

[Anonymous Coward]

Could be even better if hardware was sold without any OS involved. What makes you think you know what I want to do with that hardware I just bought?

Fuck you and the IPC you rode in on.

Re:Could be even better

[eWarz]

Could be even higher if Linux in it's current form didn't exist. Seriously. The day I can do a clean install on my laptop, have it recognize all my hardware, work the way it's supposed to...and upgrade to the nex release, Linux might stand a chance...until then it will be a wannabe. OH and current rumors actually put Windows 10 WSL ahead of Linux marketshare wise...

Re:Could be even better

[hcs_$reboot]

Hmm have you tried recently, I mean since 2014, to install something like Ubuntu on your laptop?

Re:Could be even better

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not how maths works.

Huzzah

[mrflash818]

Huzzah, I say.

Re:Linux 85% of new sales, desktop moved to lap, p

[TechyImmigrant]

Windows runs on my work laptop, but it spends 100% of its operational time plugged into monitors on a desktop, with VNC and terminal windows open to boxes running Linux somewhere in a datacenter, where I do my work designing things and writing documents.

So windows is a thin client, back from the early 90s.

Re:would have tog frosty piss

[Anonymous Coward]

if you don't want to learn SystemD, install an os with the init system you want. nobody is forcing you to use it. god forbid you learn something new. some techy you are!

The internet through a keyhole

[jabberw0k]

(c) You want a screen at least a large as a 1948 television set.

(d) You want a keyboard that lets you actually type, as opposed to the experience of poking at a keyboard with a stick attached to your nose.

Re:The internet through a keyhole

[Grishnakh]

Exactly. I gave an old laptop to a female friend who had lost her PC and was using her phone for all this stuff. The phone was able to do it, but it was a total PITA of course. She just does the basic stuff: web browsing, watching videos, listening to music, photo management, etc., but with a laptop (running Mint KDE) it's SO much easier.

Phones are fine for making phone calls, listening to voicemail, writing short texts, and swiping left and right on Tinder, but if you want to see a lot of stuff at once, or be able to input text quickly, you just can't beat a normal-size screen and keyboard.

Re:would have tog frosty piss

[Anonymous Coward]

... but shytstemd fucked up and I couldn't read the binary logs.

utmp and wtmp want their FUD back and AIX would like a word with you.

If work offers Mac, that's certified Unix

[raymorris]

For many years I spent all my time in "terminal windows open to boxes running Linux". When work gave me a Mac OSX machine, I was surprised how much it was like Linux. The GUI is different, of course, but open a terminal and you have certified Unix. You can ./configure && make && make install whatever you might run on Linux. If your place of employment offers the choice on Windows or Mac, you might like the Mac - even though it's from the same company that makes iOS iTrinkets.

Re:If work offers Mac, that's certified Unix

[TechyImmigrant]

My personal laptop is a mac for that reason. I can open a terminal, type make, compile my latex into a document, write C or python unimpeded by the environment, sed and awk to my heart's content, edit with vim and generally use the unix muscle memory I've developed over the past 30 years.

Amazing

[OneHundredAndTen]

Bearing in mind that what is being pushed in the Linux desktop, namely, Gnome, KDE and Unity, are big pieces of turd that insist in being the stars of the show, in telling you what it is that you can and can't do, and how to do it, it is nothing short of amazing that Linux has a 2% market share. On second thought, it isn't.

ISOLATION

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer: Isolation from the Host VM.

If/when the Windows VM gets infected, it can be isolated completely and replaced on demand.

I finally made the switch.

[Anonymous Coward]

The thought of upgrading my aging Windows 7 to Windows 10 was what finally got me to just give them up for Ubuntu.

Stats:

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the hype coming from?
My future distro is already at 45% && I'm still in the planning phase of my distro. [Marketing]
Linux at 2.x % is only Propaganda from unknown sources. Android is a version of Linux. Future phones will connect to a 4K Display and used like a Desktop/Laptop. Yeah! My new video card is wounderful. Danka Shane.
Well, my primary PC is my Desktop with Linux.

Linux is not really about market share

[EmperorOfCanada]

Right now I develop mostly for Linux. Yet my development desktop is Visual Studio running on windows 10. I know a few developers who use Linux desktop, but the reality is that it would be under 5% of the developers who I know developing on Linux use linux for their desktop.

Quite simply without Desktop penetration this percentage will always stay low. I don't see this as a problem. Linux to me is a server solution, an embedded solution, a phone solution, but not yet a desktop solution. I suspect that if it were to become a desktop solution that all the other uses would get short shrift. The entire Kernel would have huge pressure to adapt primarily to the needs of the desktop.

Luckily the PC is dying. While servers VM, embedded, and mobile devices are taking off. Drones and robots are also getting to be a thing. This is where Linux rocks. I am happy to have a tool for these things that is so awesome.

So, please linux, don't try to capture the other 98% or you will probably let me down and I will have to find something else.

Re:Linux is not really about market share

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't any computing that you use for yourself, or have on your person, PC? I am guessing that Linux will actually be what is used to take down the internet...how ironic that an OS which will become so pervasive outside of the desktop will actually wreak havoc among desktops.

Alternate title

[Anonymous Coward]

"Linux Marketshare is Below 3-Percent For Twenty Fifth Year in a Row"

Only the beginning

[Anonymous Coward]

With China, Russia, India and many more governments switching to the Linux Desktop out of security reasons, this is only the beginning! Don't forget they can enforce this for the general population too, with some fake reason like they did in China with Windows 8 consuming too much energy :-D
The population will learn how easy LD is at work too, how much superior free software there is and how much choice of the Desktop Environment there is. Big companies are selling big number Linux PCs/laptops now as standard.
The switch to the Linux Desktop is happening now and even MS knows this as they are switching their software stack to Linux too and incorporating Linux in Windows.
Welcome to the Free World!

Or more than the price of the hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only lunch money if you have it, many people don't, and it does not matter how much better too expensive might be, it is still to expensive. You can get an acceptable machine for "light" use at under £200 if you already have a second hand screen (or add ~£25 for a charity shop monitor) this is still a bit if you are poor but windows will more than double that so if you can't you don't.

Tux

[Anonymous Coward]

2% Market Share eh, I bet it would be higher if they still gave Tux away with the ISO. I have 3 Tux Beanie's for LINUX 1.02 that I got many many years ago They have sat on my desk for over 18 years now along with an original Dragon from Dragon Systems Inc I am so lucky to have them watch over my systems for all this time.

Re:Linux 85% of new sales, desktop moved to lap, p

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows runs on my work laptop, but it spends 100% of its operational time plugged into monitors on a desktop, with VNC and terminal windows open to boxes running Linux somewhere in a datacenter, where I do my work designing things and writing documents.

So windows is a thin client, back from the early 90s.

Mine too.

I'm typing this on a Chromebook. If I could get it to navigate my arcane corporate VPN I'd be delighted to hand back my work laptop (running Windows 7).

Any Windows 10 systems at home have been upgraded to Linux. My wife (a non techie) has had zero problems with the switch.

(In case any Linux zealots wanna give me grief for not upgrading my employer's laptop, I just don't feel it's right to mess with what they give me. I have been running Linux on my desktop for ~ 20 years now. AFAIR the first install was off floppy disks attached to a magazine.)

Converts

[Anonymous Coward]

I have converted 8 users over the past year or two from Windows to Linux. The latest because windows (even with driver updates) flat out won't run stably on the particular motherboard in question. Linux works perfectly on it. With each of these users there is an adjustment period, I have offered several times to switch them to Windows 10 and I keep getting a "no" response. I have had the most success with Ubuntu-Mate with the "Redmond" panel layout, I add the restricted extras, chrome so they can play netflix, LibreOffice, and a few other niceties. I put virtualbox on there with a Win7, but it rarely gets used...

The toughest issues with the converts:

They are used to MS Office and can't find functionality in LibreOffice or PowerPoints look wonky - not deal breaking but annoying.

iTunes. - incidentally the main reason I am an Android user is effing iTunes, loath it.

A handful of games, but none are hardcore gamers so this hasn't been the biggest beef.

Form filling PDF, just an occasional nuisance.

File manager differences "It doesn't automatically rename files" or "how come it doesn't have a tree view" little naggy things they get over soon enough.

The stuff they like:
Updates can be planned, (maybe this can be configured in Windows10 but its a complaint i hear about it)
No ads in the start menu (maybe this can be configured too, I stopped using windows before 10 so I don't know a ton about it)
Looks better, yep most of the converts do not like the flat style of Windows 10
A perception of better privacy
More consistent interface
Customizable interface
Speed, the system stays fast consistently, where they would complain of a slow spiral of slowness with Windows.
Probably number one is no virus scanning (at least not yet), no popups and malware. Convert number one was my 68 year old mother, couldn't keep the spyware off her windows 7 machine for more than about 2 months. She is now going on 2 years with Linux and absolutely loves it and I spend a LOT less time working on her computer. Actually, once settled in, Linux users take a LOT less of my (technical) time than my Windows family members do.

Android is Linux hosted not Linux based

[perpenso]

I have built complete Android images from the source, and I can assure you, Android is indeed a Linux based OS. It has a Linux kernel and GNU user space tools. So please stop spreading misinformation. Thanks.

Android is hosted on Linux, it is not based on Linux. Android is basically an operating system, it is not some sort of desktop environment as we find in desktop Linux. If the Linux kernel were to be replaced with the BSD kernel few would know or care, even the majority of Android developers. This misinformation is yours, Android is Linux hosted not Linux based.

Re: Android is Linux hosted not Linux based

[Zero__Kelvin]

You are an idiot. Android runs on Linux. All Android phones boot a Linux kernel. Stop misinforming people, and off you go now ...

Re: Android is Linux hosted not Linux based

[perpenso]

You are an idiot. Android runs on Linux. All Android phones boot a Linux kernel. Stop misinforming people, and off you go now ...

You need to work on reading comprehension. I have said:
(1) Android is nothing like a desktop linux.
(2) Android is an operating system in its own right.
(3) Android is hosted on Linux, it is not based on Linux.
(4) Android is not some sort of desktop environment as we find in desktop Linux.
(5) If the Linux kernel were to be replaced with the BSD kernel few would know or care.

Pay particular attention to (3), your "runs on Linux" is a similar but less precise statement; also regarding "boot a Linux kernel", that would be an important step in being hosted by Linux.

Re: Android is Linux hosted not Linux based

[Zero__Kelvin]

You are a complete idiot. Any Android phone can run any Linux application. All you need is a cross compiler (maybe you've heard of GCC, but it doesn't seem like it based on your already demonstrated lack of understanding) and some skills to build from the source. Android is essentially window manager and a Java (mostly) framework. You clearly are not an embedded software developer, so you are just going to have to take the word of those who actually understand. KDE is not Linux, yet many distributions use it to provide a UX. Others use Gnome. Nothing but lack of skill stops you from building Android to run natively on your home PC that already has Linux installed. Off you go now ...

Re: Android is Linux hosted not Linux based

[perpenso]

Your attempt at argument by authority fails. I have done lots of embedded work. Everything from microcontrollers on devices, a custom (non-Linux) kernel and c runtime environment to host applications on custom designed cpu boards, and daemons for embedded Linux environments to monitor/control attached devices.

Again, you fail at reading comprehension. Try reading the number list I provided you again. Android is not Linux, it is merely hosted on Linux. Your own post essentially says this, merely in a contorted manner.

Re: Android is Linux hosted not Linux based

[Zero__Kelvin]

You are a fucking idiot. Off you go now ...

MKB v57 is newer than MKB v28

[tepples]

then the user must use Linux to play the blue ray, like described over the net.

Which licensed BDMV player does the net recommend? Google linux bdmv player found this six-year-old post which is a reverse engineered player that's "a far shot from proper native support for blu-ray playback" and likely illegal in my country. It also turned up a page last updated in 2016 stating that "no official Blu-ray player software is available on their system". In particular, free software is on MKB v28 while new movies are on MKB v57.

You are aware that lots (and I mean lots as in every single one) site provides a shopping cart, aren't you?

I'm not referring to the buyer's user interface. I'm referring to the seller's user interface to validate a list of products that the seller is uploading to the online sales platform.

It's 2016. We got Chromecast and Bluetooth keyboards & mouses.

How many people have you seen actually carrying around a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to use with a smartphone in situations where a laptop has traditionally excelled, such as writing and editing long-form text with markup? And for the use case of taking notes about a web page or other document you're reading, how easy is it under stock versions of the popular smartphone operating systems to make both the document and your notes visible on the screen? Android has had tiling window management since Android 7.0 "Nougat", and Samsung has long had the manufacturer-specific tiling window manager that it introduced with Galaxy Note, but Nougat has yet to become widespread on existing devices or even on devices still sold new to the public.

People code applications for Linux

Or they don't because they see more money in making an application for Windows and not Linux than for Linux and not Windows, or even than for both Windows and Linux due to "support cost issues".

and if they're good the distributions include them (what's one more in 50,000+?).

The distributions tend to include only software under a free software license. The economics of games with professional production values, licensed players for major studio movies, and income tax return preparation software sort of rule out a timely release as free software for reasons I've described in this article.

Good luck running a binary for GTK for Windows or Qt for Windows on anything but Windows.

You realize those platforms came from Linux, rigtht?

Even if an application developer uses a platform that came from Linux, the fact that the platform came from Linux is no help to an end user if the developer chooses to publish only a Windows binary because of "support cost issues".

Re:MKB v57 is newer than MKB v28

[Anonymous Coward]

> Google linux bdmv player found this six-year-old post [themediaviking.com] which is a reverse engineered player that's "a far shot from proper native support for blu-ray playback" and likely illegal in my country.

Well, that's like the report citing 35 reasons why the ship didn't set off -- the 35th being it was out of fuel. It it's illegal in your country what good is if Linux can effectively play the disk? Unless one wants to be prosecuted.

For countries where it's not illegal (which I think are the majority), something might work.

> free software is on MKB v28 while new movies are on MKB v57.

This is usually corrected after a certain amount of time... ;-)

So it's not that Linux won't play at all, it's just restricted for some time to closed platforms. And I guess it takes some time to even play on these, as the content owners won't risk releasing the movie on Windows if it's still on the cinema theaters or even while still a noverlty on cable. Meanwhile, Linux coders can work to make the blu-ray movie playable outside Windows.

> I'm not referring to the buyer's user interface. I'm referring to the seller's user interface to validate a list of products that the seller is uploading to the online sales platform.

Sorry, you have stated that clearly before and I missed it (maybe I was sleepy or something). That's indeed a good idea and -- provided nothing too special is used -- would also work with Libreoffice, which in my experience handled xlsx well enough to allow to pass in an online course. My routine practice is to make spreadsheets which work both in Linux and Windows. It's easier as one might think. Of course, docx files are even more compatible between OSes...

Where I work, we do that, too, but our "clients" (so to speak) must deliver more complex documents, a spreadsheet wouldn't be enough. We have solutions based on MS technologies (like .NET), but a competitor uses Java with great success. These applications are not complex at all and we have development departments to create them. I wonder if Amazon could do it, too.

> How many people have you seen actually carrying around a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to use with a smartphone in situations where a laptop has traditionally excelled, such as writing and editing long-form text with markup?

I did buy a BT keyboard. It took eons to finally come by a cheap offer -- and I bought three -- such was the price advantage. And, after years of complaining how small those Android onscreen keyboards are, I immediately understood why an external keyboard is not really helpful: because the keyboard is three times as a big as a smartphone.

But then, it's not such a bad idea to leave one keyboard at work and one at home -- just to type messages or addresses when browsing (fortunately I still can read small text).

> And for the use case of taking notes about a web page or other document you're reading, how easy is it under stock versions of the popular smartphone operating systems to make both the document and your notes visible on the screen?

What I was referring to was the use of smartphone with TV output (e.g. with Miracast) and a normal (BT) keyboard. The user would work at home (or at work) and use a 1920x1080 TV/Monitor to edit at leisure (I'm using one right now, albeit with a Linux computer). It's much harder to find/buy a Full-HD notebook over here (most are 1366x768), but tablets even above Full HD are easier to purchase (specially if not from mainstream brands like Samsung and Apple).

> Android has had tiling window management since Android 7.0 "Nougat", and Samsung has long had the manufacturer-specific tiling window manager that it introduced with Galaxy Note, but Nougat has yet to become widespread on existing devices or even on devices still sold new to the public.

This is a software problem, and as Android uses the Linux kernel, any maker wanting to have a special "notebook" like mode probably will only need some mem

Re:MKB v57 is newer than MKB v28

[tepples]

It it's illegal in your country what good is if Linux can effectively play the disk? Unless one wants to be prosecuted.

Then Windows is for the United States, which is the home country of Slashdot Media, and Linux may be for other countries.

free software is on MKB v28 while new movies are on MKB v57.

This is usually corrected after a certain amount of time... ;-)

But "after a certain amount of time", the availability of the movie at rental kiosks is also discontinued. Redbox, for example, holds onto a movie for about one year.

And I guess it takes some time to even play on these, as the content owners won't risk releasing the movie on Windows if it's still on the cinema theaters or even while still a noverlty on cable.

Pay-per-view and BDMV sold to the public come out usually during the same week, with availability in Redbox four weeks later.

That's indeed a good idea and -- provided nothing too special is used -- would also work with Libreoffice, which in my experience handled xlsx well enough to allow to pass in an online course.

Was use of validation macros a requirement for the "online course" that you mentioned?

But then, it's not such a bad idea to leave one keyboard at work and one at home [...] The user would work at home (or at work)

And then what for writing code for hobby projects while riding transit to and from one's day job, which is one thing I use my laptop for? Being limited to work only at home and at the office and nowhere else is a non-starter.

[A limit of one window on the screen] is a software problem

Which the user cannot solve because many device manufacturers don't make it easy to unlock the bootloader, let alone build a custom system software image. Even if they do, it still requires a full backup, wipe, and restore.

and online storage ("the cloud").

At 10 USD per GB of upload or download, using online storage while riding transit can prove cost prohibitive.

some segments are still closed-source only [...] Which "support cost" when people contribute bug squashing for free?

People can contribute bug reports but are technically blocked from contribute bug fixes by unavailability of the application's source code and legally prohibited from doing so by proprietary software license agreements.

We can petition, crowdfund and buy a Linux version

Not if the application's publisher refuses to do so at any price short of half the company's market capitalization. And not even then if the publisher is not publicly traded.

or simply code an alternative

Not if the application's publisher threatens makers of close substitutes with copyright or patent infringement lawsuits. See, for example, Tetris v. Xio , as well as Microsoft's threats against third party implementations of VFAT and exFAT.

Re:MKB v57 is newer than MKB v28

[Anonymous Coward]

>> It it's illegal in your country what good is if Linux can effectively play the disk? Unless one wants to be prosecuted.

> Then Windows is for the United States, which is the home country of Slashdot Media, and Linux may be for other countries.

This would be a foregone conclusion were it not for the fact that the real world is much more than its legal aspects. For one thing, the USA cannot pass up the huge opportunity that Linux offers of lower-cost and less buggy development. Linux is a kind of Lingua Franca in software... except for license and property aspects, using Linux means one vastly increases the availability of tools at disposal. That is also interesting for those who work in other environments as Microsoft itself shows by using it inside their products or with their product offers running on Linux.

> Pay-per-view and BDMV sold to the public come out usually during the same week, with availability in Redbox four weeks later.

I'm not familiar with the commercial practices in the US; nor am I an avid movie consumer. I suppose there's a class of people who really appreciate watching a high-quality movie inside their house instead of going out to cinema. Then, yes, these people would be better served by Windows in light of permissions that e.g. Microsoft will be able to attain from media studios. Whether the number of these people is significant as a share of all those who want to see the most recent picture. If I were to make an assessment without a previous survey, I'd say people are lazy and would rather spend an evening at the cinema or would prefer to watch the movie on cable TV.

Where I live, disk rentals as a business is extinct -- blu-ray and all (just checked right now and saw many known chains closing in 2014 and 2015 -- after 33 years of operation!). I use virgin DVDs to burn Linux distros (for older hardware) and even those are no longer sold in some supermarkets (I know because I asked). In the future, I'll probably have to do something like PXE...

OTOH, it might even be possible for a Linux-based device maker to sign agreements like those and obtain the same permissions (and I imagine some businesses might see that opportunity), but that would not translate as a gain for the entire Linux ecosphere (much as Chrome being able to play Netflix is also not an example of Free software winning).

>> That's indeed a good idea and -- provided nothing too special is used -- would also work with Libreoffice, which in my experience handled xlsx well enough to allow to pass in an online course.

> Was use of validation macros a requirement for the "online course" that you mentioned?

No. And I include macros among the special features, because a lot of validations can be done directly just with Excel functions. It's not rocket science. Besides macros are also available in Libreoffice, though it's hard to believe that Amazon would take the trouble to make a version for it. I guess if someone really needs to use macros for such validation, that would make really troublesome to maintain two versions. That just makes the case for Java use, IMHO.

Alas, since it is possible to install Libreoffice on Windows but not so easy to get Excel on Linux, the easiest path for Amazon would be to make only a Libreoffice version and simply dump Excel to reduce development costs. Or do the right thing and provide an online tool for that -- with the advantage that nothing needs to be sent when finished, because it will be already in Amazon servers. With that cloud product of theirs it might even be good as a Marketing move.

The course was only cited to mean it was a very serious undertaking. I didn't mention but it was an online course I had to do for work (hence the use of MS file formats). Failing would cost dearly in personal terms. The original plan was to load my homework in MS Office to see how it would look. Time constraints, though, made me opt to deliver the results as saved by Libreoffice... and it all turned out to work well enough.

Re:MKB v57 is newer than MKB v28

[tepples]

the easiest path for Amazon [to offer validation] would be to make only a Libreoffice version and simply dump Excel to reduce development costs. Or do the right thing and provide an online tool for that

In that case, each submission to said "online tool" would count against the quota, which is one of the things that client-side prevalidation is supposed to avoid. At least that's how Amazon's competitor eBay does it: a feed to add product listings to eBay can be set in "VerifyAdd" mode, but VerifyAdd actions count against the user's quota just as much as Add actions do.

writing code for hobby projects while riding transit to and from one's day job [] is one thing I use my laptop for

I drive a car and cannot work while commuting (at least not yet).

Neither can I while cycling to and from work, but I take the bus when weather is not amenable to cycling, such as during snow or heavy rain.

Not having a big screen (like a notebook's) is a hindrance (in e.g. a train), but carrying one all the time is also annoying.

It was less annoying when 10.1" laptops were widely available. Now it's mostly tablets whose window manager enforces a window management policy of all maximized all the time, at least over the next year or so until tablets running Android 7 "Nougat" fill retail channels and applications are updated to support Nougat.

I'm not thinking about some kind of homebrew OS. I'm thinking mainstream Android, for instance.

"Mainstream Android" versions 6 and earlier don't support split screen between different apps. And devices shipping with versions back to 5.1 were still being sold new as of October 2016.

when developing one mostly sends code which is way less bulkier.

The images and audio files that the code reads and displays or plays are still bulky, especially if the application is graphical as opposed to command-line and text-based.

network speed grows faster than Moore's law

Because the quantity demanded also grows with network speed, in part caused by growth of user base, the price doesn't move very much from 1 cent per megabyte. In addition, the carriers require each subscriber to buy a minimum amount of data transfer allowance, priced at hundreds of USD per year, in order to qualify for a data plan at all. So it's either pay hundreds or wait to sync until arriving at home or work where Internet access over the WLAN either is unmetered or has a monthly quota high enough not to worry about, such as the 1000 GB/mo quota of Xfinity by Comcast. Historically, laptops running a mainstream desktop operating system have had more storage, and their applications have had better support for working offline and connecting occasionally, than tablets running a mainstream smartphone operating system.

Nowadays people are somewhat careful to avoid as much as possible such "proprietary software license agreements".

I disagree that this is anywhere near the case, especially in the home and small business segments. People still buy iPhone and iPad devices running proprietary iOS when Android devices are available, they still use Google Play Store when F-Droid is available, and they still buy major brand laptop PCs running Windows or macOS when System76 and Dell XPS Developer Edition laptops are available. They accept "an inferior, limited product" because the free alternative is insufficient for the use case.

And this will end like Adobe Acrobat Reader for Linux did -- old, unsupported and superseded by good enough alternatives like Okular.

Again, good enough up until the first time you end up dealing with a company or government agency that has bought into PDF form submission.

See, for example, Tetris v. Xio, as well as Microsoft's threats ag

Re:MKB v57 is newer than MKB v28

[Anonymous Coward]

> [about Amazon's client-side validation]

I browsed Amazon's site and found the Excel files to be downloaded, macros and all. The files have the "xls" extension.

Besides some pages stating that certain users are having trouble with different Excel versions, a "solution" provided by an answer and also recommended at the Amazon page is to not upload Excel files, but rather user csv ones.

That reminded me of the problems we go through at work with MS software.

Although Amazon do provide such Excel files, there's also a warning at the top of the page stating they are just for "U.S. Professional sellers".

So:

a) non-professional ones of course could avoid all that trouble -- and judging by some messages, it means trouble

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=2710880
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/thread.jspa?messageID=134623

b) non-U.S. sellers probably have other channels;

this link:
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/bulk-upload-products-amazon-49248.html#
advises users without Excel to use Libre/Openoffice Calc. Since the file format is xls, it may be possible to adapt such spreadsheets for use in LO.

If someone is a professional seller, that certainly is a doable task. For smaller dudes, a simpler way without spreadsheets must also be available for non-US guys -- of course, maybe they have their own national commerce sites and would not want to use Amazon...

> Neither can I while cycling to and from work, but I take the bus when weather is not amenable to cycling, such as during snow or heavy rain.

We don't get snow here, just lots of UV- A and B.

> It was less annoying when 10.1" laptops were widely available. Now it's mostly tablets whose window manager enforces a window management policy of all maximized all the time, at least over the next year or so until tablets running Android 7 "Nougat" fill retail channels and applications are updated to support Nougat.

This probably would work better when connected to a big monitor, but maybe this link is useful:

https://tunesgo.wondershare.com/android/android-window-manager.html

or this:

http://www.howtogeek.com/189345/how-to-get-multi-window-multitasking-on-any-android-phone-or-tablet/

or even this:

http://www.pcmag.com/news/343618/cant-wait-for-android-split-screen-app-viewing-try-remix-o

[ about cloud access ]

> Historically, laptops running a mainstream desktop operating system have had more storage, and their applications have had better support for working offline and connecting occasionally, than tablets running a mainstream smartphone operating system.

I don't know about you, but since some years ago I haven't care anymore about local storage. The main reason being I carry my important contents in usb drives and backup things to external great capacity drives. The notebook HD is no longer of any importance. Besides, it's way slow if it's a physical drive (5400 RPM) or very limited if it's a Compact Flash / SD drive.

[ about avoidance of proprietary platforms and preference for open ones ]

> I disagree that this is anywhere near the case, especially in the home and small business segments. People still buy iPhone and iPad devices running proprietary iOS when Android devices are available,

Only in a few countries (most English-speaking plus Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Japan):

http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile+tablet-os-ww-monthly-201610-201610-map

In every other country in the world (other than those ~10) Android wins. It is noteworthy that iOS is so successful in the US that it beats Windows 10 as most used OS -- not bad but they still need a way to recover the lost ground to Android all over the world.

As for proprietary vs open, it's obvious that Windows as proprietary is not as good as Android considering market share. And this before a more conventional software landscape establishes itself. It's already possible to do a lot of tasks wi

Re:MKB v57 is newer than MKB v28

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and BTW, a conventional notebook with 1366x768 resolution is very bad for multiwindow OSes.

At work it's only bearable when coupled with a second monitor to increase the desktop to a usable minimum; at home I use a 1920x1080 screen -- and it is not enough for spreadsheets!

Were it not for Linux' multiple workspaces, the computing experience would be awful...

When comparing a 1366x769 with the many tablets with 1920x1080 and up, I guess I would opt for the tablet. At least, I could run some apps which would provide a split screen even without the need of a multiwindow OS (file managers do that and some editors, too).

That might be one of the reasons of the flattening of PC sales: inability to offer higher quality at the same prices.

Re:MKB v57 is newer than MKB v28

[tepples]

Oh, and BTW, a conventional notebook with 1366x768 resolution is very bad for multiwindow OSes.

On a 1024x600 pixel netbook, I can at least set up two 80-column editors or terminals side by side using a 6-pixel-wide font, so I can see both a program's source code and its output.

At least, I could run some apps which would provide a split screen even without the need of a multiwindow OS

Any recommendations for Android apps that pair a web browser with a text editor? Or a source code editor with its output window, as in IDLE (Python IDE)?

Multinational expansion

[tepples]

> [The proprietary iOS platform is popular] Only in a few countries (most English-speaking plus Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Japan)

And guess where the market for an English-speaking developer is located.

> I don't know how many variants of that falling pieces game exist -- yet none uses the audio theme, visuals or the name "Tetris".

It was ruled that the copyright applies to the use of the set of the seven pieces that can be made from four square blocks. A game using differently shaped pieces would not infringe but would also not allow anywhere near the same tactics. A sports analogy would be the NFL having exclusive rights to the oblong ball used in gridiron football and trying to use that against USFL and XFL.

> Microsoft and Apple know a thing or two about [setting up an overseas subsidiary]

They're big enough to afford consultants for multinational expansion. I don't see how micro-ISVs can afford the same.

What can be done with Android

[tepples]

> https://tunesgo.wondershare.co...

Part 1 applies only to Samsung tablet owners. With both Galaxy Note 7 phones and more recently the company's washing machines exploding, I imagine that a lot of people have crossed that company off their short list.

As for part 2, most appear to be launchers, one requires root, one is just a file manager with its own quasi-MDI controls, and the most promising (Multi Screen) unfortunately lacks any sort of APK or Play Store link.

> http://www.howtogeek.com/18934...

That's about Xposed, which requires root. Now that Nexus products have been discontinued, which is the go-to rootable 9 to 10 inch Android tablet?

> http://www.pcmag.com/news/3436...

Available exclusively for Nexus 9 and Nexus 10. All Nexus products have since been discontinued. Or is the feature worth tracking down a used tablet?

> since some years ago I haven't care anymore about local storage. The main reason being I carry my important contents in usb drives

And guess what tablets can't always mount. I had a Nexus 7 (2012) tablet and an OTG cable, and it failed to do anything when I plugged in a flash drive.

> It's already possible to do a lot of tasks with Android.

Is lightweight hobby software development among them?

Re:What can be done with Android

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll answer everything here due to Slashdot's annoying policy of restricting the number of consecutive AC answers. Probably not what you want, but I have to play by their rules, which they probably created because of trolling ACs.

>> [The proprietary iOS platform is popular] Only in a few countries (most English-speaking plus Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Japan)

> And guess where the market for an English-speaking developer is located.

Think big! These countries have much less people than the others; not only because they are few, but mainly because they're highly developed, which matches perfectly Apple's strategy of charging a lot for high quality. Android more or less competes for the big masses, with cheaper products for billions of people.

This is a very attractive market for any developer and -- for the moment -- English-speaking folks have the upper hand... even in China! That may change in the future and one will need to adapt, but a window of opportunity is open... NOW!

>> Microsoft and Apple know a thing or two about [setting up an overseas subsidiary]

> They're big enough to afford consultants for multinational expansion. I don't see how micro-ISVs can afford the same.

Actually, my comment was ironic, but just for reference an acquaintance of mine went to Ireland to work for MS -- and he's not even a native English-speaker.

---

>> Oh, and BTW, a conventional notebook with 1366x768 resolution is very bad for multiwindow OSes.

> On a 1024x600 pixel netbook, I can at least set up two 80-column editors or terminals side by side using a 6-pixel-wide font, so I can see both a program's source code and its output.

For monospaced chars that may be OK, but if you're doing anything graphic, that's very bad. I have one such netbook; just watched a browser rendering a page in 512x600 and it sucks terribly. A better idea is:

a) use a tablet which can do 1900x1200 to have two 950x1200 halves -- that might be bearable or
b) alternate between editing and previewing (preferably easily like with Alt+Tab or clicking on a single icon).

Method b is not as cool as viewing both screens at the same time but does give a better idea of how your users will see your app.

>> At least, I could run some apps which would provide a split screen even without the need of a multiwindow OS

> Any recommendations for Android apps that pair a web browser with a text editor? Or a source code editor with its output window, as in IDLE (Python IDE)?

Not a developer myself, so I'd need to search for an answer; by way of example, there's a markdown editor (on F-Droid IIRC) name Writeily which works the way I described above.

Also, just saw a link about multiwindow support in the upcoming Android 7:

https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/multi-window.html

Before you say "but people use Android 5.1!", please have in mind Android updates are not like in Linux (easy and current) but are equal or even worse than on Windows. After some time, the user is sort of forced to buy another device and with it comes a more recent Android. I myself could not use an important application (at work!) because I didn't have the proper Android version. A more serious problem is how to interact with such small images -- even in tablets: you cannot just select with your finger, you'll have to get some sort of BT mouse.

---

[ Several observations about multi-window on specific brands, the requirement of rooting the smartphone or devices which are discontinued ]

Well, if you want multiwindow for your line of work, such hurdles can be overcome -- by simply buying one modern smart phone or even trying one of those Android ports to run on hardware you already have. Not easy but since you want to be a developer, that's part of the craft you chose.

If you are worried that your clients have multiwindow, then simply don't. That's MS mistake -- to think people want a conventional desktop. I have cowork

Re:What can be done with Android

[tepples]

Think big! These countries have much less people than the others

But if my entire development team speaks only English, how are users in countries where English is not a common first or even second language expected to be able to understand text in the application? And even if I exclude all Five Eyes countries and instead sell to users in those countries, I'm still liable because I live on the soil of a software patent country and hold no other country's work visa.

an acquaintance of mine went to Ireland to work for MS

Unlike a micro-ISV, Microsoft is large enough to negotiate the bureaucracy of sponsoring a work visa.

alternate between editing and previewing (preferably easily like with Alt+Tab or clicking on a single icon).

In the past, alternating between a maximized editor window and a maximized output window has proven very distracting for me, in part because of the digital analog of the doorway amnesia phenomenon. I thought PC users left the "all maximized all the time" paradigm behind back when they switched from MS-DOS to Windows or from Linux with text console to Linux with XFree86.

Also, just saw a link about multiwindow support in the upcoming Android 7:

I addressed that.

A more serious problem is how to interact with such small images -- even in tablets: you cannot just select with your finger, you'll have to get some sort of BT mouse.

A 7" tablet is big enough for two phone-sized apps, a 10" for four, without any change in the size of touch targets. The problem is the assumption baked into Android 3 through 6 that an application's window size will not change after installation, other than through interchange of horizontal and vertical dimension.

Well, if you want multiwindow for your line of work, such hurdles can be overcome -- by simply buying one modern smart phone

Is there anything that supports it other than a Pixel phone on a Verizon post-paid contract? (The Pixel is premium-priced and exclusive to Verizon in the United States, and I hold no work visa for any other country.)

And to develop for Android, the go-to platform is Linux which I already use

Again, the discontinuation of 10" laptops.

http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/working-on-android/

From the article: "Nexus 10" These are also discontinued.

From the article: "JuiceSSH SSH client to access my remote Linux server". But because buses in my home town do not provide Wi-Fi, JuiceSSH won't work while on the bus unless I buy a data plan with a tethering rider.

From the article: "For offline development I have an installation of Terminal IDE that allows me to run Linux utilities like vim and git locally." But from the Google Play Store page:

** INCOMPATIBLE WITH ANDROID 5.0 LOLLIPOP AND VERSIONS PAST THAT **

** ONLY USE WiTH ANDROID 4.4 OR BELOW.. **

** ( Sorry - but new PIE restrictions break everything in later versions ) **

Re:What can be done with Android

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Think big! These countries have much less people than the others

> But if my entire development team speaks only English, how are users in countries where English is not a common first or even second language expected to be able to understand text in the application?

Have you seen Android apps from Russia, Italia or other countries?

They:
a) make apps which use minimal texts (like "Angry Birds") or
b) make computing related apps which uses jargon (like network-related apps) or
c) they know English (like you) and make do with that (English is almost a Lingua Franca) or
d) they use volunteers for translation (though that works mostly with Free Software).

But you can choose to work within your language limits, no problem.

This page might prove helpful:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_entities_where_English_is_an_official_language

If you're selling tax-related software your universe might be a lot smaller: just the USA and maybe even less -- maybe even some states. If you're selling a game (like Tetris) you could speak Sanskrit and it would sell in spite of that.

> And even if I exclude all Five Eyes countries and instead sell to users in those countries, I'm still liable because I live on the soil of a software patent country and hold no other country's work visa.

That's the part where I said the USA is repeatedly shooting its foot. This only is of interest for big corps -- small ISV are more easily beaten with such stupid laws. Actually, this is also bad for them in the long term because talents migrate from small companies to big ones -- but thinking about the long term has fallen out of fashion.

>> an acquaintance of mine went to Ireland to work for MS

> Unlike a micro-ISV, Microsoft is large enough to negotiate the bureaucracy of sponsoring a work visa.

Again, I was poking fun at such moves (which clearly put some companies at odds with the IRS). You don't even need to move anywhere because we have this incredibly powerful communication method called Internet; besides, AFAIU you don't cease to be a taxpayer just because you're outside the US (so... there's no escape).

> In the past, alternating between a maximized editor window and a maximized output window has proven very distracting for me, in part because of the digital analog of the doorway amnesia phenomenon [scientificamerican.com].

Ah, I always cite that work but somehow forgot where I've read it. Thanks for the link (but I'll possibly forget it again... doh!).

Many, many decades ago I used to watch Woody Woodpecker cartoons and in some the bird would go to some Arab country which had stores with writings in Arab (beautiful writing, BTW, one of the most IMHO). The animators used a very interesting trick: the sign would blur for a moment and then "unblur" again -- but now with the translation into English. Now that I think about it, that was no gimmick, but a necessary step to make clear for the audience that the English text was the faithful translation of those otherwise incomprehensible Arab chars.

These days there special effects which work to that end: one favorite of mine is the KDE slide to back effect. You click on a partially hidden window and it does not simply comes to foreground; instead, the window in front of it moves, it slides out of the way until the clicked window becomes entirely visible and then the moving window shuffles itself under the window which we need to be on top. This is a very interesting effect which makes the user feel more in control of the desktop.

Ah, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK03G-hqFcI

These things help fight the doorway amnesia (one other way to think about it is imagine there was no door between your office and the kitchen: you would never leave the room, so you'd never forget anything.

> I thought PC users left the "all maximized all the time" paradigm behind back when they switched from MS-DOS to Windows or from Linux with text console

Re:What can be done with Android

[tepples]

You don't even need to move anywhere because we have this incredibly powerful communication method called Internet

A business still has to follow the law of the country where it is located. A business in the United States is forbidden to distribute applications that infringe U.S. software patents even to users in countries that do not recognize software patents.

besides, AFAIU you don't cease to be a taxpayer just because you're outside the US

As I understand it, U.S. tax on foreign citizens' income applies only to tax obligation, not to differences in patent law.

We have here what is called unlocked phones

We have those, but a phone manufacturer has the right as a private sector company to choose whether or not to offer an unlocked version of a particular model in a particular country. Google has chosen not to with the Pixel in the United States.

Linux can be installed on an old 10" laptop, even if it is discontinued.

My concern is about when the hardware fails. If a laptop is still under warranty, its manufacturer will repair or replace it. The laptop I currently use came with a standard 1-year warranty and an optional second year, which I purchased. Then when its power jack became unusably loose, a Dell technician came out to my house to open it up and swap the power jack. But now it's more than six years old, and I fear what might happen to it next.

there are ways to install an entire Linux distribution (terminals, vim and the kitchen sink) on Android.

Do these "ways" require root?

Re:What can be done with Android

[Anonymous Coward]

> A business still has to follow the law of the country where it is located. A business in the United States is forbidden to distribute applications that infringe U.S. software patents even to users in countries that do not recognize software patents.

And what if a business in the United States buys a business in another country? Besides, patents are not a borderless concept. A U.S. patent has no legal value whatsoever in another country; the country's government probably has its own Patent Office and recognizes whatever patents it sees fit. There is, though, a Patent Law Treaty ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_Law_Treaty ). TBH, I don't understand much about such treaties.

But I understand (after your explanation, that is) that a US business is constrained in ways a foreign one is not when acting on foreign soil. Maybe there is legal way to get out of this but sure it is not easy for the small guys... Even more reason to hope for this software patent idea to be abolished in the US -- because it is damaging the country's own businesses.

[ tax discussion skipped ]

>> We have here what is called unlocked phones

> We have those, but a phone manufacturer has the right as a private sector company to choose whether or not to offer an unlocked version of a particular model in a particular country. Google has chosen not to with the Pixel in the United States.

That would be prohibited in my country on antitrust grounds, me thinks. The expression in English seems to be "tie-in sale." Over here it's an issue about consumer rights.

>> Linux can be installed on an old 10" laptop, even if it is discontinued.

> My concern is about when the hardware fails. If a laptop is still under warranty, its manufacturer will repair or replace it. The laptop I currently use came with a standard 1-year warranty and an optional second year, which I purchased. Then when its power jack became unusably loose, a Dell technician came out to my house to open it up and swap the power jack. But now it's more than six years old, and I fear what might happen to it next.

Hardware does not fail so fast! And this is quite uncommon over here, for a power jack to get loose (though I have one notebook with USB connectors which seem damaged by a certain person in my family... grrr! )

I got computers from 2002, 2007, 2009, 2010, all working fine. In my experience mechanical things fail first (one of them has the classical DVD unit locked door problem -- a clip is needed to open it). Fortunately, I rarely use DVDs... everything is USB now.

And those computers work well enough to be of great help. We have 4GB RAM i7 notebooks at work which freeze under Windows 10. It never ceases to amaze me... the sheer incompetence, that is.

>> there are ways to install an entire Linux distribution (terminals, vim and the kitchen sink) on Android.

> Do these "ways" require root?

Actually, no. IIRC (and I haven't done it in part because of that)... ah, here it is (sorry for the link, not my fault!):

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cuntubuntu&hl=en

If you don't root the device, you're subject to snooping by the underlying Android system; even rooting it, I've read elsewhere that smartphones have a "subterranean" monitor which means you're never really alone.

One of my primary ideas in any device I own is getting rid of software which I cannot peek into -- thus, for instance, I would not run Linux on a VM on Windows.

Re:What can be done with Android

[tepples]

And what if a business in the United States buys a business in another country?

I don't know. But as you went on to point out, the sort of micro-ISVs that I'm talking about, with a staff of five or fewer, aren't anywhere near big enough to go on an acquisition spree.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cuntubuntu&hl=en

"Ubuntu is for cunts"?

(clicks through)
"Debian noroot" for anyone with Lollipop and 1 GB free, with a successor called GNURoot Debian that works on Marshmallow, supports apt-get, and couples with XServer XSDL. Interesting. I'll have to check these out when I get time.

Re:What can be done with Android

[Anonymous Coward]

>> And what if a business in the United States buys a business in another country?

> I don't know. But as you went on to point out, the sort of micro-ISVs that I'm talking about, with a staff of five or fewer, aren't anywhere near big enough to go on an acquisition spree.

If you cannot buy them, let them buy you. That's what Jobs did. Two times: with Apple (Next) and Disney (Pixar). It was a kind of modern Trojan Horse... and it worked pretty nice for him.

> "Ubuntu is for ****"?

For the sake of humanity, I hope that is an automatically generated URL...

Also, please notice that even a tablet running Linux would be unusable without a three-button mouse. At the present moment, I am quite mad at the "editing" features of smartphones: the long press to select things, the lack of precision and the usual (for me) absence of an undo function when I backspace over important text.