Linux use may increase in the desktop sector

[richmond62]

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/29/2255 ... m-response

[jiml]

Interesting.
Some Windows users may switch to Mac for similar reasons.

[FourthWorld]

Some will. But Apple doesn't sell an OS, they sell computers.

Linux is an option for continuing to enjoy the computer they already own.

Bonus points that Linux installs even faster than a Windows upgrade, and will be supported on that hardware for a great many years to come.

And some will stay with Windows, replacing their current hardware with something Win 11 supports. This can be another boon for Linux fans: lots of good used machines coming into the market super cheap.

[wsamples]

Interesting.
Some Windows users may switch to Mac for similar reasons.

Switching to Mac would mean purchasing new hardware and running a new OS. Isn't that exactly what you're implying they would be trying to avoid in refusing to purchase new hardware in order to run a new OS? The logic seems a little shaky to me.

[wsamples]

Keep in mind that Windows 7 still maintains a significant market share, higher than all desktop versions of MacOS. Windows users don't seem to be all that preoccupied with having the newest version of their OS.

[FourthWorld]

Keep in mind that Windows 7 still maintains a significant market share, higher than all desktop versions of MacOS. Windows users don't seem to be all that preoccupied with having the newest version of their OS.

Frightening. Microsoft ended support for Win 7 more than a year and a half ago. The only ones still producing modifications for the system are organized crime and hostile nation states.

[AxWald]

Hi,

Frightening. Microsoft ended support for Win 7 more than a year and a half ago. The only ones still producing modifications for the system are organized crime and hostile nation states.

You may have a look at the support status of the Linux distributions that LC lists as "supported" ;-)

Have fun!

[FourthWorld]

Hi,

Frightening. Microsoft ended support for Win 7 more than a year and a half ago. The only ones still producing modifications for the system are organized crime and hostile nation states.

You may have a look at the support status of the Linux distributions that LC lists as "supported"

Have fun!

I've already discussed the optics on that with the team, and the impact of actual use of LC in more recent distros had already been discussed here many times. If you missed any of those discussions, read the full text of the section you're referring to from the Release Notes.

TL/DR for newcomers:

If your system can run any modern browser, it has the dependencies LC needs already well met.

[AxWald]

Well,

as long as LC doesn't find its way in any repositories this is academic anyways.

But back to topic:
There's a newer article on theVerge. Actually, every other day now there's another news item about what additional machines suddenly may run Win 11, too.
Makes me wonder if this isn't a quite strange marketing hype: Start with "You'll all need brand new computers for Win 11" (=> wailing and gnashing of teeth), then melt down carefully to "It will run on your PC too, just with reduced security" (=> sigh with relief).

Another point some may fail to consider:
The strength & the main target of the Windows OS & its software eco system isn't Jane Doe's home PC/ laptop.
It's the machine she, and her co-workers, uses at work. In most companies the hundreds of PCs are leased & replaced all 3-4 years anyways, that's where HP, Dell, Lenovo etc. make their revenue. So here even the initial Win 11 requirements wouldn't hurt much - they're met anyways in most cases.

By the way: This is where software is used that actually costs money. This is where developers actually can earn a comfortable living, even as small companies or freelancers. It's about $490bn/year.
Compare: If you subtract the few big companies that dominate the mobile App Shops with games, advertising/ social media, what remains is just a pit where the monkeys fight for peanuts. $111bn/year, and if you subtract games alone, meager $32bn/year remaining ...

Anyways, this doesn't mean that this will be not, finally, "the year of Linux on the desktop" ;-)
Who knows? After all, Cupertino makes good progress with its reality distortion field, and there's a break point even for the most hardcore devotees. Linux could multiply it's user base this way!

Have fun!

[richmond62]

"the year of Linux on the desktop"

I think that idea is a hallucination that was exploded years ago, but I think that Linux uptake is
more of a slow burn: but this year it may accelerate.

[jiml]

Switching to Mac would mean purchasing new hardware and running a new OS. Isn't that exactly what you're implying they would be trying to avoid in refusing to purchase new hardware in order to run a new OS?

No, I wasn't implying that folks were trying to avoid purchasing new hardware. The new Windows system will require doing that for many users.
Some folks faced with the necessity to purchase new hardware might chose a new M1 Mac which coincidentally may be one of the best Windows machines out there. Hence a possible shift to Mac hardware.

Either way, as Richard astutely observes, this is a boon for Linux users wanting to pick up used WinTel boxes.

[richmond62]

which coincidentally may be one of the best Windows machines out there

Having stumped up the overhead to buy a Macintosh machine I can never understand why someone
would then run Windows on it (except as a secondary system for testing).

[golife]

Why should I ever again run Apple OS? None of my clients is using it. And I am not unhappy with Windows 10 since it is not such a closed system as Apple OS. I can easily build my own hardware from components. It pretty well does what it is supposed to do, and I have no problems at all. The days of ideological wars are over, I hope. Linux would be fine if the business community would use it -- and they only use for servers, not in client machines in the overwhelming majority.

If we would traget business applications much more, LiveCode would also have a bigger share. LC is still seen as an Apple Macintosh and iOS first society. To truly be multi-platform (including the modern Internet Browser platform) you will need many more Windows developers before even thinking too much about Linux (or other derivates).

I gave up on Apple for other reasons and I never regretted this step. But that is, of course, personal and everybody shall be happy using what he or she is using. But I would like to have at least the same execution performance on Windows as in the Apple machines using the LiveCode IDE.

[richmond62]

LC is still seen as an Apple Macintosh and iOS first society.

Funny: first time I have seen that.

Could you support that claim?

"still seen" By whom? and why the "still"?

MetaCard, as far as I am aware, was developed as a clone of HyperCard to run on UNIX, and then it was made available
for other systems: so why it (and Kevin Miller's clever stuff later on) should be described as it is above I do not just know.

[richmond62]

Frightening.

Maybe I'm extremely naive, but FourthWorld seens always frightened about unsupported operating systems; I'm not:
currently deploying MacOS 10.7, 10.6 and 10.4 (PPC) as well as some fairly ancient Linux versions.

Presumably the vast majority of Windows 7 users have taken the trouble to harden their systems as far as they can.

I live in a country where something like 60% of computers run Windows XP with very few "hiccups".

I have an old pensioner friend who is perfectly happy with his machine chuntering along on Windows 98.

As the OP, my intention was NOT to make users of machines either panic and buy expensive machines so they could deploy Windows 11,
nor was it to make them go hell-for-leather for Linux, it was a question about those people who felt 'frightened' about deploying
unsupported systems but did not have the necessary funds to buy a machine to cope with Windows 11, and for that reason might
opt for Linux instead.

And all the "flack" about who loves Mac, who loves Windows and who loves Linux; while, possibly keeping the
schoolboys entertained is tangential to the question.