An easy workaround for this requirement is the Rufus USB formatting tool, which can create USB install media for Windows and all kinds of other operating systems. Rufus has already offered some flags to remove Windows 11’s system requirement checks from the installer, removing the need for clunky Windows Registry edits and other workarounds. But the beta of version 3.19 will also remove the Microsoft account requirement for new installs, making it easy to set up a new Windows PC with a traditional local account.
The hoops people jump through to be allowed to use a mediocre operating system when better alternatives are abundant.
Please get this into your Linux cheerleading mind: People are not going to give up the Windows ecosystem and Windows device support for an OS that has no real app ecosystem and iffy device support just to get marginal benefits in return. They might do it for MacOS, which has a decent app ecosystem and unique hardware offerings, but not Desktop Linux.
And then there is the whole question of what those Desktop Linux benefits are for someone with a new or newish laptop and who doesn’t mind setting up a Microsoft account (most users have been trained by iOS and Android to do that as a standard act when setting up a device). Desktop Linux has crap power management on most laptops and offers a mix of traditional and “modern” UI just like Windows.
I am sick of tired of people who think that every time Windows is criticized for anything, it’s the perfect opportunity to pitch Desktop Linux. It’s not.
kurkosdr,
“Online services” aside, Windows 10 was the perfect desktop operating system.
Windows 11 broke many nicely working things. I recently tried it on one of my machines, and the experience was let down on many areas. Yes, having this USB is nice, but there are many other back steps in the changelist.
From the tip of my head:
– “Streamlined” context menus. No longer, for example, can right click on taskbar to launch task manager
– Loss of audio and video control panel options (or them being hidden very deep)
– Forcing “Windows Hello” even when there is no compatible camera or fingerprint reader
– Broken Start Menu metaphor
Anyway, I am not expecting Microsoft to roll these changes back. Yet, if they continue the “every other version is good” trend, maybe Windows 12 will be great again.
Every time I see a “Cult Of Linux” user evangelizing on an article that has absolutely positively ZERO to do with Linux or Unix? all I can think of is this Onion article…
https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-televisi-1819565469
I use GNU/LInux for political reasons, mainly because it’s a gift from mankind to mankind, vs a commercial product owned by X or Y.
It is the best OS (for me) just because of this, but it could be better.
Period.
I only use Windows at home to watch prime video with linux the bitrate is stuck at 1,17GB/hour instead of 6,84Gb/hour and no 1080p.
My work laptop did run PopOS! after ubuntu-mate but recently put manjaro kde on in after using it for a year at home. All the windows stuff is in virtualboxes (I do have some older windows 7 software and windows 10 stuff)
Sleep does work with manjaro
Pretty sure sleep isn’t the issue, but that there are now like 10 ACPI power states and the Linux kernel won’t support them as the manufacturer doesn’t care to release drivers or specs for them. Thus terrible battery life in most cases of “just putting Linux” on an average laptop, especially for 2-in-1 machines.
If Linux desktop couldn’t persuade users into its ecosystem during the extended death of XP, then it basically never will. Linux was a free (beer) offering, supposedly offering a 1-2-1 replacement to their current operating system, on the same hardware. Even with the billionaire backed Ubuntu, people voted with their wallet and Linux Desktop games were nominal. As a server, Linux is amazing, as a desktop it’s simply not there. Look at the recent kernal updates, it’s all server, all the time. The maintainers have accepted the current reality.
Just accept the fact Linux fans live in a Facebook like echo chamber (especially here). They could go out in the real world and learn the hard truth that it’s far from the “it just works” experience of everything else, but they’d rather hear each other’s lies that Linux is already good enough and ignore that most help posts have people crawling back to the command line like the 1980’s. A true, unbiased assessment of desktop Linux is that it’s generally only desirable if you’re a web dev and want a similar environment to production. To the echo chamber of Linux, it’s more of a religion than an OS, so the lies like it’s ready, and if it were just pre-installed are their mythology. The problem is reality works this way: “If it were good, it would be pre-installed already,” and the other way is basically throwing a tantrum because the world doesn’t work the way you want it to. Hence the constant moving of the goal posts like the community immediately saying people should just learn the command line as it’s easier, etc. Circular, non-sense reasoning at it’s best
I’m a huge advocate of Linux, but I am also required to use Windows for some work stuff simply because that’s what they use and I can’t change it. So I’m very familiar with both sides of the aisle, and for my needs Linux is far superior. I even maintain two rather large and popular Linux projects that offer respins of a large Linux distro but with different default configurations and installation methods to make them easier and more usable out-of-the-box. But I totally agree with you that the Linux community in general is absolutely terrible at providing sane, usable defaults, and there is an extremely annoying tendency to send new users to the command line when it’s **not even necessary**. In part this is owing to the fact that it’s simply easier to provide support by telling a user to “open a terminal and run `sudo bla-bla –yuck | muck` and paste the output here” rather than telling them to “Look in the application menu for the Bla-Bla settings panel and then under the Yuck tab select Muck from the dropdown menu and then hit Apply and send me a screenshot”. I’m even seeing a huge shift in support posts for Windows where they resort more and more to Powershell commands and/or Run commands and complex registry hacks to configure relatively simple aspects of the system. But there’s also a tendency where ignorant users that try to sound smart create low-effort tutorials or videos and spout off cliché commands to impress users. And frankly, it appears that many of the users that are interested enough in switching to a different OS actually like that sort of thing. I was just watching a review of one of my Linux spins on Youtube where the presenter said “The first thing we need to do after installing is update the system” (which isn’t true) and then proceeded to open a terminal and type a series of complicated and **incorrect** commands that actually failed on-screen, but he just glossed over it and said “There, now we have our system correctly updated” (when he had actually just tried and failed to only update the available packages lists). All of this was completely unnecessary, as my Linux spins all prominently present easy graphical software managers and update methods to the user, and the documentation also shows exclusively point-n-click methods of accomplishing everything. So I would say that to a very large degree what you correctly called out in the Linux ecosystem is more of a problem with the users and influencers than with the actual technical merits of the Linux software ecosystem.
dark2,
I recognize elements of that and those dogmatic opinions do get annoying when it comes up because there’s no reasoning with dogma. However I do think that sentiment is somewhat overstated because linux does not have a monopoly on this sort of OS zealotry. I am a bit perplexed as to why you (and others) are specifically accusing those of us “especially here” of being a mindless pro linux echo chamber. Most of the pro linux posts here have been well rounded and not of the dogmatic variety. Honestly go through every post here, most of it is strawman linux bashing. So much so that I would submit to you that THAT may be a real “echo chamber” in and of itself.
As a linux user I can take linux criticism and I’ve personally been critical of linux many times. But I do feel that there’s a lot of unjustified us versus them hatred and I think your comment is fanning the flames of that rather than seeing and accepting that most of us including linux fans are actually reasonable & rational people.
This may well fall on deaf ears, but I would ask that we stick to criticizing the OS itself rather than the users of the OS because that is neither productive nor informative. I for one am tired of operating systems topics getting trampled under religious turf wars.
Unfortunately, the users of the OS are the main problem with Linux. Besides just being general zealots, they hinder any real progress by defending the status quo. It took the community 10 years to get over the idea that package managers aren’t a good idea, but instead of unifying on a solution we now have Snap, Docker, AppImage, Flatpak… The community is the problem, and desktop Linux were a business that hired a consultant to fix things, that consultant would most certainly say :”trash everything and start over, this is too far gone.”
dark2,
That’s not a fair assessment though. Platforms have legitimate problems and many are recognized by their own users (whether linux, windows, mac, etc). It’s just inflammatory to blame users for those problems.
That’s news to me. You are right that sideloading was difficult on linux and snap/appimage/flatpak/etc were developed to make it easier. But whether you like it or not all of the worlds major platforms (android/ios/chromebooks/mac/windows/xbox/playstation/etc) either always had or have been pushing for centralized package management and most users are already happy to use it. The momentum is not going in the direction that you think it is.
I do understand if you have gripes about this, but to blame linux alone requires a degree of selective bias.
Isn’t that exactly the kind of generic throwaway insult that a linux zealot would use to describe windows? As I was saying before “there’s a lot of unjustified us versus them hatred and I think your comment is fanning the flames of that rather than seeing and accepting that most of us including linux fans are actually reasonable & rational people.”
I think it’s pointless to belittle others over their choice of a computer platform of all things. Who cares! As a linux user myself I feel that you are trying to be offensive rather than offer constructive criticism. Do you understand how the following statement crosses the line from an objective argument to a religious argument? “Linux is no good for me, therefor no one else should use it either!”
@alfman
“Isn’t that exactly the kind of generic throwaway insult that a linux zealot would use to describe windows?”
Not really, after a while you realize the infamous xkcd comment every Linux fanboy loves about too many competing standards is only specific to open source. Closed source doesn’t really have that problem as it succeeds, or dies. Linux’s biggest problems are people/organizational issues and not technical issues. Thus any other statement than it will always be stuck in it’s current status quo is a false statement. I’d let Linux be, but the constant stream of Linux zealots in news articles (Like Thom’s comment here) and youtube personalities saying things like “just switch to Linux if you don’t like Windows 11” presents people with a false choice. By continuing to plug it as a real alternative to Windows/MacOS for desktop, real progress on an alternate OS that can compete with Windows is hindered (E.g. ReactOS could be ready by now if it had even a fraction of the funding that went to Linux). Meanwhile the typical end user that believed those personalities attempts to use Linux for 2 weeks, and then switches back to something else after it being a terrible experience. This 2 week only user problem hasn’t changed in over a decade. You can argue it’s about not having MS Office or Photoshop, but that’s 2 issues: 1: The previously mentioned lack of proper 3rd party software support (usually accomplished with an SDK, but that would require thousands of programmers and unification that Linux doesn’t have), 2: Opportunity cost. The average user, while probably not conscious of opportunity cost, does realize that Photoshop or MS Office make them much faster at their job and more profitable than the open source alternatives. These guys don’t really have any problem porting their stuff to Mac Or Windows, so the problem is definitely the fact there is no real standard software distribution method for Linux. As I’ve said elsewhere, the userland portion of desktop Linux is highly unstable compared to everything else, but usually gets falsely equated with kernel stability. Thus the last LTT Linux daily driver video still mentions companies pull support for Linux after realizing 80%+ of their support tickets coming from 2% of users isn’t worth it.
Edit, the existence of desktop Linux has also surely made it harder to legally break up Microsoft as a monopoly as well. Presenting it as a valid alternative is a false choice that hurts everyone.
dark2,
You’ll have to link it, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I’ve criticized linux leadership as well, but that doesn’t explain your radicalized attitude towards linux fans & users calling us all zealots and religious fanatics. Most of us really aren’t those things at all, linux is just a tool that we find useful for us and that’s all it is.
Alright, but here on on osnews those are straw man arguments that you are attacking. No one else brought them up. For whatever reason you seem to be highly motivated to flame OS turf wars rather than peacefully accept that everyone’s needs and preferences are different.
Obviously linux is not for you, which is fine and I really don’t mind you sharing your criticism of it. But that doesn’t seem to be enough for you, you seem to have an additional axe to grind against linux users themselves and trying to judge what’s best for them…but it’s not your call and it is not reasonable to push your opinions on us. We should all be able to get along fine regardless of the operating systems we use, but we have to stop treating these topics like religion.
Using that logic let’s throw macos on the fire too since the existence of macos has also surely made it harder to legally break up microsoft as a monopoly as well.
I don’t know if you realize it but you’ve got it backwards. The elimination of alternatives creates the conditions for “too big to fail” where dominant entities cannot be broken up.
True, you do need the command line in Linux depending on what you need to do, but I also regularly need the command line, registry edits, policy changes, secpol changes, etc. in windows which is beyond most users knowledge.
When it comes to computer administration, Microsoft has moved to make more command line changes needed then in the past. By need I do much more PowerShell administration these days then I did 10 years ago in the Microsoft ecosystem.
While you are probably correct that Thom is probably advocating Linux, he did not actually say that.
A lot of people think there are better versions of Windows than Windows 11. Windows 7 still has many advocates. I have seen quite a few posts lately saying that Windows 8.1 is the best currently supported version ( though it is about to go out of support ). There are not that many reasons to prefer Windows 11 to Windows 10 and a few reasons for the opposite.
As commercial software they have to sell the new version to keep making a profit. If the new version looks identical but just has under the hood improvements, people won’t buy it. People need to see significant differences to justify paying for the update.
@kurkosdr
Not sure what sort of drugs you are snorting, but Linux is doing fine on the app ecosystem front… most of the software is free, or the same programs now have Linux versions. Even things that historically locked Linux users away like office can be used via Office 365.
Windows 11 is trash, I can’t use it for more than a few minutes without being irritated, and it really serves zero purpose.
I’m a full time Linux user. Have been since the early 2000s. Your argument of ‘Windows is trash’ is lacking in any detail and simply serves to reinforce the stereotype of the typical Linux ‘zealot’.
@leech didn’t say “Windows is trash”, they said “Windows 11 is trash”, which I agree with. Windows 7 was the pinnacle of Microsoft’s desktop operating system, they didn’t have to add in all the pointless requirements for consumer versions of 10 like forced MS accounts and telemetry that can’t be turned off even in the registry and GPO, but they did. “Just use LTSC” is fine if one can afford it, but you have to jump through hoops to buy it and it’s expensive as hell compared to the “free” version of 10 that comes with pre-built computers and virtually all laptops. Microsoft counts on this because they are desperately trying to join the ranks of Google in profiting off your private information and selling your eyeballs to the highest bidder.
Now we have Windows 11 with all the terrible baggage of 10, magnified by new, even more terrible baggage of its own. So no, Windows overall isn’t necessarily trash, but Windows 11 stinks to high heaven.
And they are perfectly fine with that.
r/Linux is one the most autocratic communities in Reddit BTW.
* Cannot appeal bans even when they are handed by mistake
* Community moderators are hidden
* “Write to mods” are never replied
* Cannot post unless you have a positive good karma
It has never even occurred to me to visit /r/Linux and I use Reddit daily and am typing this on a laptop running Arch. Your description makes me think that perhaps that is a bullet dodged.
And add to that list:
– Support questions are not allowed
– Moderators on power trips label posts they don’t like as “support questions” and remove them, and they ban users that question their arbitrary actions
I’m a huge Linux advocate, but /r/linux is indeed one of the most toxic and unpleasant sections of the internet I’ve ever had the misfortune of visiting.
An “elitist” community you could say. Elitist in the most perverted way, unfortunately.
And the #linux channels on most irc networks were like that years back too.. Typically run by a handful of arrogant individuals who shun anyone who disagrees with them or who is new.
Haha, nice. Wake me up when Adobe is on board and when native versions of Microsoft Office are available.
And then there is the games issue. Proton is nice and all on unique hardware like the Steam Deck, but most people aren’t going to give up native support on their rig or gaming laptop for a compatibility layer that maybe works for your game.
How so? Look, I don’t like the direction Microsoft has gone since Windows 8, but going from there to “an OS with iffy hardware support, crap power management on most laptops, a laughable app ecosystem, and an incomplete compatibility layer somehow offers a better experience” is a long way.
@kurkosdr I hope Thom’s typical ill-informed snark and the other poster doesn’t give you a bad impression of Linux users. Like I said, I’ve been using it for years and openly accept that it has major issues that a non-technical person would find to be brickwalls. This argument has been going on for decades now and the antagonists still can’t get it through their head that an overwhelming majority of users are completely non-technical and oblivious to what goes on behind the scenes. And that’s fine.
I mean I can point out things about Windows 11 being trash as far as breaking UI behaviors that have literally been standard for 30+ years across multiple operating systems, it really looks like a dumbed down operating system like ChromeOS or Samsung’s Dex, it’s barely configurable at all. Requires weird CPU levels and won’t install on some hardware that isn’t all that old. Should I go on?
Linux will run on far more hardware than Windows 10/11 will. You have ultimate customization over how and what things are running. Windows will deprecate hardware much quicker.
For what it’s worth, I’m not a Linux Zealot, I enjoy messing around with operating systems, but have not enjoyed at all messing around with Windows 11. I have it installed via Parallels on my macbook and.. it’s unpleasant to say the least. I actually kind of think Linux has gotten boring (just works), and I think tinkering with IRIX and AmigaOS are far more enjoyable these days.
As far as gaming goes, there are constantly massive improvements happening. Unfortunately the anti-cheat thing is 100% a blocker, but not the fault of the Linux side, and neither is the lack of Adobe. While I’m not a professional photographer or anything, but any time I’ve needed to do something more advanced, I simply look up ‘how to do $thing with gimp’ and pretty much there is always some way to do it. If I wanted to make up numbers, Gimp would satisfy 80-90% of all things photoshop can do.
One last note… really? No one cares about Native Office anymore (I hate to say that, because I’m rather anti-cloud). I was testing out LibreOffice Write, MS Word and Apple Pages on the macbook, what I found was… they all kind of suck in different ways 😛 I should go back to using Pagestream on the Amiga 🙂
It has been proven over and over and over again that Windows runs on much older hardware than advertised. Granted, sometimes you have to jump through hoops to do it but that doesn’t change the end result. That being said, you can easily question how much value there is in supporting or working on old outdated hardware. Hardware/software isn’t “updated” only to keep the cow producing milk. Technology, design, efficiency, capability, security, etc all keep progressing. Even if you could get away with using some old POS system (by todays standards), that doesn’t mean everything else will play nice with it.
Gloating about how you still use ancient hardware and software isn’t a badge of honor, it’s more likely a sign of stupidity. It doesn’t make you a cool kid, it makes you an easy target. But hey, do you! If using old crap is your thing then enjoy life in obscurity with the 2 other people who share your philosophy. Just don’t whine & cry when it’s a struggle to live there.
And if you believe Linux has better driver support? I have a solar fricking roadway you might be interested in LMFAO! I actually refurbish older hardware and can tell you flat footed Linux driver support is absolute trash on anything that is over 5 years old, period.
Want an example I just ran into? Show me a first gen AMD APU driver for Linux…go on I’ll wait…oh yeah doesn’t exist, Linux hasn’t had support for the first gen AMD APUs since Ubuntu 6. Meanwhile I can load the Vista driver into Windows 10 or 11 and have full hardware accelerated video support OOTB. No hacks, no being expected to write my own kernel driver from scratch (which I actually had a Linux forum poster suggest I do) nope it “just works”.
Same goes for printers, older sound cards that aren’t made by Creative, hell I could go on all day and the ones that Linux claim are “supported”? Often that actually means “90% of the features don’t actually work on the device but we count that as success” such as AIO printers not being able to scan or fax, only print.
So you go right ahead in front of the class and show me the Linux distro where I can take drivers for say Ubuntu 6 or Debian Sid and just install them on a 2022 distro and have them work OOTB with 100% functionality and I’ll believe you, otherwise sorry to burst your bubble but thanks to backwards compatibility windows wins by a country mile. Hell I even have an AMD FX unit sitting in front of me that was donated because it had a bad sound chip on the board and its running the Windows XP driver on an ancient SB Live! card in win 10 64 bit…purrs like a kitten, even does full 5.1 with EAX effects.
bassbeast,
It’s not that simple. Yeah, people can and do have a lousy time running linux on unsupported hardware, but then running linux on unsupported hardware is not something most of us are recommending especially for novice users. It isn’t reasonable to expect all hardware to just work even if no development has been done for it and it isn’t officially supported. By this standard linux probably has better hardware support than mac OS/haiku/bsd/etc. I don’t mention it to boast about driver support, but only to highlight the double standard used to put linux down.
So I’d always recommend checking compatibility first and setting expectations based on that. Granted microsoft benefits greatly from a nearly ubiquitous market monopoly and alternative operating systems including linux are probably not the best idea for people who are unwilling to check compatibility first, otherwise the experience with random hardware is going to be a gamble.
GIMP doesn’t even come close to matching the feature set of Photoshop. Maybe if you were comparing current GIMP to Photoshop from 15-20 years ago your idea that they’re 80-90% comparable would be more reasonable, but I think even in the early 2000s Photoshop had non-destructive editing features that are currently still on the GIMP 3.2 roadmap. To me that’s pretty basic functionality and important for my workflow.
Of course Adobe doesn’t just mean Photoshop. Even for a photographer there’s Lightroom as well, and no, its Linux counterparts aren’t in the same league.
I’ve tried using GIMP, RawTherapee, Darktable and other open source software. Tasks I can currently accomplish quickly and easily in Photoshop or Lightroom often require kludgy time wasting workarounds, with multiple extra steps, working with multiple apps that each do part of what I want.
I’m sure the software available for Linux is just fine for a lot of people, but many industry standard or best in their class apps are only available for Windows and Mac. Switching to Linux isn’t very appealing to me when that means significantly downgrading the day to day software I use.
Yeah, other bloodlusty Linux fanatics perfectly fill the void, “Linux is perfect!”
Artem S. Tashkinov,
To be fair, the exact same thing can be said of fanboys for all platforms. I do think some of the stereotypes are exaggerated though, many of the pro-Linux posts are balanced. I say everyone should just use what’s best for them and there’s no need to turn this into a righteous crusade about one platform being right and others wrong.
@Alfman
For some reasons Linux fanatics are the most vocal among any other fanatics I’ve ever dealt with. Windows fans perfectly know all the issues of the platform, they don’t say Windows is perfect and it’s all down to PEBKAC.
Linux fans on the other hand? “It’s PEBKAC!!! Linux is great!!! No malware!!!”
Artem S. Tashkinov,,
That’s not a very convincing argument though, it doesn’t represent the majority of linux users who are pretty reasonable. For example, I can accept that windows or macos may be best for others even though linux is best for me., The fanatics are those who insist on everyone else being wrong rather than accepting that people are unique and can have their own preferences..
Linux gaming is still not there yet. That is an objective fact. That said, Proton and the Steam Deck are showing just how close we could be.
What I think is an interesting suggestion is that the Windows gaming APIs continue to dominate but that Linux becomes a viable platform to run them on. The idea here is that the Windows APIs remain the dominant gaming APIs even when you want to target Linux.
We are not at all far away I think from the point that gaming studios could find it worth their time to ensure that their games work well on Linux / Proton before shipping. The Steam Deck may not have enough market share yet to warrant this but a next generation very well might. This could take very little extra work by game studios but it would totally change the game for companies like Valve and that in turn can completely change the industry.
I think it is much, much more likely that Linux Gaming goes mainstream than the Linux Desktop doing so. Linux already dominates on the server side and on the embedded side as well. Actually, it is more correct these days to say that Linux dominates on the “container” side.
Why use Linux instead of Windows for gaming? I do not think it is because of the cost of the license. Valve wants Linux on the Steam Deck because they want control over their own platform instead of ceding that control to Microsoft. End-users do not care too much but there is a decent chance Linux will eventually run games better than Windows. This is already the case sometimes but one ( MAJOR ) area where Linux sucks in comparison to Windows continues to be the GPU. That could be changing too though. Even Microsoft struggles to keep up with the collective engineering inherent in the Linux kernel.
What is interesting is that gaming drives desktop selection for home users the way that business apps used to. So, if Linux Gaming arrives, it could finally bring the Linux Desktop with it. Almost certainly though, Linux Gaming will arrive on top of Windows APIs.
At work we run windows 10 and office / outlook 365 which is pretty annoying compared to previous versions.
Libreoffice works fine for mundane office work.
“I basically use only a web browser and a terminal emulator and that should be enough for everyone, why haven’t you switched to Linux yet?!”
FTFY. The hypocrisy of Linux users continues to impress.
Now that Microsoft has chosen always online cum rolling release rent your Windows, what are your options?
LTSC licenses that don’t require a permanent connection exist, but as I pointed out above they are pricey and difficult to buy direct from Microsoft. There are some cheaper, easier to obtain grey-market and even fully legitimate third party license sources but you’re rolling the dice on when Microsoft decides to invalidate any license that doesn’t come directly from them.
These days, I say if you need a commercially supported operating system and you’re not actually locked into Windows only software, either buy a Mac, or if that is just as unpalatable, try one of the paid Linux suppliers like Red Hat or SUSE. While I’m not a fan of the ever-metastasizing systemd, there’s always some sort of compromise when you pay someone else to support your OS.
Move away to something else not Windows, or comply.
We can call that “options”. But unfortunately for people too deep on Windows ecosystem, only the “comply” option is relatively painless.
Such as what? Where else can I run the whole array of Windows applications seamlessly? Windows … 10? Gonna be EOL’ed very soon.
That’s it, until MS changes a single bit and breaks that again.
This is a fight that Rufus will only be able to keep going for as long as MS is complacent with that. Well… the marvelous world of proprietary OSes.
But Thom, as much as I abhors Windows and use Gentoo as a daily driver (both for work and personally), even I must admit that Linux Desktop is simple not there yet for the common folk.
Until some large company with large pockets see a way to create a viable business model from Linux desktop to fund its continuous development, it will always lag behind MacOS and Windows in some functionality and out of the box polish that only power users can get around.
In general it’s the App that drives the OS choice, no App no option, users are either ambivalent or they have a specific task requirement that must be filled by an accepted application, and that applies whether the task is commercial, research/education or social/gaming. Adobe is to Apple, what MS Office is to Windows and what “Server” has become to Linux, which I think some have already been pointed out earlier in this thread.
On the MS Windows and Apple side, in many cases the choice is driven by a 3rd party App provider’s decision to support a platform. For example the regular users of pro photographic kit will know some of the better/best commercial solutions are only available on a specific platform, which is why I still have one or two Macs left in use on many networks despite the bulk of the requirements being filled by Linux. Even though many provide diverse OS support, often it’s the case that one platform significantly leads all others, and that fact often ends the debate because the primary platform support is responsive and dynamic compared to the others.
In my own experience on the hardware dev side, Windows is the only choice, the alternatives are either unreliable or substantially retarded in regards to current standards and compatibility. Linux or Apple fanboys will point to KiCAD, and ignore the plethora of other critical tools that are only available on MS Windows, and no WINE is not a viable option!
Why has that industry (hardware dev) let the tool providers dictate their platform on a partially abandoned proprietary platform, instead of innovating on something everyone owns collectively. Why isn’t there more demand to get those tools on to Gnome or KDE?
CaptainN-,
Yeah, the lack of one’s preferred applications is frustrating some times. Companies tend to cater to the majority since that’s what pays their bills. It’s the same problem with all alternatives, marketshare is a crucial barrier deciding whether a platform will be supported. This is even true of platforms that would take very little effort to support like LineageOS. It has less to do with the platform and more to do with the user base. They can’t be bothered because there aren’t enough users.
I personally was a bit repulsed by Adobe forcing customers into the software subscription model. That was cringey to me and given the choice it’s not something I would want to support regardless of platform. Since their products are overkill for my needs it wasn’t hard to choose better alternatives for me, but everyone’s in a different position. My preferred windows graphics editor was actually not from Adobe at all but Corel.
It’s a self sustaining problem.
Developers won’t target a platform without users.
Users won’t use a platform without applications.
It’s virtually impossible for anything new to get traction against an established competitor.
bert64,
Indeed, a classic chicken and egg problem. It might be sustainable if you could get there, but until you get there you cannot get there. Doh.
Being rich helps too. Having hundreds of millions attached to your name opens up markets that are otherwise closed to normal plebes. If it weren’t for antitrust corporations like apple and amazon could overthrow the incumbents of most industries without too much fuss. If not for regulation I think that’s what the end game for capitalism would be.
I suspect people mostly cling to that sinking ship because they just don’t know how good the alternatives have become. Even for gaming – Linux is now very viable. It’s only moderately more challenging to set up than Windows, and only because you have to learn something new. Honestly, once you know the new, it’s EASIER, not harder to keep running and maintain than Windows is. And Proton – that thing runs Windows games FASTER on the same hardware than Windows can, and it’s getting better all the time. Unless you have some draconian IT department filling your machine with idiotic control software to workaround Windows security shortcomings, or you really really need to run the latest Adobe Suite (another thing people cling to for no good reason), there’s literally 0 reason to stick to Windows at all, in 2022.