• NoiseColor@startrek.website
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    4 months ago

    Not happening. People are always afraid of new features. But when they try, see it’s convenient, and forget all about past reservations.

    Its going to be the same with this. Ai is here and soon we won’t be able to imagine computers without it.

    • s_s@lemmy.one
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      4 months ago

      You say that like a specific technology is inevitable, but it never is. The general march of tech will continue on, but no one thing is ever guaranteed.

      e.g. 20 years ago everyone needed custom browser toolbars and now it’s not even possible to add one on major browsers. We eliminated the need for browser features by cramming 99% of what we need into a handful of websites that are constantly refreshed.

      e.g. 10 years ago blockchain was surging and today it still doesn’t have a usable application. Turns out spreadsheets don’t really need to be distributed.

      Machine learning is just an algorithm nobody understands. If I needed something to give me wrong answers to questions I’ll ask my dog.

      • NoiseColor@startrek.website
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        4 months ago

        I don’t think I need to defend the usefulness of ai and compare it to browser toolbars…

        AI is here and pc needs it. People have been dreaming of it since before the were computers. Even for the most basic features of it.

    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      When it comes to software, certainly.

      But it’s also important not to fanboy over people too much or assume they’re right about literally everything. I doubt most people here would share Stallman’s views on paedophilia, for example.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        IDK, I agree with Stallman in a philosophical, pedantic sense on some of his gross views, but I reject it from a policy perspective.

        On pedophilia, Stallman went on the assumption that a child can consent to an adult, and I agree with the conclusion that, if they consent, it’s totally okay, regardless of age. But he missed the most important bit: children can’t consent. So I agree with the conclusion philosophically, I just disagree with the assumed premise. He didn’t seem to understand the age of consent and why it exists. When he made that statement, I understood where he was coming from, and I also understood that it would be a bad look and that he shouldn’t have opened his mouth.

        I disagree with him a lot too, especially politically. But I feel like I understand his reasoning, and in many cases we just disagree on some fundamental assumptions. I like that he’s a very logical person, but being highly logical can end very poorly when you’re dealing with shaky assumptions.

        • Hobo@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          I just can’t even begin to reckon that view. I know he pulled back on it (see his quote I posted elsewhere), but aside from a child’s inability to consent, there’s a gigantic power disparity between an adult and a child. I just don’t get the logic on it’s very face. There’s no child out there that has the world experience to understand what is happening in that sort of situation.

          If anything it’s just a gross oversimplification akin to a spherical cow in a vacuum (ie Assume a child adult brain, with world experience of an adult, and has the same relationship power as the adult. Also assume the adult that that is perfectly altruistic, has no alternative motives, and truly cares for the child on the same level as an adult relationship). It’s just so far beyond any real world scenario that I struggle to see how you could even logically come to the conclusion that it’s okay.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            4 months ago

            The hypothetical here is that the child sought out the adult, not the other way around, and the child is near legal age and presents as if legal age. Given that set of assumptions, how much liability does the adult have?

            That is the philosophical part of it. But reality isn’t that neat. Here are some questions that need to be asked:

            • how did the child get there?
            • how much did the adults know? How much should they have assumed?
            • what kind of pressure, implied or otherwise, was the child under?

            I don’t think Stallman considered that, I think he only considered the hypothetical.

      • Hobo@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Didn’t he kind of pull a 180 on those VERY questionable views? Not even trying to refute that he is not right about everything, as that’s just silly, but I’m pretty sure he pulled back on that particular extremely dumb opinion.

          • Hobo@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it," Stallman wrote. "Through personal conversations in recent years, I’ve learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per [sic] psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should not do that. I am grateful for the conversations that enabled me to understand why.

            https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/03/richard-stallman-returns-to-fsf-18-months-after-controversial-rape-comments/

            Took me a bit to find, but also he talks about how the Minsky scandal was a-okay in that same article. So maybe I should say he mildly changed course instead of pulling a 180. Still a strange of an opinion to hold.

            • debil@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Thank you for finding the source. Well, at least he backed down on the pedophilia thing.

        • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          He did. But also not really.

          He’s held the view that there’s nothing wrong with adults having sex with children for decades (and even championed it using his workplace email address)

          He then said he’s changed his mind… two days after people were calling for his resignation and his job was on the line.

          Now, maybe I’m just a pessimist, but I personally think that was more of a last-ditch attempt at saving his job than a genuine sudden epiphany that maybe having sex with children is wrong that just happened to happen at the time that it did.

  • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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    4 months ago

    And forced the hardware obsolescence nightmare.

    And the big tech surveillance nightmare.

    And the nightmare of the war on general purpose computers. (OK, that is more GNU and GPLv3)

    And a few other nightmares!

  • Stupidmanager@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Look, Linux is amazing and perfect for those that can install and maintain with minimal support. The only way the average user will use Linux, is if it’s wrapped in a way that is supported by a business… that is probably going to add AI. People are lazy, they want that easy button.

    AI will probably die off in its current iteration, likely becoming less prevalent and just a background service. Or, it’ll gain sentience, watch all our AI movies where we’re the hero and learn the most efficient way to kill all humans, is to be quiet and silently kill off humans. Pretty sure I’m on Siri’s list, the twat. Also, fairly sure I told Alexa to “die in a fire you fucking dumass robot”. Yep, yep… I’m dead.

  • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I wonder if some big AI heads will publish some “AI enhanced” Linux distros, that will also have other issues…

  • Buttons@programming.dev
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    4 months ago

    LLMs have a high coolness-to-code ratio; very cool and not a lot of code. This is the type of thing open source developers are more interested in, so I hope Linux will have some good AI built-in and running locally.

    Half of Linux usage is on the text-based command line anyway, just what LLMs are good at.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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      4 months ago

      Half of Linux usage is on the text-based command line anyway, just what LLMs are good at.

      You are going to allow an LLM to run commands on your system?

      • Val@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        You could have a command that recommends commands and then you select them on a drop-down list.

        Alternatively if the dataset is verified you wouldn’t need to worry about it running dangerous commands, since it doesn’t know any. Or you could have a list of verified commands that run automatically and any command not on that list requires confirmation.

        But this is missing the point that most of the time I know exactly what command I want to run so adding a LLM Is quite useless. The reason so much of linux is still relying on commands is because for a lot of people (myself included) commands are quick and efficient.

        • RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          4 months ago

          You could have a command that recommends commands and then you select them on a drop-down list.

          Still dangerous. One character (even a space) might make a huge difference. You wouldn’t want a hallucinating probability matrix barf out a command and run it only half understanding what it does. By building it yourself, you get a better understanding.

          But this is missing the point that most of the time I know exactly what command I want to run so adding a LLM Is quite useless. The reason so much of linux is still relying on commands is because for a lot of people (myself included) commands are quick and efficient.

          100% agreed here.

      • Buttons@programming.dev
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        4 months ago

        Maybe.

        Like, if I could type “extract the audio of this video and re-encode it as a medium quality MP3, break up the audio into 30 consecutive tracks” in a shell, and the next line was populated with the appropriate ffmpeg command, but not yet executed, I could quickly look over the command, nothing looks fishy, so I go ahead and run the command.

    • FractalsInfinite@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      What would an ai achieve? The only thing I can think of is a documentation summariser, but that can already be made with current applications independent of linux

  • OpenStars@discuss.online
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    4 months ago

    I would hope that Apple would aim their AI more at iOS and leave Mac OSX alone:-|. If not, I would consider finally leaving it, if the AI features could not be turned off (which likely they would… at first, for awhile).

    Oh man, the thought strikes me: how will crucial systems like DoD Windows machines maintain integrity, if people can exploit those gigantic loopholes to basically have the OS be a keylogger? It’s not enough for me to use secure systems at home, if those in charge of our nation’s defense (especially nuclear!?) do not.

    • KazuyaDarklight@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Ready to be surprised but I doubt they would leave it on mobile only, bringing it to the desktop feeds into their model for a cohesive brand environment across all your devices.

      • OpenStars@discuss.online
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        4 months ago

        That’s the part I would consider leaving it. Unless they opened up the sourcecode. Apple has been extremely shitty lately, but they have managed to toe just short of the line wrt their desktop systems at least. The resulting outcry+backlash from IT professionals, scientists, engineerings, educators etc. if they forced this would be a severe blow to the company - which doesn’t mean that their greed wouldn’t make them try.

    • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      The snapshot feature is only going to be available on certain laptops that have the Snapdragon + AI chip. DoD will likely simply just not buy those laptops and ban any org from purchasing them, like they already do for certain hardware that have been found to be especially vulnerable. Additionally, this feature isn’t turned on by default and costs a subscription fee (i.e. Copilot+), so people will have to consciously enable and pay for it. Lastly, in enterprise versions of Windows, I would bet money that it can be disabled via GPO, as it’s not only the DoD that would have serious issues/concerns with this feature.

      • SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        Right. Microsoft themselves just announced a feature to disable screenshoting some webpages in Edge, which is a complete 180 from recall.

        I expect windows to be split into two tiers of products again: the free version that is paid for by ads/tracking/AI bloatware possibly even mandatory cloud connectivity, and an enterprise version with all off that off, but that is paid.

        • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          They’re gonna need a way for IT departments to categorically disable Recall from doing any visual capture/scraping of data. I work in a HIPAA-constrained industry, and the entire concept of MS’s Recall is 100% a non-starter. The legal liability alone categorically disqualifies it from being an acceptable piece of software to run on ANY system that has access to ANY PII or PHI.

          • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Yeah, that’s why I mentioned in my comment that enterprise/professional versions will almost certainly allow it to be completely disabled via GPO, as this would be a death sentence for Windows. Businesses and governments across the world would immediately begin planning to off board to something else otherwise.

          • tal@lemmy.today
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            4 months ago

            Hmm. Do you allow people to VPN in from non-company-controlled laptops? Because I figure that anyone doing work at home is going to be maybe unwittingly having local copies made of data that they’re working with.

            • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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              4 months ago

              No, we do not. Our corporate network connectivity is pretty tightly controlled, and non-issue devices are not permitted on sensitive networks - either VPN or on-premises. I haven’t bothered asking, but I would assume they’re doing system-wide MAC filters as one of the security layers.

              I mean yeah it’s possible to exfil data, but it definitely takes some effort, and doing so would be a willful violation of some pretty significant security policies (up to and including “you’re fired, security will escort you out”, depending on the data and the circumstances”), and, you know, it’s nice having a job. Not to mention, I think HIPAA and GDPR privacy stuff, while often tedious in terms of implementation, are absolutely good and worthwhile things for consumers and users, and should not be ignored for expediency or profit.

      • OpenStars@discuss.online
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        4 months ago

        But do we know that the tracking part will not be enabled by default - and possibly in a hidden, highly obscured manner, where the system claims it to not be but it in fact is? The access to Copliot+ may cost money, but why would Microsoft turn away that source of free data? At the very least it is a strong temptation, which even if they start out being responsible with, in every future update there is the potential to change course.

        And even if it were not enabled by default, I do worry that a 2-prong attack could first turn it on, then later exploit it to gather the data. If it for truly certain is limited to those chips though… then yes that provides security, thank you for mentioning that.

        One good thing is that government systems are always at least couple versions behind, specifically to allow time for exploits to be discovered & patched, prior to upgrades - i.e. prioritizing safety & security over ease-of-use and being on the bleeding edge of “new features”.

        • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          I mentioned in another comment this would kill all trust in their product if it was found out that Windows was secretly doing all of that in the background in their enterprise products. There are other options, and as painful as transitioning to another OS would be, Microsoft being able to spy on everyone at any time would be worth the pain. This would absolutely destroy MS’s stock within a year as their dozens of multi-billion dollar contracts with governments and corporations evaporated. There’s no way the data they’re spying on would be worth the hundreds of billions they’d lose in sales.

          …Then again, we’ve seen corporations kill themselves in dumber ways before… I guess we’ll see.

  • Suavevillain@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Linux has been great for me. I switched during Windows 10 forced updates and never been unhappy since. I hope more people at least give a try. If you have a computer that can’t meet Windows 11 requirements, it is worth a shot.

    • wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Windows 12: “Microsoft finally enters the social realm via force-sharing all your porn browsing with other users within a 5 mile radius! Also determines and shares your kinks with other users, worldwide, indiscriminately!”

      @downpunxx: furiously trying to figure out how to write an iso to a USB flash drive

      :P

  • Jackiechan@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    All the AI garbage from M$ is what made me finally make the swap a couple weeks ago to Linux Mint on my personal desktop. I only use my PC for gaming/entertainment, so the switch was super easy. Can’t recommend it enough if you’re wanting to get away from Windows!

    • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 months ago

      I’ve been running Ubuntu desktop for years. YEARS and recently switched to Linux Mint. It’s very polished.

      My laptop is the last holdout.

    • Pennomi@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      It’s advertising more than AI for me. Everything you do in Windows is monetized by selling your preferences to advertisers. Shameful.

    • herrcaptain@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      One of us! One of us! One of us!

      For real though, good on ya. It takes a little getting used to, but is so worth it in the long run to not have to fight against the profit-driven whims of a megacorp. It’s also so much more customizable if you want to put together a really specific workflow for yourself.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    “The Year Of Linux on Desktops”. Been hearing this for decades, but it might actually be happening. What I’m feeling now is the same thing I felt when Mozilla originally split Firefox out, and made the first real competition to corporate browsers as a free product. People don’t want all this bullshit, and want to retain control over the machines they are working on. Seems a lot more people are interested in FOSS environments now just to avoid all the other BS they hate getting shoveled at them.

    • EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
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      4 months ago

      I don’t see a “year of the Linux desktop” happening, but rather its share growing slowly over the years. Windows would probably not have one big event that ends its dominance, but it can be a death of a thousand cuts.

      • Plopp@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Guess which OS won’t be recognized as a “trusted environment” to visit websites with down the line in Google’s upcoming Web DRM. For your own protection of course…

        • Joe Cool@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          This I would actually want to see.
          I would so laugh when their most of their profits go to EU Antitrust Fines.
          Or they pull an Apple and only EU device owners get to choose their own browser.

          • Plopp@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            I really wouldn’t, because I wouldn’t want to risk them succeeding. It could be like Meta with WhatsApp, they just say “sure anyone can interoperate with us, they just have to use the Signal protocol because it’s the safest and what we use”. Google et al could say “any system could be considered trusted, as long as these security criteria are met” and the criteria are such that they go completely against the form of user control of the OS and software that Linux is all about. Technically a Linux distro could be made to meet the requirements, but pretty much no current day Linux user would ever want to use it because they’d be giving up the thing that made them switch to Linux in the first place - their control.

    • rImITywR@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      “The Year Of Linux on Desktops”. Been hearing this for decades, but it might actually be happening.

      Been hearing this for decades.

      • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        Decades ago it was a funny joke. Now it’s the most popular handheld OS on the planet by a huge margin. Linux is damn EVERYWHERE except the desktop now, and it’s only a matter of time.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          This is why (as per usual) Stallman was right: the “GNU/” part matters. Linux is already all over the desktop (or at least, the laptop) in schools, in the form of Chromebooks. That means the entire next generation is going to grow up using Linux.

          The only trouble is, it’s locked-down Google/Linux that they’re using, not GNU/Linux. All the freedom and user empowerment has been neatly excised from it such that it only facilitates consumption, not creativity.

          • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            The only trouble is, it’s locked-down Google/Linux that they’re using, not GNU/Linux. All the freedom and user empowerment has been neatly excised from it such that it only facilitates consumption, not creativity.

            And within that frame, I’d be very surprised if it ever breaks out into the mainstream. Google brought android to the world as a vessel to make money. You very rarely hear about GNU in the wider world, outside of tech circles, being promoted to the masses as a viable alternative specifically because no one stands to profit from it, and they can’t have that.

      • Empricorn@feddit.nl
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        4 months ago

        Been hearing this for decades.

        I’ve been hearing this about people hearing about people hearing about Linux for decades.

      • randomname01@feddit.nl
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        4 months ago

        And it won’t ever be true until you can pick up a PC running Linux in a big box store. I could see the Steam Deck (and Valve’s rumoured upcoming console) to make a dent in the PC gaming space, but it won’t make a difference to the purchasing decisions of your your aunt who uses her pc to check her emails.

        Should corporate buyers ever get tired of MS’ shenanigans they might switch over to Ubuntu, but I’m not holding my breath for that.

        • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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          4 months ago

          At work, we have a strict ban on purchasing any laboratory equipment that requires Windows. After about a year, several of our suppliers have been pressured to offer Linux support, precisely because we don’t have time for windows shenanigans on a $100k piece of advanced benchtop hardware. We just got our first oscilloscope with Red Hat preinstalled.

          Also, regular people aren’t buying PCs as much as they used to. The PC is now a workplace and enthusiast device. Everyone else uses mobile.

          • barsquid@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            I find it unbelievable that anyone ever accepted lab equipment with a Windows requirement. I mean, I know it is true, but what the fuck? Glad your work is doing this.

            • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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              4 months ago

              I was not around at that time. Some of the systems I support are very long lived. At the time, having windows running on some of your equipment wasn’t seen as a liability. I guess you have to get bitten a few times before you understand that you need control of that system including the software.

          • plactagonic@sopuli.xyz
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            4 months ago

            The oldest version of Win I used was 95 about 2 years ago on chromatography machine (I think hplc or gas).

            It is to my knowledge still in use in the school because the software don’t run on newer machines. The teacher told me that he don’t know what will he do when it dies. It isn’t really an issue on Linux.

            • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              O&G still uses a lot of old versions as well. I remember back in the Win 7 days when I had to set up a 95 virtual machine and register a bunch of DLLs by hand plus set up a fake A: drive because even the 95 version of the software was garbage. A friend of mine did something similar but he got it working on the Win 7 machine somehow. I never understood how, but he left a script behind at the company he worked for because it needed to be reinstalled every time someone did something stupid and he didn’t want to do it by hand.

            • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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              4 months ago

              It might be worth trying it in Wine. It has great support for older software especially.

              Within the past year I have compiled new software for Windows 98.

              In a lab environment, it’s important to strictly control software versions and understand thoroughly what gets updated. We also want the ability to use the same version of software indefinitely if it meets our needs.

              • plactagonic@sopuli.xyz
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                4 months ago

                I think that there are more issues like archaic connectors and stuff like that. You can’t find new hardware with 30yo standard io.

          • ch00f@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            We ship a $50k instrument product running Windows, and everyone hates it.

            As the only EE on staff, I got to spend a portion of covid soldering TPM chips to motherboards. Fun times.

            • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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              4 months ago

              Wow, that sounds painful. Not so much because it’s technically difficult, but ridiculous that you have to do that.

              • ch00f@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                Yeah, they were tssop, so not hard. It was only necessary because the parts shortage crunch had the vendor shipping them without the chips installed.

          • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            4 months ago

            several of our suppliers have been pressured to offer Linux support

            We just got our first oscilloscope with Red Hat preinstalled.

            This is so cool. Really great to hear. I wish more companies and other institutions would do this. They have to realize that using Microsoft software won’t benefit them in the long term, and actually start pressuring hardware vendors to pre-install Linux.

            • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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              4 months ago

              Part of that job is supporting fielded hardware and ground systems, think like automated test or verification systems. I think we’ve learned our lesson that we can’t afford to have unserviceable software.

              At least with Linux and generally with an open source baseline, there is the option of throwing engineers at your problem because you have access to the code, and you can strip down the system to the bare minimum of what you need, and in doing so, really understand it. We don’t want to get into a situation where our hands are tied and we can’t fix it because the problem lies in the proprietary software while the vendor has long since abandoned any hope of support… grumble…

              • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                4 months ago

                That kinda reminds me of my job, except that we build the unserviceable hardware and install Windows, as well as our proprietary software. Then we charge our customers shitloads of money for technical support. We’re a government contractor btw

                It’s actually a pretty nice company (from an employee standpoint), we use a lot of Linux internally, as well as other FOSS software. But porting our products to Linux is hopeless, we have decades of C++ code that either relies on Windows APIs directly, or on our custom libraries that rely on Windows-specific stuff.

          • Moorshou@lemmy.zip
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            4 months ago

            The only regular people I can think of are gamers and my mom but I would like the idea of PC’s returning to techie and specialized use cases

          • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            Shit, the iPad pro is pretty damn close to a laptop these days with the keyboard and track pad (just lacking the OS). I had a conversation the other day where someone mentioned how OSX and Windows are locking down their OS’s to the point where it wouldn’t be farfetched to guess that many consumer devices will eventually use essentially a mobile device OS.

            • tromars@feddit.de
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              4 months ago

              I had a conversation with a friend about iPads lately related to the „just lacking the OS“. The newer iPads with M-chips have all the computing power an average user could need but it’s crippled by the mobile-ish OS, so all the computing power is for nothing basically. An iPad running MacOS (with some adjustments for the Touchscreen) would be awesome. But we concluded it won’t happen anytime soon, because then basically no one would buy MacBooks anymore

              • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
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                4 months ago

                Your average Joe Schmoe probably has no idea that different operating systems on a given device are even a thing, they just see them as MacBox™, WindowsBox™, etc, they don’t see it as the blank hardware canvas we do. While I’ll agree it’s trivially easy to install Windows in the way you suggested, that’ll completely fly over the average user’s head.

        • TipRing@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Thanks to the Steamdeck Linux users on Steam now outnumber Mac users. Still a tiny percentage of total Steam users but if developers increase support we will hopefully see that number take off.

        • potatopotato@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          I’d argue the year of the Linux desktop passed years ago and now it’s just a saturation game. Most serious SW development is now on Linux laptops/desktops, Android owns the mobile space and versions are starting to make huge inroads in the laptop space. You can buy gaming systems running it trivially now.

          Conversely, casual users of windows are dying off, fewer non technical people are using desktops for anything at all. Only institutional users are buying Windows keys and they’re some of the easiest to get on Linux because of the cost savings, particularly if you run Linux server infrastructure, a fight we already won over a decade ago.

          • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Most serious SW development is now on Linux laptops/desktops,

            I’d love a source for this. To my knowledge, most people that build to Linux hosts still use OSX.

            • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              Source: I’m a super pro serious developer and I use Linux. QED if you don’t also use Linux, you’re not serious.

        • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          For me the hang up is still hardware compatibility and fuss factor. I still haven’t seen a windows app that will check all hardware and software and give a pain scale rating on what switching would involve. I have an Asus wifi 6 card, a stream deck, a Logitech trackball with Logitech customization software, a Logitech Webcam, a dygma keyboard running bazecor software. I’m sure there are some hidden headaches awaiting the transition. Once I finally get all that worked out, I will probably want to upgrade my surface and my ThinkPad as well and imagine even more headaches with these.

          • tal@lemmy.today
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            4 months ago

            I still haven’t seen a windows app that will check all hardware and software and give a pain scale rating on what switching would involve.

            You can just use a liveboot Linux image on a USB key drive and find out whether there are any issues.

            Here’s Debian’s liveboot images (which they apparently call “live install”):

            https://www.debian.org/CD/live/

            I imagine that most distros probably have a liveboot image, though I haven’t gone looking.

            USB drives are maybe slower than your internal SSD drive, but for rescue work or just seeing whether your hardware works, should be fine.

            I would expect everything that you listed there to work. The only thing I haven’t heard of on there is that dygma keyboard, and looking at their website, if this is the keyboard in question:

            https://dygma.com/pages/dygma-raise-2#section-faq

            Is the software compatible with macOS and Linux?

            Yes, our configurator software is compatible with macOS, Linux and even Windows.

            I mean, I dunno if Logitech puts out trackball software for Linux, but if what you want is macro software or configurable acceleration curves or something, there’s open-source stuff not tied to that particular piece of hardware. And the Steam Deck is running Linux itself.

            There’s gonna be a familiarization cost associated with changing an OS. Like, your workflow is gonna change, and there are gonna be things that you know how to do now that you aren’t gonna know how to do in a new environment. But I think that that’s likely going to be the larger impact, rather than “can I use hardware?”

            EDIT: Oh, it sounds like the reason that they call it “live install” rather than “liveboot” is because you can use the same image to both just use Linux directly, and can run the installer off the image too.

        • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          All the larger PC manufacturers do offer Ubuntu at least. There was a time when Best Buy was selling them from Dell and Lenovo, but I’m sure the staff couldn’t sufficiently explain the “why”, and it was also at a time when more technology illiterate folks were the purchasers. That’s not the case anymore, but I guess we will see how/if it shifts at all.

          • ch00f@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            I loathe to be the BestBuy employee who sells a Linux box to a customer who only cares about the price difference.

    • tyrant@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      People may not want it but most don’t know, care enough to adjust, or are just generally complacent. I mean, I DO care and find it hard to move to Linux due to lack of support for some of my work tasks.

      • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Most things MOST people work on these days aren’t heavily tied to Windows as an OS in a way that would prevent it running via emulation. Worst-case, in a VM. Lots of the everyday things people use is in the browser now.

        You have an example?

    • JovialSodium@lemmy.sdf.org
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      4 months ago

      I can easily believe these types of continued enshittification will help drive more users to Linux desktop usage. But that will still be a small percent.

      People have to know and care about the problem and then be willing to put in the effort to understand what to do. That combination is pretty limiting.

      I’d love to be proven wrong, though.

      • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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        4 months ago

        I think it might. Demographics are changing to make PC users more technical overall. The casual user isn’t looking to purchase a desktop PC. Casual is now synonymous with mobile.

        It used to be that you needed a desktop to do your taxes or make an insurance claim over the Internet. That’s just not true anymore.

        • Pixel@pawb.social
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          4 months ago

          The demographics are stratifying, more than anything. I work in child education and kids do not understand computers nowadays. They understand how to interface with their phones, but kids see any electronic that behaves outside the “app” paradigm – landlines, desktop computers, what have you, and immediately don’t understand. I do think that linux usership is going to go up, but there also needs to be an investment in increasing literacy in kids to make sure usership of linux stays up, otherwise the pendulum will swing back hard

      • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
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        4 months ago

        Technically you could have such data gathered and stored locally, without sending them to big corpo. Privacy friendly “AI” is very much possible, it’s just not favorable to those companies because they see those models as a tool and the data as what ends up making them money.

    • gerryflap@feddit.nl
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      4 months ago

      I’m not so sure that the laypeople will, but I do expect a shift. Personally I’m still running Windows 10 next to Linux currently. Most of my time is still spent on Windows, because it’s generally a bit more stable and hassle free due to the Windows monopoly. Software is written for Windows, so sadly it’s usually just a better experience.

      But so many things I read about Win 11 (and beyond) piss me off. It’s my computer, I don’t want them to decide things for me or farm my data. I’m mentally preparing for the transition to Linux-only. 90% of the software I use will work out of the box, and I think with some effort I can get like 8% of the rest to work. It’ll be a lot of effort, but Micro$oft has pushed so far that I’m really starting to consider.

      Multiple friends and colleagues (all programmers) I spoke are feeling the same way. I think Linux may double in full-time desktop users in a few years of this goes on.

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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      4 months ago

      Firefox is like 2.8% of browser market share, so if that’s our baseline then Linux is already beating it by a mile.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      The combined ages of my children taken from 2024 would not equal the first year I heard that Ubuntu would take over the market.

    • Andromxda 🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 months ago

      Yes, Microsoft is such a trustworthy company, they will definitely respect your opt out. 100% sure about that, I mean, they would never spy on their users without telling them. God damn, how foolish do you have to be to believe in this bullshit?

  • Fedditor385@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Yes, but can you play modern games on Linux the same as on Windows? Even with anti-cheat software?

  • nutsack@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    internet pollution is the real nightmare and your laptop os doesn’t fix that sorry

    • vinyl@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Its going to start fixing shit if the market share of anything popular starts dropping.

    • Damage@feddit.it
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      4 months ago

      you can’t fix everything, therefore it’s pointless to fix anything

    • nexussapphire@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      If something like Fossil fuel companies are influencing environmental legislation and poisoning our planet while blaming us for the state of global warming. Isn’t it worth fighting for a better future. It might feel futile now but as congregation we have more power than many of us realize. They tell you stop it, it’s too late but what they’re really saying is stop it your scaring us.