Former Compiz Developer: Free Software Desktop Might Enter A Dark Age [editorial]

The masses don't really ask for anything, they will either accept of reject what they get. The classic Start Menu was fine for its day but it wasn't the ultimate evolution in UIs either. The UI in 10 works well across screen sizes and input types. I think the more general solution is better than two specific ones particularly if the OS is supposed to used on a single device that can span screen types and input methods.

I actually never claimed to have an issue with the Windows 10 start menu, the issue I have is with the Duplo inspired active tiles who's obvious purpose is to force advertising onto the end user.
 
They come by it naturally enough. MS themselves made the exact same mistake with windows phones. They seemed to think everyone would fall all over themselves to have a phone that looked like their desktop, that did a bunch of "Windows" things. Reality is most people didn't and don't use their phones the way MS assumed.

I think people making the UI comparison to Windows phone and Windows desktop are missing the fact that there long been a Windows tablet/2 in 1, what used to be called convertibles, market. Windows 8 and 10 are as much of an evolution of the Windows XP Tablet PC edition idea as anything else. I'm not saying phones didn't influence things, but the idea of Windows tablets and convertibles is far from new to Microsoft.
 
I think it's a hell of a lot more obvious approach than MS thinks it is. A lot of other people seem to think it would be a much better approach as well considering the backlash against 8's UI and how much MS backed away from it. A single UI for two totally different input methods makes absolutely no sense. The single UI is nothing but compromise topped by compromise on top of a layer of compromise and doesn't do anything well.

Is it a compromise or just a different way to look at it? At lot of it is just app purpose and design in the first place. There's no need for a desktop Netflix app and a touch Netflix app when one does the job fine for both. There are those instances where it doesn't work well, like Visual Studio or Eclipse, those things are just as desktop and touch unfriendly as ever and work the same way under 10 or 7. So one would tend to use those things with a mouse and keyboard.
 
I think people making the UI comparison to Windows phone and Windows desktop are missing the fact that there long been a Windows tablet/2 in 1, what used to be called convertibles, market. Windows 8 and 10 are as much of an evolution of the Windows XP Tablet PC edition idea as anything else. I'm not saying phones didn't influence things, but the idea of Windows tablets and convertibles is far from new to Microsoft.

Of course they where the first to the smart phone as well... somewhere in some drawer I have a UTStarcom mobile 5. I had an even older compaq pocketpc phone at one point. Even back them MS spent to much time and money on making sure there was a start button then making sure the basics worked proper. :)
 
How am I misinformed? I know that desktop Linux doesn't support the things I do with my PCs well. If Linux can support what one needs that's a determination to be made by whomever is looking into it.

We've been over this so many times before. You relate your own situation as a blanket statement covering every Windows user on the [H] forums. It's fine to state that Linux isn't the OS for yourself, however that by no means indicates in any way whatsoever that it cannot be a viable alternative for someone else.

As stated, you vastly overstate the necessity of Windows for the masses.
 
I actually never claimed to have an issue with the Windows 10 start menu, the issue I have is with the Duplo inspired active tiles who's obvious purpose is to force advertising onto the end user.

On my Start Screen I've got tile notifications for emails, calendar events and reminders, current world news, financial news and stock prices, current weather and 5 day forecast and a word of the day and this day in history tile. No ads. Actually I think that's against Windows Store rules with the exception the Windows Store itself. In an case, 100% configurable as to the size and position of the tiles and now with the CU update, folders.
 
On my Start Screen I've got tile notifications for emails, calendar events and reminders, current world news, financial news and stock prices, current weather and 5 day forecast and a word of the day and this day in history tile. No ads. Actually I think that's against Windows Store rules with the exception the Windows Store itself. In an case, 100% configurable as to the size and position of the tiles and now with the CU update, folders.

Exactly, there's advertising from the Windows store which I don't agree with on a desktop OS. That's a feature I'd prefer to disable.
 
Of course they where the first to the smart phone as well... somewhere in some drawer I have a UTStarcom mobile 5. I had an even older compaq pocketpc phone at one point. Even back them MS spent to much time and money on making sure there was a start button then making sure the basics worked proper. :)

Well, tablet PCs long had a lot of issues though, not really sure how many people thought they "worked proper" even though they had a following because of unique abilities like digital pens.
 
Exactly, there's advertising from the Windows store which I don't agree with on a desktop OS. That's a feature I'd prefer to disable.

Every live tile can be turned off individually or the tile can be removed. I leave mine on my desktop, I'll peak at it from time to time to see if there's anything interesting in the Store I might want to pick up.
 
We've been over this so many times before. You relate your own situation as a blanket statement covering every Windows user on the [H] forums. It's fine to state that Linux isn't the OS for yourself, however that by no means indicates in any way whatsoever that it cannot be a viable alternative for someone else.

As stated, you vastly overstate the necessity of Windows for the masses.

You just said the way you use your PCs would cover most PC users, I've never said anything like that. All I've ever said is that if a PC user encounters something that they want or need because they can't under Linux, at least not easily or natively, that's a problem. And I think it's a bigger problem than many pro-desktop Linux folks make it out to be.
 
You just said the way you use your PCs would cover most PC users, I've never said anything like that. All I've ever said is that if a PC user encounters something that they want or need because they can't under Linux, at least not easily or natively, that's a problem. And I think it's a bigger problem than many pro-desktop Linux folks make it out to be.

No, I post my experiences as both a Windows and a Linux user that successfully switched to Linux full time. I state that PC usage is very personal and is going to vary from person to person, however I see no reason whatsoever why the average PC user cannot switch from Windows to Linux based on my previously mentioned experience.

In comparison you post misinformed opinion with no desktop Linux experience of any real depth whatsoever, constantly using your own usage needs as an example of why Windows is necessary in your case. The issue is that we are speaking in general and not about yourself - Therefore it's a fairly safe assumption that you are trying to relate your usage scenario to not only the bulk of [H] users, but the bulk of the computing population based on misinformed opinion as opposed to any real world usage of Linux with any substantial depth.

The fact is that Linux is not the wasteland you believe it to be, your thinking it's a bigger problem that Linux users are somehow ignoring lacks any substance whatsoever considering your experience with desktop Linux, and you constantly overstate the necessity of Windows.
 
And I'm done with discussing the same crap over and over again, effectively dragging the discussion way off topic due to yourself again. Argue with yourself or go PM ManOfGod.
 
The fact is that Linux is not the wasteland you believe it to be, your thinking it's a bigger problem that Linux users are somehow ignoring lacks any substance whatsoever considering your experience with desktop Linux, and you constantly overstate the necessity of Windows.

3rd party support for desktop Linux is no where near that of Windows. As long as pro-desktop Linux folks keep their head in the sand about this HUGE issue, Microsoft has little to worry about in the desktop space, at least from desktop Linux.
 
You just said the way you use your PCs would cover most PC users, I've never said anything like that. All I've ever said is that if a PC user encounters something that they want or need because they can't under Linux, at least not easily or natively, that's a problem. And I think it's a bigger problem than many pro-desktop Linux folks make it out to be.

It can be a problem sure... depends what the user is doing doesn't it.

Sure their are uses which are niche. High end GPU powered gaming is one of them... sure its not a small niche. Still compare the number of mid-high end GPUs sold to the overall number of machines that can run them and the fact that 3D gaming isn't a major driver of overall Desktop use should be pretty clear. (not to mention at least some of those GPU sales are going to bitcoin farmers, 3D artists... and all sorts of other open compute type uses).

According to sales figures AMD and Nvidia shipped 13 million GPUs in 2016... The industry shipped aprox 280 million desktops. So of all the desktops shipped in 2016 AT BEST 0.46% of them where outfitted with Gaming GPUs. Forgetting the simple fact that a good number of those where purchased for non gaming uses and another good number of them where upgrade cards intended for existing PCs.

Those are the cold hard facts of PC gaming. Yes its a big market... no its hardly a mainstream use for a desktop computer.

Yes we are all agreeing with you that for someone really into high end 3D PC gaming windows is for now at least and possibly forever the best PC platform.

Of course we could point to 3D Artists and Rendering applications... Software Development... University kids looking for an inexpensive Unix like PC... are all points that windows cedes to Linux. That could also be shown to account for half a percentage of overall system sales. ;)

Gaming is not a niche use around a [H] forum no, of course not... but in the PC industry at large for sure it is.

Now I'm not saying that of theother 99.95% of desktops they would all be served perfectly today by Linux... don't misunderstand me completely. Still I think you can pretty safely surmise that for a vast majority of people buying those machines windows is hardly required software. Its on their by default and I doubt many of them would have the first clue as to how to replace windows. They stick with windows mostly cause they don't know better... and not doing so would void their warranties. ;) lol
 
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3rd party support for desktop Linux is no where near that of Windows. As long as pro-desktop Linux folks keep their head in the sand about this HUGE issue, Microsoft has little to worry about in the desktop space, at least from desktop Linux.

It isn't the issue you make it out to be... I'm sorry I have access to 50 thousand or so programs in the Arch User repository.

Most people I know that run windows... are using at least 4-5 programs compiled for windows from their Linux source code.

All you ever point out are programs like Photoshop... which let me tell you if only 0.5% of all desktops sold have an actual GPU card in them, what do you expect the actual % is for people that care about photoshop ?

For the vast majority of people in the world everything they could possibly need isn't an issue.

About the only "commercial" software I can think about that Mom and Pop average care about this time of year is tax software.... and honestly even on that score all the bigs are now doing Cloud versions. So it doesn't much matter if you have windows chromeos macos or linux.
 
About the only "commercial" software I can think about that Mom and Pop average care about this time of year is tax software.... and honestly even on that score all the bigs are now doing Cloud versions. So it doesn't much matter if you have windows chromeos macos or linux.

I in no way recommend anyone lock themselves down to a particular accounting software package anymore. The issues with compatibility between differing versions of operating systems not to mention the ongoing cost of upgrading software and general issues with mail client incompatibilities just aren't worth it for such a critical application. The best solution for small business is to migrate it all to the cloud and all the issues simply vanish with the ability to perform your accounting from anywhere you have access to a web browser.

Personally I'm still using spreadsheets under Libre Office ;)
 
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And I'm done with discussing the same crap over and over again, effectively dragging the discussion way off topic due to yourself again. Argue with yourself or go PM ManOfGod.

Promises, promises. :D Here we are, a week or two into this thread and Windows is still the dominate OS, no change there. I have said it in the past so I will say it again, if the Linux community cannot get behind a single distro and stop most of the infighting, Linux will never be a dominate desktop OS, which is what they need in order to have complete 3rd party support.
 
The classic Start Menu was fine for its day but it wasn't the ultimate evolution in UIs either.

Even back them MS spent to much time and money on making sure there was a start button then making sure the basics worked proper. :)

The Start button/menu is a horrible UI design. It was bad in Win95, and just got worse in each successive version, with, IMO, Windows 7 being the ultimate "bad" in start menu designs. Windows 10 has improved from Windows 10, but not much. You want evidence that I am right? Just go look at the average computer user's desktop, and see how many icons they have littering the screen. Most desktop users I know only use the start menu to shut their computers down. What they don't realize is that they are actually recreating the Windows 3.1 UI experience!

OSS desktop developers are making the same mistake by trying to include and "improve" the start menu experience. Until the developers can actually make a UI that the masses will use as it is designed, OSS desktop environments are never going to gain wide-spread adoption.

Guess what Android and iOS don't have? Start buttons/menus. Guess what are the most popular computer (if you combine handheld and desktop computers) operating systems are? You guessed it - Android and iOS.
 
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It can be a problem sure... depends what the user is doing doesn't it.

Sure their are uses which are niche. High end GPU powered gaming is one of them... sure its not a small niche. Still compare the number of mid-high end GPUs sold to the overall number of machines that can run them and the fact that 3D gaming isn't a major driver of overall Desktop use should be pretty clear. (not to mention at least some of those GPU sales are going to bitcoin farmers, 3D artists... and all sorts of other open compute type uses).

According to sales figures AMD and Nvidia shipped 13 million GPUs in 2016... The industry shipped aprox 280 million desktops. So of all the desktops shipped in 2016 AT BEST 0.46% of them where outfitted with Gaming GPUs. Forgetting the simple fact that a good number of those where purchased for non gaming uses and another good number of them where upgrade cards intended for existing PCs.

Those are the cold hard facts of PC gaming. Yes its a big market... no its hardly a mainstream use for a desktop computer.

Yes we are all agreeing with you that for someone really into high end 3D PC gaming windows is for now at least and possibly forever the best PC platform.

Of course we could point to 3D Artists and Rendering applications... Software Development... University kids looking for an inexpensive Unix like PC... are all points that windows cedes to Linux. That could also be shown to account for half a percentage of overall system sales. ;)

Gaming is not a niche use around a [H] forum no, of course not... but in the PC industry at large for sure it is.

Now I'm not saying that of theother 99.95% of desktops they would all be served perfectly today by Linux... don't misunderstand me completely. Still I think you can pretty safely surmise that for a vast majority of people buying those machines windows is hardly required software. Its on their by default and I doubt many of them would have the first clue as to how to replace windows. They stick with windows mostly cause they don't know better... and not doing so would void their warranties. ;) lol
Yes, gaming is a niche compared to all of computing, that's why gaming PC sales have been going up the entire time overall PC sales were declining. However, as I pointed out in my previous post it's a MUCH LARGER niche than Linux for the desktop is, several times over. So however small you want to paint the picture of PC gamers as, just remember, Linux desktop users are MUCH smaller than THAT. If Linux could bring over gamers, it could likely bring over a hell of a lot of other users as well.
 
OSS desktop developers are making the same mistake by trying to include and "improve" the start menu experience. Until the developers can actually make a UI that the masses will use as it is designed, OSS desktop environments are never going to gain wide-spread adoption.

Guess what Android and iOS don't have? Start buttons/menus. Guess what are the most popular computer (if you combine handheld and desktop computers) operating systems are? You guessed it - Android and iOS.

I agree with what you have said about windows. Your right the average Windows user has a screen full of icons and crap on their desktop and they never touch their star bars.

However seeing as this thread is about Ubuntu switching back to Gnome like all the other commercial Linux developers... I feel I should point out that Gnome doesn't have a start bar by default.... nor does it have Desktop icons turned on by default. :p Just saying.
 
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I agree with what you have said about windows. Your right the average user has a screen full of icons and crap on their desktop and they never touch their star bars.

However seeing as this thread is about Ubuntu switching back to Gnome like all the other commercial Linux developers... I feel I should point out that Gnome doesn't have a start bar by default.... nor does it have Desktop icons turned on by default. :p Just saying.
It's been a while since I've monkeyed with Linux, but as long as the interface isn't counter-intuitive, I think you may underestimate how much people can adapt as long as the new system is simple and makes sense. I mean if that wasn't true, smartphones would have never caught on, because they don't have a start bar either and no one would have ever figured them out. Again, Windows 8 did terribly because not only was it an interface change, but it was a flawed and unintuitive one. If had been more efficient than the Windows 95 standard, people would have complained, but they would switched over too. The biggest hurdle for average users on Linux is simply getting Linux on their machines in the first place.
 
Yes, gaming is a niche compared to all of computing, that's why gaming PC sales have been going up the entire time overall PC sales were declining. However, as I pointed out in my previous post it's a MUCH LARGER niche than Linux for the desktop is, several times over. So however small you want to paint the picture of PC gamers as, just remember, Linux desktop users are MUCH smaller than THAT. If Linux could bring over gamers, it could likely bring over a hell of a lot of other users as well.

13 million

The facts are hard to argue.

Just shy of 300 million PCs sold last year... and Nvidia and AMD Combined for 13 million GPUs sold.

You can put your fingers in your ears and say.... ya ya ya but Gaming PC sales are up and Desktop PC sales are down down down. It doesn't change anything. High end PC gaming is extremely Niche. That sounds more harsh then I intend it to... and isn't really aimed at you. (more at a few people that keep repeating that Windows is >>>> the linux cause they can play a handful of Sony PS ports, and MS studio games that will never end up on Linux) I think the Gaming sector has the potential to drive Desktop hardware obviously, and software as well.. although MS has done a really good job of trying to kill off PC gaming the last number of years. Nice that they are back on board now that Sony has kicked their asses hard... I guess.

I never claimed GNU/Linux wasn't a niche. I wouldn't doubt for home users sure their are more GPU using gamers then people running Linux. :) Still I doubt the numbers are all that different really... I mean linux has 1.5-3% from most sane sources and perhaps as much as 5% from some iffy sources total... if GPUs are really only selling at half a percentage of total machines sold I can't believe its really that huge a market.

However I do believe high end gamers have a disproportionate amount of influence over the masses. Most higher end PC gamers get listened to by friends and family. We are the ones people call when their computers shit the bed. So yes I agree converting the game industry to Linux would make a massive difference... cause every gamer has grandparents parents friends and so on that often ask advice before buying their new machines.
 
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It's been a while since I've monkeyed with Linux, but as long as the interface isn't counter-intuitive, I think you may underestimate how much people can adapt as long as the new system is simple and makes sense. I mean if that wasn't true, smartphones would have never caught on, because they don't have a start bar either and no one would have ever figured them out. Again, Windows 8 did terribly because not only was it an interface change, but it was a flawed and unintuitive one. If had been more efficient than the Windows 95 standard, people would have complained, but they would switched over too. The biggest hurdle for average users on Linux is simply getting Linux on their machines in the first place.

I completely agree with you. Gnome for all its haters is very easy to figure out... and one reason why it is the default on almost every commercial Linux distro. Its also easily extendable and things like fully custom tray icons... window pop ups on task bars ect are pretty easy to code for companies with a few dollars to spend on such things.

You are of course right about Linux... in the end a huge number of machines ship with Windows preinstalled... and all though installing the larger Linux distros isn't any harder then installing Windows these days. For most people Windows is there when they pull their new machine out of the box... they void their warranty if they remove it... MS doesn't give them back up discs anymore... and frankly most of them wouldn't be able to reinstall windows if they had to either. :)

The big guys the Red Hats... the SUSE... the Ubuntu folks. None of them really care what we are using at home frankly, they give that away. They care about commercial installs. And speaking from experience, the fact that employees are using a different OS at home... is actually a selling feature of Linux. lol :)
 
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The Start button/menu is a horrible UI design. It was bad in Win95, and just got worse in each successive version, with, IMO, Windows 7 being the ultimate "bad" in start menu designs. Windows 10 has improved from Windows 10, but not much. You want evidence that I am right? Just go look at the average computer user's desktop, and see how many icons they have littering the screen. Most desktop users I know only use the start menu to shut their computers down. What they don't realize is that they are actually recreating the Windows 3.1 UI experience!

OSS desktop developers are making the same mistake by trying to include and "improve" the start menu experience. Until the developers can actually make a UI that the masses will use as it is designed, OSS desktop environments are never going to gain wide-spread adoption.

Guess what Android and iOS don't have? Start buttons/menus. Guess what are the most popular computer (if you combine handheld and desktop computers) operating systems are? You guessed it - Android and iOS.

And what happened when Microsoft removed the Start Button from Windows 8? That didn't go so well. And not really sure what pinning items to the desktop has to do with the Start Menu. That's a user option and actually one of the reasons the Start Menu is 10 has some advantages, it's a much better place to pin program shortcuts and folders than the desktop I think.

And sure, more people use mobile devices. But Android has a physical "Start" button called home correct? And none of those mobile users are using mice and keyboards or generally doing traditional productivity work.
 
And what happened when Microsoft removed the Start Button from Windows 8? That didn't go so well. And not really sure what pinning items to the desktop has to do with the Start Menu. That's a user option and actually one of the reasons the Start Menu is 10 has some advantages, it's a much better place to pin program shortcuts and folders than the desktop I think.

And sure, more people use mobile devices. But Android has a physical "Start" button called home correct? And none of those mobile users are using mice and keyboards or generally doing traditional productivity work.

Well 8 had lots of issues... and really they never removed the stupid start bar. They just made it a start screen, which completely hide the desktop where a good number of people used to drop all their shortcuts.

You know if I'm being honest I never really thought about the start bar all that much. Now that I do take a moment to think about its design though jardows is completely right not many people where even using it. Every windows machine I see during my day, and all the ones my friends and relatives have been using... and heck even my own windows machines. The desktops are littered with icons and files and folders.... man jardows is completely right I only ever hit start to hit shutdown. lol

My Gnome desktop... just again to bring it back to the thread. Has a places menu in the top left that drops down all my home folders and a few pinned folders I use a lot. That's it other then the time and weather for my top bar, and I use a pixel saver that removes my programs header when I full screen them and puts a - and X in the top right of my bar. I have a dock on the bottom with 5 or 6 programs, everything else I launch hitting the super key and typing in what I want. Even after months of use its still super clean and everything is well sorted. When I hit the super key Gnome pulls up my list of recently opened programs, and honestly 9 times out of 10 its super and click on one of 8 or 9 programs I use often. Start bar would just slow me down, I had installed a Menu extension for awhile but removed it after a few days. Don't need em really.
 
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Well 8 had lots of issues... and really they never removed the stupid start bar. They just made it a start screen, which completely hide the desktop where a good number of people used to drop all their shortcuts.

You know if I'm being honest I never really thought about the start bar all that much. Now that I do take a moment to think about its design though jardows is completely right not many people where even using it. Every windows machine I see during my day, and all the ones my friends and relatives have been using... and heck even my own windows machines. The desktops are littered with icons and files and folders.... man jardows is completely right I only ever hit start to hit shutdown. lol

My Gnome desktop... just again to bring it back to the thread. Has a places menu in the top left that drops down all my home folders and a few pinned folders I use a lot. That's it other then the time and weather for my top bar, and I use a pixel saver that removes my programs header when I full screen them and puts a - and X in the top right of my bar. I have a dock on the bottom with 5 or 6 programs, everything else I launch hitting the super key and typing in what I want. Even after months of use its still super clean and everything is well sorted. When I hit the super key Gnome pulls up my list of recently opened programs, and honestly 9 times out of 10 its super and click on one of 8 or 9 programs I use often. Start bar would just slow me down, I had installed a Menu extension for awhile but removed it after a few days. Don't need em really.

What your describing is very much how it's long worked in Windows. All the time used stuff on the task bar, less used stuff in Start, type for other things. People pinning stuff to the desktop is just how some people have long done it. There's no point though especially with Windows 10, just pin commonly access apps and folders there. At the end of the day all this is 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. Just a way to point and click on stuff.
 
What your describing is very much how it's long worked in Windows. All the time used stuff on the task bar, less used stuff in Start, type for other things. People pinning stuff to the desktop is just how some people have long done it. There's no point though especially with Windows 10, just pin commonly access apps and folders there. At the end of the day all this is 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. Just a way to point and click on stuff.

I have no doubt that is how MS wants it done. I have no doubt that is how you and a small handful of others do it.

All the windows 10 machines being used by real people I have seen lately had stock start bars... and desktops full of crap just as always.

As you say I guess peoples habits die hard. The more I think about it the more I realize what most people hated about windwos 8 was not being able to see their crap on the desktop when they hit their windows keys. I have always given MS full marks for trying with 8 though. They got behind on the mobile front and the whole convergence thing seemed like a good idea at the time. It didn't work out but at least they rolled the dice instead of playing it easy on the UI.
 
13 million

The facts are hard to argue.

Just shy of 300 million PCs sold last year... and Nvidia and AMD Combined for 13 million GPUs sold.
Do you have a link for what you're talking about? 13 million sounds like the sales for the QUARTER. Here, maybe I'm reading something wrong, but then what does this mean:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10613...-grabs-market-share-but-nvidia-remains-on-top

jpr_q2_2016_mkt_historical_quaterly_gpu_sales---2010---2016.png


That article is a little dated, but that's showing 20 million for Q1 + Q2 2016 alone. I found this article mentioning 13 million for what looks like Q3 2016:

https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/...-strong-demand-high-end-desktop-laptop-gaming

So yeah, if you compare yearly sales against quarterly sales, I'm sure the numbers do look less impressive...

Regardless, not everyone is buying a new card every year. That's why I was quoting the stats from Intel reflecting there are likely 190-285 million core gamers (not casual ones). I think you have you facts wrong. If I missed it, I apologize, but I haven't seen you post any sources for these "cold hard facts" of yours. I'm at least posting data.

I think we are in agreement though that high-end gaming hardware is NOT a significant portion of the market. It's the midrange stuff where you have the massive numbers.
 
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Still I think you can pretty safely surmise that for a vast majority of people buying those machines windows is hardly required software.

No you can't assume that.

The thing Linux apologists ignore is the long tail effect.

Windows has well over a million applications.

While there are some high percentage runners like MS Office that always jump into the conversation, the reality is that there are a million applications that are each well under 1% usage overall that collectively affect even more people.

Those million+ applications individually each have low market share but collectively they likely impact the majority of windows users.

1% of the market is not each buying those million applications and keeping them all in business.

By necessity they are widely and diversely spread among the Windows user base.

The Linux software gap isn't just Games, Office, Photoshop and other big obvious cases.

It's a Million + other small battles that collectively matter even more than those big obvious cases.
 
Windows has well over a million applications.

If you count custom business apps it well over that. With a few exceptions relative to the size of the desktop market, virtually all desktop software is Windows compatible. And the reason is pretty simple. If you want people to use your desktop software you need to make it available to 90% of that market. All of these alternative apps people mention, like LibreOffice. Looking at their support forum it seems a lot of LibreOffice folks are on Windows, I'd bet anything most of their users are on Windows. I don't use it a lot but I LibreOffice installed on multiple Windows machines.
 
Promises, promises. :D Here we are, a week or two into this thread and Windows is still the dominate OS, no change there. I have said it in the past so I will say it again, if the Linux community cannot get behind a single distro and stop most of the infighting, Linux will never be a dominate desktop OS, which is what they need in order to have complete 3rd party support.

And this contributes to the thread how?

The next time you report someone for trolling, perhaps consider reporting yourself?
 
I think we are in agreement though that high-end gaming hardware is NOT a significant portion of the market. It's the midrange stuff where you have the massive numbers.

Man this is why you don't argue using numbers after working all day and right before you go to bed.

Yes 13 million was a Q4 2016 number. I am sorry... the 2016 number of shipped AMD+Nvidia GPUs was aprox 48 million. So the % of new desktops that shipped with a GPU should be 1.7%.

I agree a larger number and I apologize for not double reading my source.

Still not as massive a market as some make out. I mean assuming a good gaming GPU lasts for around 4 years that puts fewer then 200 million 3D PC game capable computers in the world, and of those yes we agree the chances are high that a large number are either mid range cards or over the 2 year old mark making them mid or low ranged cards even if they where high end cards on day one.

Game publishers know this of course which is why they target the lowest end cards they can with their Min spec, if they can target integrated solutions better yet.

Thanks for calling me on that. I knew the number wasn't high but feel bad about stating a quarterly number was a yearly.
 
How many Linux users here want Linux unified to a single desktop interface/distro?

I certainly don't. Honestly, if that was ever to happen, which would literally be impossible on an open source OS, I would dump Linux immediately. Personally, I believe the differing distro's/desktop managers is one of the major strengths of Linux, the freedom to make that experience exactly how you want it. What "Windows folk" don't understand is that it really is a non issue regarding the overall use of the OS.
 
Yes 13 million was a Q4 2016 number. I am sorry... the 2016 number of shipped AMD+Nvidia GPUs was aprox 48 million. So the % of new desktops that shipped with a GPU should be 1.7%.

I think you mean 17%. And that 17% includes the most expensive of devices so I'm guessing that 17% would represent 50% of more of the hardware sales, especially is you add in DIY devices which don't show up in the 275 million retail number. Of course those GPUs are used for more than gaming.

Not really sure though why look at PC gaming like you do. It's clear having been in using computers for over 30 years that gaming drives a lot of innovation and gives PCs much of the entertainment value. Gaming is a critical market and force for the PC. Always has been and probably always will be.
 
No you can't assume that.

The thing Linux apologists ignore is the long tail effect.

Windows has well over a million applications.

While there are some high percentage runners like MS Office that always jump into the conversation, the reality is that there are a million applications that are each well under 1% usage overall that collectively affect even more people.

Those million+ applications individually each have low market share but collectively they likely impact the majority of windows users.

1% of the market is not each buying those million applications and keeping them all in business.

By necessity they are widely and diversely spread among the Windows user base.

The Linux software gap isn't just Games, Office, Photoshop and other big obvious cases.

It's a Million + other small battles that collectively matter even more than those big obvious cases.

A huge portion of the windows software ecosystem is shovelware. Everyone knows its true, no I'm not going to pull numbers out for you cause yes I would be guessing... but come on we hardly need to argue that point if we do your simply don't want to accept reality.

Of course their are more windows programs then any other OS. The majority of PCs ship with windows it would be crazy if it where otherwise.

That hardly means windows has 1 million useful programs. That list also includes a whole lot of software that I would never suggest anyone run. I mean does that number include all those stupid programs that install if you don't uncheek the Please install X tool bar and Please install Y registry cleaner boxes at the bottom of the software average users download all the time.

Again we come back to Photoshop being held up as some windows beacon. Photoshop hardly a windows system seller to the masses. Unless you are suggesting that of the 280 million PCs still sold every year a huge number of them are paying $240 US a year for photoshop.

I can point you to 100s of Linux software with very low use as well... that doesn't mean if it was on windows it would sell to millions more people. Niche software is Niche. Photoshop is extremely niche... no one not making money on graphics is paying $20 every single month to use it.

Office we have went over tons as well... average everyday people don't use office all that much, shocking but true. More and more they are using Google docs, Libre office doesn't have the install base no still its more then powerful enough for most people no matter what MS employees want to say about it. For most people they use Office type programs for resumes their kids homework and the odd letter. So don't even bother trying to argue the merits of some obscure mail merge feature that no one at home would ever use and even most offices have no need for.

Full marks to MS and windows for their software library. I have never said it was terrible, sure its the largest library of software that any OS ever has had. That isn't always good.

I keep hearing how Linux needs fewer Desktops and less ways of doing the same thing to remove confusion. Well in the case of Windows perhaps it could use fewer terrible software options to remove confusion. Average users are sick of not knowing what software they can download... of having to call their local computer guru or take their machine to a best buy cause they have downloaded the wrong one.

The advantage for the AVERAGE USER (not people such as yourself I assume which I know you hate me doing but hey if you got to [H] I do assume you know how not to download shovelware and worse) the safety and reliability of a good Linux distros Package Mangers Library is a huge reason why I believe they should be on Linux.
 
What "Windows folk" don't understand is that it really is a non issue regarding the overall use of the OS.

Windows folks get it fine, just look at the confusion that people have claimed with versions of Windows, Home, Pro, Enterprise in the same version number with identical UIs? What does it matter to a consumer to say "You have infinite choice in DE UIs!" Try this one, try that one. What Windows folks get is that a PC is tool to most folks, not a computer science experiment.
 
I think you mean 17%. And that 17% includes the most expensive of devices so I'm guessing that 17% would represent 50% of more of the hardware sales, especially is you add in DIY devices which don't show up in the 275 million retail number. Of course those GPUs are used for more than gaming.

Not really sure though why look at PC gaming like you do. It's clear having been in using computers for over 30 years that gaming drives a lot of innovation and gives PCs much of the entertainment value. Gaming is a critical market and force for the PC. Always has been and probably always will be.

Yes that was a typo... and that wasn't on propose I swear. Yes 17% of computers ship with GPUs... and I am sure a good 10% of them are being used for at least some amount of gaming. Perhaps higher... although that is hard to quantify of course, Nvidia sells the majority of those cards lately and their cards are getting used in a lot of comput cases. I know I have seen them going into graphics workstations more and more ect.
 
Windows folks get it fine, just look at the confusion that people have claimed with versions of Windows, Home, Pro, Enterprise in the same version number with identical UIs? What does it matter to a consumer to say "You have infinite choice in DE UIs!" Try this one, try that one. What Windows folks get is that a PC is tool to most folks, not a computer science experiment.

My PC gets used productively every day, it's far from a science experiment.

Thus highlighting your lack of knowledge when it comes to desktop Linux not to mention your endless misinformed generalisations. Let's watch this fly completely over your head yet again.
 
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My PC gets used productively every day, it's far from a science experiment.

Thus highlighting your lack of knowledge when it comes to desktop Linux not to mention your endless misinformed generalisations. Let's watch this fly completely over your head yet again.

The point being that not that many people care about myriads of DE environments, they simply need ONE that's easy enough and efficient enough to use to get the job done.
 
How many Linux users here want Linux unified to a single desktop interface/distro?

I certainly don't. Honestly, if that was ever to happen, which would literally be impossible on an open source OS, I would dump Linux immediately. Personally, I believe the differing distro's/desktop managers is one of the major strengths of Linux, the freedom to make that experience exactly how you want it. What "Windows folk" don't understand is that it really is a non issue regarding the overall use of the OS.

I agree.. but I am glad to see the commercial linux companies all pulling on one DE now once Canonical moves development resources to Gnome.

As long as they always leave the code open source, I very much like they are all improving the same DE.

Many of the Linux desktops are forks off older Gnome code... so hey as long as the commercial guys code stays open, the good bits will find their ways to the fork projects. The big guys are always free to pull bits from the forks and use them in their main line as well.

I do believe this change for Ubuntu is good for Linux adoption. If people no ask me what the main Linux Desktop is. Honestly I always have said Gnome anyway with Redhat/Cent/Suse being what people are likely to see in commercial installs. Now I believe it should be even more clear. Gnome is the default desktop for Linux... being free and open code their are a bunch of great Gnome forks like Mate and Cin if you prefer what they are doing. KDE is still out their if you want, we have choices... but it seems pretty clear all the big Linux houses are going to be spending development dollars on Gnome first and foremost.
 
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