Microsoft wants to move Windows fully to the cloud

Zarathustra[H] said:
Linux, yes. Ubuntu, no.

Ubuntu are every bit as big control freaks trying to take over the world as Microsoft is.

*snip
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Thanks for this info. I started on Ubuntu I think in 2006 as something to move away from windows. I'm now sticking with Mint and will recommend it for regular users. Red Star OS for people I don't really like :)
 
In my experience with just about all Linux projects they start because something was too restrictive, get popular, start telling people no this is the way you do it like it or leave, and then gets forked, and the cycle continues.
 
Almost like a reoccurring theme, everyone thinks they're better than the rest - they're really just more of the same

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Lakados said:
In my experience with just about all Linux projects they start because something was too restrictive, get popular, start telling people no this is the way you do it like it or leave, and then gets forked, and the cycle continues.
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That is a fair comment, but in the case of Ubuntu it is worse than that.

They have repeatedly tried to push proprietary solutions and twist the arms of other projects to use them.

For instance, when it comes to Snaps, they have created a store that only they own and control, and at the same time are actively pursuing various software projects to convince them to only offer their software through Snaps because it is "easier".

If they succeed in this they will have taken the entire free and open source community and prioritized it as a subsidiary of Canonical. It's actually pretty sinister. On the level of Oracle bad.

staknhalo said:
Almost like a reoccurring theme, everyone thinks they're better than the rest - they're really just more of the same

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This can be bad for some things, but for Linux distributions I don't have a problem with it.

IMHO, having a variety of distributions is great. it gives people lots of options to choose from.

And quite frankly, if Linux gaining mainstream appeal means that it has to turn into a Windows-like experience, and I have to give up all the tings I love about Linux, and have the things I hate about Windows forced on me, then I'm perfectly fine with Linux never gaining mainstream appeal. What's the point in having an alternative that isn't an alternative?
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
That is a fair comment, but in the case of Ubuntu it is worse than that.

They have repeatedly tried to push proprietary solutions and twist the arms of other projects to use them.

For instance, when it comes to Snaps, they have created a store than only they own and control, and at the same time are actively pursuing various software projects to convince them to only offer their software through Snaps because it is "easier".

If they succeed in this they will have taken the entire free and open source community and prioritized it as a subsidiary of Canonical. It's actually pretty sinister. On the level of Oracle bad.



This can be bad for some things, but for Linux distributions I don't have a problem with it.

IMHO, having a variety of distributions is great. it gives people lots of options to choose from.

And quite frankly, if Linux gaining mainstream appeal means that it has to turn into a Windows-like experience, and I have to give up all the tings I love about Linux, and have the things I hate about Windows forced on me, then I'm perfectly fine with Linux never gaining mainstream appeal. What's the point in having an alternative that isn't an alternative?
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Just seems like trying to herd cats is all, destined for eternal punitive fragmentation - I don't necessarily care or think it should or shouldn't change - just what it appears like from the outside looking in if you will

One distro gets popular - "NO! I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY WOULD DO THIS! THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THIS COMMUNITY OR LINUX OR OPEN SOURCE IS ABOUT! HOW DARE THEY! WE SHALL SHOW THEM HOW IT IS DONE AND MEANT TO BE!" - and a new distro is born...
 
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jlbenedict said:
Assuming Windows "Subscription" OS will have the same price creep that Netflix, Hulu, ESPN+, Youtube TV, etc..etc.. have employed....
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To be fair (while hating everything is a sub now myself) -the only thing better than money is more money ☝️
 
staknhalo said:
Just seems like trying to herd cats is all, destined for eternal punitive fragmentation - I don't necessarily care or think it should or shouldn't change - just what it appears like from the outside looking in if you will

One distro gets popular - "NO! I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY WOULD DO THIS! THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THIS COMMUNITY OR LINUX OR OPEN SOURCE IS ABOUT! HOW DARE THEY! WE SHALL SHOW THEM HOW IT IS DONE AND MEANT TO BE!" - and a new distro is born...
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I can see how it looks that way, but I tend to think of it as an eternal "marketplace of ideas".

People flock to projects that represent their preferences, and if those projects screw up, or if peoples preferences change, they fork them and there is another project.

Eventually less popular projects struggle to have users and developers and whither and die.

It's essentially the capitalist model on overdrive, with both users and developers voting with their feet on a continuous basis. (which is kind of amusing, as many people often suggest free and open source is somehow anti-capitalist)

I tend to think it drives continuous renewal and improvement, and makes sure these projects reflect what people actually want.
 
I think that at the risk of simplification, there are two main reasons why an individual user would choose Linux over Windows or MacOS.
  1. More economical, especially since it can run on older hardware. MacOS orphans older hardware. Lots of Windows software these days is subscription-based. (Dunno about Mac software.)
  2. Desire to be free of Microsoft or Apple (or ...) control.
For reason #1, I (again simplifying ...) would associate such users with people are the lower end of the economic spectrum. Probably oversimplifying more, I assume such people are less technically savvy or comfortable with "technology." If these associations are ANDs, not ORs, then it's hard to see such people setting up a Linux system for themselves. I'm assuming that they aren't going to BUY a Linux system.

For reason #2, I'm assuming that the % of people for whom that is an overriding objective is fairly low. https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide shows that as of September, Linux had 3.01% desktop share, lower than ChromeOS! People are voting with their wallets (or time) here.

If I am a software vendor, I care a whole lot more about Windows at 68% and MacOS at 20%. That means that if I want to cobble together a Linux desktop I have to work pretty hard to get the same software functionality that is freely available (for purchase/subscription) on either of the leading platforms. For most people, this is a Why Bother? And how much is your time worth? Your frustration with funky software that doesn't quite match up to the Windows and MacOS software. IOW, most users don't match up with either reason #1 or reason #2.

And if I am a hardware vendor, then MacOS is not available to me, if I'm not Apple. For all those vendors, are they going to optimize their systems for 68% or 3%. How many will even bother to offer a Linux install option? (Which one, how to support, including tech support people, etc.) For ChromeOS, there is Google's brand muscle to create interest. Where is that uber-strong Linux brand?

So I guess I'm writing the obit of Linux as a desktop system with a promising future.

Full disclosure. I used to be a software product manager, and business strategy was in my wheelhouse.
 
1_rick said:
This feels weird considering all the Chromebooks run Linux.
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I get that it is, but is it?
Would most Linux people consider ChromeOS to be Linux, it is so locked down and proprietary that at what point does something Linux-based stop being Linux?
And is ChromeOS really the future of Desktop Linux that the community wants? I get that it runs on Linux but almost every aspect of its implementation is essentially the polar opposite of what the community wants, if they could agree on what they wanted but that's a whole side tangent I am not prepared for.
 
Proprietary is necessary to achieve broad substantial success as seen and that's what the fan base is against so why desktop Linux is in the eternal state it's in

For companies/IoT/devices/etc they just take the base and fork/close it off and make their own thing - and that's where it's successful
 
Lakados said:
I get that it is, but is it?
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There's a semantic gray area, but since you can enable access to the linux distro inside a Chromebook, I'd say yes. In one regard--possibly only semantically because I don't actually know how it's implemented--Chrome OS is another GUI on top of Linux, like X.
 
Windows is perilously close to free right now, there's going to be some way to make money off it at some point. Whether it's advertising or charging for those "AI" or online features like Office and shit per month M$ has the potential to make a lot of money. I think the key is that they make sure that the Windows install itself is free or very cheap (like it is now).
 
The day Windows decides to no longer permit local, offline installs is the day I stop updating major Windows versions and really put my Linux/BSD migration plans into motion, then ruthlessly sandbox that final version of Windows into a VM. Anti-cheat and DRM systems that don't like VMs can suck it.

Incidentally, games - especially the VR kind, where Valve Index and SteamVR Linux support are token at best - are the one remaining reason for me to use Windows as a native, bare-metal OS, moreso when all those games you get through Xbox Game Pass have that annoying UWP sandboxing that gets in the way of things like Steam integration.

Everything else works equally well on any modern OS with a half-decent Web browser, and for file storage, often better because then I get to use ZFS. (I've heard offhand mentions about ReFS, but if Microsoft themselves can't be arsed to enable it on mainstream versions of Windows, it may as well not exist, since only corporates who don't know better or are stuck with on-prem Active Directory eat the cost for Windows Server instead of running Linux or BSD.)
 
NamelessPFG said:
The day Windows decides to no longer permit local, offline installs is the day I stop updating major Windows versions and really put my Linux/BSD migration plans into motion, then ruthlessly sandbox that final version of Windows into a VM. Anti-cheat and DRM systems that don't like VMs can suck it.

Incidentally, games - especially the VR kind, where Valve Index and SteamVR Linux support are token at best - are the one remaining reason for me to use Windows as a native, bare-metal OS, moreso when all those games you get through Xbox Game Pass have that annoying UWP sandboxing that gets in the way of things like Steam integration.

Everything else works equally well on any modern OS with a half-decent Web browser, and for file storage, often better because then I get to use ZFS. (I've heard offhand mentions about ReFS, but if Microsoft themselves can't be arsed to enable it on mainstream versions of Windows, it may as well not exist, since only corporates who don't know better or are stuck with on-prem Active Directory eat the cost for Windows Server instead of running Linux or BSD.)
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Nah I expect DX support for Linux native before that happens. You can already do some very interesting things with DX12 and Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Windows exists for 2 major things, compatibility and their UI.

Microsoft very well could expand on Windows Subsystem for Linux and build a full Mini OS that ran inside for compatibility and release a distro with their own UI.

Microsoft is struggling to monetize Windows OS as a whole and it’s the other things they are getting their money from mostly add on services that don’t really care what platform you’re coming from.
They already have Linux support for Intune and Azure, and Microsoft is not so slowly pushing AD and Exchange users to their O365 environment so soon the Domain join functions that Windows provides and the MDM solutions that comes with it are going to do just as well for Linux as Windows.

I can’t say it’s going to happen any time soon, but from what I see Microsoft is at least being proactive enough that should it happen they aren’t caught flat footed.
 
Lakados said:
VM’s are cheap and RDP uses nothing for bandwidth. Microsoft has more datacenter capability than it knows what to do with.
Hardware refreshes tend to double cpu and memory capacity but doesn’t double demand on a facility. After their last round they probably saw utilization plummet which is bad for efficiency and actually costs more so finding a way to drum up usage is fine.
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VMs in the cloud aren't cheap. Especially when you need GPU acceleration. I'd rather not have to pay a subscription on my OS like everything else the industry is trying to push.
 
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That would be the deal breaker for me is they went cloud and a monthly sub. There is absolutely no reason for a sub when MS pushes ad's and all the data they collect now.
 
vegeta535 said:
That would be the deal breaker for me is they went cloud and a monthly sub. There is absolutely no reason for a sub when MS pushes ad's and all the data they collect now.
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Oh yeah... that's the day of instant wiping of C: drive and installing Linux
 
The company I work for is diving into the deep end of this idea. Internal and external collaborators are going to be logging into VDIs instead of local in an attempt to completely lock down the data chain of custody.
 
vegeta535 said:
That would be the deal breaker for me is they went cloud and a monthly sub. There is absolutely no reason for a sub when MS pushes ad's and all the data they collect now.
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Wrong. There is a reason for a sub. You just don't like the reason and are living in denial about the objective truth that there is one.
 
Algrim said:
The company I work for is diving into the deep end of this idea. Internal and external collaborators are going to be logging into VDIs instead of local in an attempt to completely lock down the data chain of custody.
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I know right, it also solves a lot of network access rights issues and security concerns, because no matter where the user is the machine they are using is in the same place with the same security and firewall rules.
Lock down the RDP session so the clipboard and local network are inaccessible, and have a VPN from Azure to the local office with defined rules and access rights for user groups for things like local printers and shared resources.
Employees are free to be mobile, local user devices don't really matter, local networking security is a standard BYOD network type and data security is about as good as it's going to get.

For business, there are very few downsides, especially for small office-type setups.
 
Lakados said:
Nah I expect DX support for Linux native before that happens. You can already do some very interesting things with DX12 and Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Windows exists for 2 major things, compatibility and their UI.

Microsoft very well could expand on Windows Subsystem for Linux and build a full Mini OS that ran inside for compatibility and release a distro with their own UI.

Microsoft is struggling to monetize Windows OS as a whole and it’s the other things they are getting their money from mostly add on services that don’t really care what platform you’re coming from.
They already have Linux support for Intune and Azure, and Microsoft is not so slowly pushing AD and Exchange users to their O365 environment so soon the Domain join functions that Windows provides and the MDM solutions that comes with it are going to do just as well for Linux as Windows.

I can’t say it’s going to happen any time soon, but from what I see Microsoft is at least being proactive enough that should it happen they aren’t caught flat footed.
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As I understand it, Windows actually has never been Microsoft's big money maker - that would be MS Office, as it has been for literal decades, and given how deep my employer is into Office/Microsoft 365 and Teams right now, amongst countless others, I see no reason for that to change any time soon. (It's also worth noting that MS Office has been sold for Macs for about as long as they've existed, whereas MS rarely targets OSes that are not their own.)

They're also leaning hard on their Azure "cloud" stuff, but that side of things isn't really used by my employer, so I have little exposure to it. It's mainly just on-prem AD that's hardly used in practice except by some accounts only used on the premises, and Microsoft 365 accounts for everything else (over which I have no administrative access, I just implement the credentials I'm given manually when needed).

WSL is something that I know is there, it can be used (if you make sure to add Hyper-V to your installed Windows features), but I haven't actually found a use for it just yet when I never figured out how to get WSLg working in practice and it's limited to terminal stuff as a result. It's probably a hell of a lot more elegant than Cygwin ever was, but if I'm using Windows, it's too easy to fall back to the ol' MS-DOS commands and GUI way of doing things, as I have for decades.

DirectX native on Linux, though? I figured that was too tightly integrated into the Windows kernel to ever jump ship to any other OS, but seeing how far WINE/Proton/DXVK/etc. have come as purely third-party efforts, perhaps it won't matter so much in the end.

I do admit, sheer backwards compatibility is one thing Windows has going for it, moreso than any other OS out there. It's rare that anything breaks, aside from Win9x-era games and 16-bit binaries on 64-bit OSes (because virtual 8086 mode and long mode don't mix), to the point that you can take nearly any old 32-bit Windows NT program and it'll just run on Windows 11 to some extent, whereas Linux is far more prone to dependency hell (when you can't just Flatpak it all together) and macOS will break backwards compatibility at the drop of a hat (see: Classic Mode, Rosetta for PowerPC, 32-bit Intel binaries).
 
Mazzspeed said:
And yet every software package available for Ubuntu can be installed under KDE Neon using the exact same package manager.
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Yeah, I think fragmentation is kind of a red herring at this point. Are linux installs very configfurable and come in many different flavors? Sure.

Are all of them binary compatible and can still run all the same software? Also yes.

Sure, there is some fragmentation, but it is not relevant fragmentation.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Yeah, I think fragmentation is kind of a red herring at this point. Are linux installs very configfurable and come in many different flavors? Sure.

Are all of them binary compatible and can still run all the same software? Also yes.

Sure, there is some fragmentation, but it is not relevant fragmentation.
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I kinda disagree. I'm not able or interested in customizing something like different screen lockers, So i end up stuck with whichever one is bundled with whichever distro I pick (i've tried lots). When a distro I love because it has an excellently integrated file manager (yes i can install this file manager in another distro, but shit half the time something is broken when you do that), has an epically shit screen locker. I'm dicked. Why cant they just use one, and make it the best. Instead of insisting on "free" software, being stuff made in a basement by some control freak neck beard who wont let anyone understand his "obviously superior code".

/rant.

I love linux. And windows. And computers. And butterflies.
 
GotNoRice said:
Do people still discuss Linux in Linux threads or do they just save it for the Windows threads?
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This church does not develop internally seeing as it's utterly stagnant, the only thing left is endless evangelism.

The best part is that when the evangelical Linux users show up in a non-Linux thread they all start arguing over which version is the best at making your computer a less capable, more annoying tool to use.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
This church does not develop internally seeing as it's utterly stagnant, the only thing left is endless evangelism.

The best part is that when the evangelical Linux users show up in a non-Linux thread they all start arguing over which version is the best at making your computer a less capable, more annoying tool to use.
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They do it with phones, operating systems, and GPUs from what we can see on this forum alone
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
Yeah, I think fragmentation is kind of a red herring at this point. Are linux installs very configfurable and come in many different flavors? Sure.

Are all of them binary compatible and can still run all the same software? Also yes.

Sure, there is some fragmentation, but it is not relevant fragmentation.
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You can boil most Linux distros down to either being Debian/Ubuntu based, Arch based, or just stand alone. Linux Mint for example is just Ubuntu with a custom UI and some select software they feel should or shouldn't be included. Ubuntu itself is based on Debian with a more updated repository and use of kernel, with again a custom UI and select software. They can all download and install a .deb and for the most part work the same. This is why when you go to install software, you often see "Debian/Ubuntu/Mint" because they're all nearly the same and popular.

Anyone who uses the argument that Linux is fragmented hasn't actually used Linux.
 
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