- Microsoft removes guide on converting Microsoft accounts to Local, pushing for Microsoft sign-ins.
- Instructions once available, now missing - likely due to company’s preference for Microsoft accounts.
- People may resist switching to Microsoft accounts for privacy reasons, despite company’s stance.
I did manage to switch to Linux. I can understand though why people are hesitant, there are still things that are tough in Linux, or near impossible in some cases. That’s despite having used Linux on and off for years.
That’s because what people need to understand is that fundamentally Linux is not a drop in replacement for Windows, its not some open source copy. It’ll never have full software compatibility, it’ll never run the same, it’ll never look exactly the same, and it’ll never be the same. The sooner people accept that the sooner people understand what their options are. For me that’s an advantage, I like the UI on DEs like Cosmic, I love the Unix filesystem, I love the terminal and how powerful it is, I love package managers, and I love the customizability of it all.
I don’t think something needs to be identical to Windows to be a good replacement for it. I think there should be a replacement for Windows, and distributions like Linux Mint are that replacement for some people.
I also think that parts of the Linux ecosystem have major problems. Not necessarily problems with the kernel itself, but problems with the surrounding software like programs and user interfaces. Wider application support would be a start. Some distributions and parts of modern Linux systems can be unnecessarily complex or downright esoteric. Some features like HDR have very poor support, and are difficult to enable/setup where they are supported. It’s also difficult for developers to publish to Linux because of the wide variety of different Linux systems. Flatpaks and snaps help with this obviously but have divisive in the Linux community for one reason or another.
I disagree there. The issue is that in Windows people bring over their own version of libraries they compiled on (the millions of .dll files) and you can even look in your Uninstall Apps settings where there’s a bunch of MS specific runtime bundles to see that’s even an issue in the MS ecosystem.
In Linux, developers have relied on the library versions just being there. It is, I’d argue, the most compelling reason package managers basically had to come into existence. On the flip-side this can cause issues where there is some version on the system by the package manager that replaces another version. And something not a part of that package management system isn’t a part of those dependency checks and if they don’t put the libraries with the binaries…well it is just luck if you have them all or if other versions can support those library calls in the same way still.
In Linux that is all those .so’s in /var/lib and stuff.
You don’t really see many proprietary things using package managers and those that do are packaged by someone else and are in some sort of repo that isn’t part of the vanilla install because of legal caution.
Companies that made their money on porting games to Linux prior to Proton basically causing them to shutter Linux porting would put their .so’s in with the game bundle themselves, just like you see happening in Windows when .dll’s are inside the actual program’s folders.
However, the more that this sort of dependency management has become abstracted by development suites that take care of this for the developers, the less they understand about it.
Flatpaks actually take care of this and it is one reason they are so popular. They figure out (well that’s a simplification) those library dependencies, sandbox the apps with those dependencies so the library paths don’t interfere with other flatpaks or the base system itself. People complain about this as a con because “the download is BIGGER” even though flatpak doesn’t install the same runtimes over and over again, so once they are there, the download may still be bigger but the installed storage isn’t.
Anyway, yes Linus Torvalds complained about the “Linux fragmentation” issue but it was about DE’s not the state of the development ecosystem itself as I recall, though the rant is very old, so maybe I don’t remember all of it.
Sure, but that’s not a Linux problem, that’s a developer problem. Linux supports application development just fine. It is a kernel and the surrounding ecosystem is the operating system after all. It is developers that don’t support it. That isn’t really something Linux in and of itself can effectively solve. Users have to increase and developers supporting applications for Linux will also increase. The classic Linux Chicken and the Egg problem but it is capitalism and that’s just going to be how it has to work.
I said drop in replacement
No organization is willing to pay companies to support Linux
That’s because organizations like the Linux foundation primarily serve enterprise and server customers, they only need a good enough UI so that’s what desktop users get. Nobody is paying money for Linux and few people donate.
That’s because the current system allows distribution maintainers to decide if they want their distro to be bleeding edge or stable.
TLDR: Desktop Linux users get the scraps of enterprise and server Linux
Well that’s a lie. Lots of companies use Linux servers, Linux embedded devices, even Linux desktops for programmers or engineers. Android devices are everywhere too.
One of the most common uses of Linux is smartphones. Chromebooks are also fairly popular. It’s more that the kind of people that use Linux desktops aren’t happy with smartphone like functionality and customisation.
The better question is why aren’t people supporting desktop Linux? We have increasing market share after all. My guess is a combination of fragmentation and the fact that the user base aren’t the kind of people they want to sell too. It’s hard to sell MS Office for Linux to your average Linux enthusiast who might even be an Open Source purist. They are also more likely to jailbreak or pirate your product.
I mentioned that
They make money because they’re proprietary, sell peoples info, and because of that they represent everything the free software movement fights against. I use Linux because it supports the free software movement, not the other way around.
It’s a combination of a few factors, developers are pressured into not asking for donations (users need to actively find their website to donate), the vast majority of Linux software is free of price, and people don’t want to pay money for their operating system.
I am talking about businesses supporting the Linux desktop with software, not about the OS devs themselves.
This is the reason why most businesses don’t want to support Linux.
What money is there in desktop Linux? Companies don’t support things without expecting something in return.
Given there are quite a lot more people using Linux than there used to be I imagine a fair bit. That’s only going to increase as Linux users keep increasing. Linux users still buy things like Video Games, Spotify subscriptions, and potentially other software products too like Jetbrains IDEs.