Im happy to see that even PC Gamer is seeing why Linux is a good choice.
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I ripped off my last MS-branded bandaid almost a year ago and switched my gaming PC to Linux Mint Debian Edition! Zero regrets, and pretty much anything Windows-specific that I’d used before has either an official Linux version, or a third-party open source clone. The latter is often far simpler than the Windows version as well, and for the 2 or 3 “this-will-literally-only-run-on-Windows” bits of software that I legitimately need at some point or another - a VM running a debloated and stripped-down install of Windows 10 LTSC Enterprise.
Other than that (and my work laptop which I don’t count because it’s company property), I have zero Windows devices in my home. It’s freeing.
My wife got a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen6 (refurbished) the other day, and I smacked Zorin OS on it before it booted to Windows, because she wanted something similar to Windows.
Everything on the laptop worked out of the box: turning it into a tablet, rotating the screen, touch, everything!
She powered it on, and clicked the “start” button; the smile she got when it looked like something akin to WinXp was marvellous 😍
As much as I want to shit on this meme, I’m kind of happy that a pretty mainstream publication like PC Gamer is saying this.
The more it’s brought up by the mainstream media as an alternative to Windows, the better.
Checkmate, 2020 was that year for me! But now I still work to switch my friends over to Linux. Well, I’ve only done that successfully once, but every bit helps.
Too late, I made 2025 that year!
Too late. But yeah even my windows using wife is increasingly pro Linux. She just isn’t annoyed enough yet to switch
My wife sees me using Linux all the time and wants me to install it on her 2017 MBP (the infamous A1706). I can’t get over the amount of freedom I have over it, even after growing up with SuSE (under Novell’s ownership, my dad’s employer at the time), Debian, Slackware, DOS, Windows 95/98/2000/XP, Apple System 7-8/Mac OS 9/OSX, and an open-minded, techy dad who never pledged any allegiance to any particular OS ecosystem.
My point: Not even my dad wants to use Windows anymore. That said so much about it to me when he switched.
My wife is the tech professional and she’s wary because she doesn’t want to do her job at home lol
In 2010 MacBooks were joked about as expensive Facebook machines. Web browsers. I legit think Linux desktop can grow within a shrinking PC market (mobile induced shrinkage). Also I was still surprised the first time a friend told me they wrote an essay for a class on their phone. People are really proficient on their phones these days
I’ve written short fiction on my phone, but school essays are absolutely off the table
I feel the same. Like I care very much for how my paragraphs look in size relative to each other for reasons of flow, style, and readability. Writing that on a phone is problems for mapping to printed paper/PDF
Other people I’ve met though do not care at all as long as they get an assignment in. Work I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone write a report on their phone at least
The role of desktops has changed over the decades, because nowadays so many people use mobile devices instead. What we meant by the phrase “year of the Linux desktop” in 2010s was very different from what it means today.
At home, people use the desktop for gaming, while most computing activities can now be done on any mobile device. In the past, the desktop was the only computer in the house, and it was used for communication, browsing, photos, videos, and everything else.
I think we should start using a different term. How about something like “year of the Linux gaming PC”, because that would really tell you what’s happening right now. The rest of the things you can do on a Linux desktop aren’t really that important to most people anymore.
Personally, I still prefer a laptop over a tablet, and I think many people on Lemmy would agree. However, most people outside this bubble clearly don’t see that much value in an x86 desktop OS.
Personally, I still prefer a laptop over a tablet
I agree. That said, I’ve recently acquired a 2020 15" HP Spectre x360, which runs LMDE 7 beautifully with KDE Plasma on Wayland. Tablet mode works, the screen orientation accelerometer works, Thunderbolt works, the OLED 4K display is gorgeous, and it’s got a really funky yet clean design.
Best of both worlds IMO.
Congratulations! How’s KDE running on Wayland?
When I got my current laptop, I chose Gnome because Wayland support was decent at the time and virtually no other desktop supported it. Later, a few others began supporting Wayland but I haven’t tried them.
I used KDE long ago with X11 and I loved it. I think I should give it another go, so that’s why I’m wondering. Is Wayland support ready yet?
I liked it so much that I switched my gaming PC (running LMDE6) from Cinnamon on X11 to KDE Plasma on Wayland, and it’s incredibly good.
I built this PC with reliability in mind. X11 is the “older but most stable and compatible” option, and historically, Wayland has been the choice for those living on the edge. That should say a lot.
Let’s not exaggerate like that. A lot of pcs are used by university students/professors, researchers, office work, engineers, software devs, audiovisual production, designers, hobbyists from many areas, etc. And linux has been gaining space in all those areas.
Professional use is a whole different story, and I left it out because the previous message was getting a bit too long. 😃
If your work relies on a specific piece of Windows software, Linux probably won’t be good enough. Even if you can technically use that application through Wine or Proton, the work environment usually requires every feature to work as intended. If there’s weird behaviour that interferes with your work, it’s pretty clear that you can’t tolerate that. This can easily happen when your work involves using a computer to control a machine or to pull data from it. You may also need your computer to talk to other systems that expect you to use a client running on top of Windows.
However, many people need apps that were designed to run on a browser. That’s when you really begin to have options. Even MS Word and Excel kind of sort of work through a browser as long as you don’t intend to do anything even remotely advanced with them. Many people just need basic office applications, and in that context, Linux has been a viable option for many years already. Even though the docx->odt conversion is far from perfect, it’s usually good enough.
Many people also require specific functionality, but don’t really care which application actually provides it as long as the job gets done well enough. If that’s the case, Linux can usually provide an alternative. Don’t know about professional video production, but hobby videos can definitely be edited on Kdenlive. Same logic applies to Gimp, Krita, and Inkscape.
For the tablet people out there, there’s still hope: postmarketOS!
