By my count, Linux has over 11% of the desktop market. Here's how I got that number - and why people are making the leap:
My colleague Jack Wallen and I have been telling you for a while now that you should switch from Windows to the Linux desktop. Sounds like some of you have been listening.
The proof of the pudding comes from various sources. First, with Windows 10 nearing the end of its supported life, we told you to consider switching from Windows to Linux Mint or another Windows-like Linux distribution. What do we find now?
Zorin OS, an excellent Linux desktop, reports that its latest release, "Zorin OS 18 has amassed 1 million downloads in just over a month since its release." What makes it especially interesting is that over "78% of these downloads came from Windows" users.
[...] Many have already been making the leap. By May 2025, StatCounter data showed the Linux desktop had grown from a minute 1.5% global desktop share in 2020 to above 4% in 2024, and was at a new American high of above 5% by 2025.
In StatCounter's latest US numbers, which cover through October, Linux shows up as only 3.49%. But if you look closer, "unknown" accounts for 4.21%. Allow me to make an educated guess here: I suspect those unknown desktops are actually running Linux. What else could it be? FreeBSD? Unix? OS/2? Unlikely.
In addition, ChromeOS comes in at 3.67%, which strikes me as much too low. Leaving that aside, ChromeOS is a Linux variant. It just uses the Chrome web browser for its interface rather than KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, or another Linux desktop environment. Put all these together, and you get a Linux desktop market share of 11.37%. Now we're talking.
If you want to look at the broader world of end-user operating systems, including phones and tablets, Linux comes out even better. In the US, where we love our Apple iPhones, Android -- yes, another Linux distro -- boasts 41.71% of the market share, according to StatCounter's latest numbers. Globally, however, Android rules with 72.55% of the market.
[...] Now, of course, StatCounter's numbers, as Ed Bott has pointed out, have their problems. So I also looked at my preferred data source for operating system numbers: the US federal government's Digital Analytics Program (DAP).
This site gives a running count of US government website visits and an analysis. On average, there are 1.6 billion sessions over the last 30 days, with millions of users per day. In short, DAP gives a detailed view of what people use without massaging the data.
DAP gets its raw data from a Google Analytics account. DAP has open-sourced the code, which displays the data on the web, and its data-collection code. You can download its data in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format so you can analyze the raw numbers yourself.
By DAP's count, the Linux desktop now has a 5.8% market share. That may not sound impressive, but when I started looking at DAP's numbers a decade ago, the Linux desktop had a mere 0.67% share. We've come a long way.
If you add Chrome OS (1.7%) and Android (15.8%), 23.3% of all people accessing the US government's websites are Linux users. The Linux kernel's user-facing footprint is much larger than the "desktop Linux" label suggests.
[...] But wait, there's more data. According to Lansweeper, an IT asset discovery and inventory company, in its analysis of over 15 million identified consumer desktop operating systems, Linux desktops currently account for just over 6% of PC market share.
Earlier this year, I identified five drivers for people switching from Windows to Linux. These are: Microsoft's shift of focus from Windows as a product to Microsoft 365 and cloud services, the increased viability of gaming via Steam and Proton, drastically improved ease of use in mainstream distros, broader hardware support, and rising concern about privacy and data control.
Three others have emerged since then. One is that many companies and users still have perfectly good Windows 10 machines that can't "upgrade" to Windows 11. ControlUp, a company that would love to help you move to Windows 11, has found that about 25% of consumer and business Windows 10 PCs can't be moved to Windows 11.
[...] Another is that many people really, really don't want to move to Windows 11. A UK survey by consumer group Which? in September 2025 found that 26% of respondents intended to keep using Windows 10 even after updates stopped. Interestingly, 6% plan to go to an alternative operating system such as Linux.
[...] Finally, not everyone is thrilled with Windows 11 being turned into an AI-agentic operating system. Despite all the AI hype, some people don't want AI second-guessing their every move or reporting on their work to Microsoft.
After Microsoft president Pavan Davulur tweeted on Nov. 10 that "Windows is evolving into an agentic OS, connecting devices, cloud, and AI to unlock intelligent productivity and secure work anywhere," he probably expected Windows users to be happy with this vision. They weren't.
[...] My last reason for people looking to Linux from Windows doesn't matter much to users in the US, but it matters a lot to people outside the US. You see, the European Union (EU) governments don't trust Microsoft to deliver on its service promises under potential US political pressure.
This has resulted in the rise of Digital Sovereignty initiatives, where EU companies and not American tech giants are seen as much more trustworthy. As a result, many EU states have dropped Microsoft programs and have switched to open-source software.
That includes the desktop. Indeed, one EU group has created EU OS. This is a proof-of-concept Linux desktop for a Fedora-based distro that uses the KDE Plasma desktop environment.
It's not just the EU. The UK also no longer trusts Microsoft with its data. A 2024 Computer Weekly report revealed that Microsoft told Scottish police it could not guarantee that data in Microsoft 365 and Azure would remain in the UK.
[...] Taken together, all these shifts make Linux less of a tinker's special and more of a pragmatic option for people who want out of the Windows upgrade treadmill or subscription model.
Desktop Linux is moving from perennial underdog to a small but meaningful slice of everyday computing, especially among technically inclined users, non-American public-sector agencies, and ordinary consumer and business users who want a cheaper, more trustworthy desktop.
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Related Stories
The quite famous FOSS developer Poul-Henning Kamp (aka PHK) has posted his feedback to the EU regarding European Open Digital Ecosystems [Intro in Danish, article in English] and their call for evidence. In it he brings their attention to open standards in points 2 and 3:
At the most fundamental level, the EU has three options:
1. Pick and bless a set of winners, consisting of:
a) Operating system, portable to any reasonable computer architecture.
b) Text-processing, suitable for tasks up to a book.
c) Spreadsheet
d) Email client.
e) Web Browser
f) Accounting software, suitable for small organizations.and fund organizations to maintain, develop and support the software for the future as open source, turning that software into infrastructure like water, power and electricity, free for all, individuals, startups and established companies alike, to use and benefit from.
2. Continuously develop/pick, bless and meticulously enforce open standards of interoperability, and then "let the competition loose".
3. Both. By providing a free baseline and de-facto reference implementations for the open standards, "the market" will be free to innovate, improve and compete, but cannot (re)create walled gardens.
Indeed, if the protocols and file formats are not publicly documented, freely available, and royalty-free, then what benefit would there be to implement them, FOSS or not?
There is an unreproducable javascript link on the EC page which goes to a relevant PDF document. It is labeled, "Call for evidence - Ares(2026)69111". It is worth checking before sending in feedback. Although English is the main language, the other official languages of EU member states can be used. The deadline for feedback is 03 February 2026.
Previously:
(2025) Why People Keep Flocking to Linux in 2025 (and It's Not Just to Escape Windows)
(2025) Europe's Plan to Ditch US Tech Giants is Built on Open Source - and It's Gaining Steam
(2025) Euro Techies Call for Sovereign Fund to Escape US Dependency
(2025) Petition on EU Linux Operating System in Public Administrations
Associate professor, David Eaves, writes about the essential role of the commodification of services in digital sovereignty. The questions to ask on the way to digital sovereignty are not as much about owning the stack but about the ability to move workloads. In other words, open standards for protocols, file formats, and more are the prerequisites. The same applies to the software supply chain. However, as we recently discussed here, PHK recently pointed out that Free and Open Source reference implementations would be of great benefit. Associate professor Eaves writes:
There is growing and valid concern among policymakers about tech sovereignty and cloud infrastructure. A handful of American hyperscalers — AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud — control the digital substrate on which modern economies run. This concentration is compounded by a US government increasingly willing to wield its digital industries as leverage. As French President Emmanuel Macron quipped: "There is no such thing as happy vassalage."
While some countries appear ready to concede market dominance in exchange for improved trade relations, others are exploring massive investments in public sector alternatives to the hyperscalers, advocating that billions, and possibly many many billions, be spent to on sovereign stack plans, and/or positioning local telecoms as alternatives to the hyperscalers.
Ironically, both strategies may increase dependency, limit government agency and increase economic and geopolitical risks — the very problems sovereignty seeks to solve. As Mike Bracken and I wrote earlier this year: "Domination by a local champion, free to extract rents, may be a path to greater autonomy, but it is unlikely to lead to increased competitiveness or greater global influence."
Any realistic path to increased agency will be expensive and take years. To be sustainable, it must focus on commoditizing existing solutions through interoperability and de facto standards that will broaden the market (and enable effective) national champions. This should be our north star and direction of travel. The metric for success should focus on making it as simple as possible to move data and applications across suppliers. Critically, this cannot be achieved by regulation alone, it will also require deft procurement and a willingness to accept de facto as opposed to ideal standards. The good news is governments have done this before. However, to succeed, it will require building the capacity to become market shapers and not market takers — thinking like electricity grids and railway gauges, not digital empires .
The essential role of commodities has been widely known and acknowledged for decades. We are in this situation because key companies and/or monopolies saw that long ago and were allowed to fight so hard all this time against ICT remaining as commodities. Sadly, the discussion about commodification probably peaked in the years just after the infamous Halloween Documents, particularly the first one. Eric S Raymond, author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar and early FOSS developer, published these leaked documents which covered potential strategies relating to M$ fight against free and open source software and, in particular, against Linux back in 1998. In retrospect these documents have turned out to be blueprints, used against FOSS and open standards by other companies as well.
Previously:
(2026) Sorry, Eh
(2026) Poul-Henning Kamp's Feedback to the EU on Digital Sovereignty
(2026) A Post-American, Enshittification-Resistant Internet
(2025) This German State Decides to Save €15 Million Each Year By Kicking Out Microsoft for Open Source
(2025) Why People Keep Flocking to Linux in 2025 (and It's Not Just to Escape Windows)
(2025) Microsoft Can't Guarantee Data Sovereignty – OVHcloud Says 'We Told You So'
(2014) US Offering Cash For Pro-TAFTA/TTIP Propaganda
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Sunday December 07, @04:35PM (5 children)
A very, very important factor is how they got their GNU/Linux.
It'll be a real sea change once there is desktop GNU/Linux available once again (but on decent hardware this time) at big box stores. There is a world of difference between being able to buy a machine pre-installed, pre-configured with GNU/Linux and having to hunt down a distro, download it, and fight with UEFI to retro fit it aftermarket onto used hardware. Breaking the monopoly on the OEMs is the only way that can happen. With the recent news about Dell [soylentnews.org], perhaps that is finally improving.
This 11% market share is big news. If you add in some low double-digit percentage for MacOS, then the Vista series has a market share far too low to even think about collecting monopoly rents.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by srobert on Sunday December 07, @05:09PM
"Breaking the monopoly on the OEMs is the only way that can happen."
That's the half of it. I think of the PC stack from top to bottom: hardware -> firmware -> kernel -> OS utilities and drivers -> GUI display protocols -> Window management -> common end user software -> specialty user software -> user. Getting the OEMs to install Linux is the bottom up portion of the strategy. The top down part will be developing or porting more of the specialty apps to be Linux compatible. I'd really like to see the hydraulic modeling software and geographical information system software that I use in my work running on a Linux or BSD platform. Perhaps the EU and municipalities in European cities, out of distrust of America, will mandate those things into existence.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday December 08, @06:50AM (2 children)
There's also some people stuck to Windows apps that you just can't get on Linux, in my case pre-enshittified Visual Studio from around 20 years ago.
And before anyone mentions Eclipse, if I wanted enshittified software I'd just run a recent VS.
(Score: 1) by Bentonite on Monday December 08, @09:18AM
Visual Studio was always proprietary software, thus there was no stage where it was "enshittified".
It's only a feature that GNU/Linux won't run Visual Studio - after all you should be using any of the endless free IDEs available.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Monday December 08, @11:35PM
Yes and while you can often times run them in a VM, you can't always. Personally, I'm down to just a single program that only runs in WIndows without an adequate replacement, and at least that doesn't really require any sort of a net connection.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday December 09, @08:34PM
Except the UEFI garbage that pretty much destroyed a notebook trying to install Mint on it, I've found that installing Linux from a CD (Mandrake) to thumb drive (Mint) is easier, faster, far less hassle and no frustration than just setting up Windows from 95 to 11, and Windows gets worse with each iteration. Linux it's fifteen to thirty minutes at the keyboard and Linux does the work. Windows you sit an wait for ten minute periods while it's installing. It sucks badly!
It takes all damned afternoon to set up a MS box, an hour or so to completely install Linux (except the part the machine does all the work). Windows is far less "user-friendly" than Linux when you want it to do something different than Redmond wants.
I, too, look forward to buying a Linux laptop from a store.
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by AlwaysNever on Sunday December 07, @08:28PM (16 children)
...means nothing, if an app packaged for Ubuntu cannot be seamlessly installed in Fedora. Yeah, I know about those aberrations Flatplaks and Snaps - they will go nowhere with the layman consumer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 07, @10:10PM (9 children)
Exactly... I have no idea why this was modded flamebait.
The fact that there is no unified app base for Linux the way there is for macOS and Windows is a HUGE deal for third party BINARY app developers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Sunday December 07, @11:33PM (2 children)
There was a real attempt at fixing that: The Linux Standard Base (LSB) [linuxfoundation.org]. It didn't catch on because Debian and Red Hat refused to play nice with each other.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1) by Bentonite on Monday December 08, @09:43AM (1 child)
>Linux Standard Base
>Look inside; https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/LSB_5.0.0/LSB-Common/LSB-Common.pdf [linuxfoundation.org]
>GNU library, GNU library, GNU library, GNU library, GNU library, Mozilla library, Mozilla library, PAM, GNU library, GNU library, openssl, GNU library, GNU library and zlib.
>Bunch of OpenGL libraries, Qt, Xorg libraries, freetype, cario, GNOME, GtK, cups etc - you get the idea.
That clearly should have been called the "GNU Standard Base (GSB)", as well it doesn't even define what minimum version number of Linux is required (spoiler; as the version of Linux is mostly irrelevant - what's relevant is the GNU libraries and all the other libraries that depend on such).
Most distros seem to follow the GSB, or allows the user to install all the libraries as needed - as even Gentoo seems to have many of the libraries installed by default and packages freetype and cairo and Qt and GtK etc.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Thexalon on Monday December 08, @01:01PM
Right - the point of LSB was trying to create a binary compatibility option, which hasn't really happened. Instead, we get source compatibility where most stuff will run on most Linuxes after a "./configure && make && make install", and that means that distros can easily package a lot of it, which is still good and useful, but not really doing the job for people trying to put proprietary software on top of a Linux desktop.
Of course, there's arguments to be had in multiple directions about whether putting proprietary software on top of a Free Software platform is a good goal or not.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1) by Bentonite on Monday December 08, @09:27AM (5 children)
How proprietary software developers have trouble offering proprietary software that takes the users freedom for GNU/Linux is a feature, not a bug.
If Linux's unified singular SYSCALL interface was targeted only, such binary will in fact work with any variant of GNU/Linux (no matter how many parts of GNU have been swapped out for something worse) - but that interface is really limited.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 08, @09:21PM (3 children)
Linus considered it a bug: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzl1B7nB9Kc [youtube.com]
But I mean what does he know, he's just Linus. Whereas Bentonite is Bentonite.
(Score: 1) by Bentonite on Tuesday December 09, @01:03AM
Linus has stated many times that he does not care about the users freedom - he only cares about technical things, like how functionally good software can immediately be and how many users it has - thus he has permitted Linux to contain proprietary software, encouraged people to run proprietary software countless times and he has developed several other proprietary programs.
Of course such developer would consider that maybe if more proprietary software (that takes the users freedom) was available and developed for GNU/Linux, that might indirectly increase the popularity of his kernel and therefore regards anything preventing the popularity of such proprietary software as a bug.
He refuses to even consider that following a faster road, that goes to the wrong place is a bad idea (as clearly you end up in the wrong place and you stay there forever, or have to trek back to the right road, which ends up slower than just following the road to the right place even though such road is slower).
Btw, please don't recommend that people run proprietary software by linking to youtube.com - if for some reason a video is on youtube, in the past generally could could do; `yt-dlp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzl1B7nB9Kc` [youtube.com] - too bad yt-dlp now automatically executes all of the proprietary software sent unless you use an old version (or configure the new version and hope that a codepath is there doesn't get hit).
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Tuesday December 09, @01:48AM (1 child)
I think the zealotry is less than helpful. It's great to have OSS, but if the ability of people to make money on the system with proprietary software or the software can be used in proprietary software is unacceptable, then I have no idea how you ever get enough normies on board to ever reach the year of Linux.
A bunch of the concerns have proven over time to be overblown and things like ZFS are really hard to get working because of barely enforceable licensing terms.And I do mean that, if you don't have the money to hire attorneys, then the difference between GPL and something more permissive is theoretical.
(Score: 1) by Bentonite on Tuesday December 09, @08:49AM
>I think the zealotry is less than helpful.
Only zealots get the freedom done - thus zealotry is extremely helpful.
>It's great to have OSS
It is not great to have "OSS" - "open source" was announced in 1998 as an attack on free software; http://catb.org/~esr/open-source.html [catb.org]
>but if the ability of people to make money on the system with proprietary software
Proprietary software is totally unacceptable no matter what, as it gives the developer (and the developers employers) unjust power over the users; https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/ [gnu.org]
Anyone sane would regard proprietary food recipes as unacceptable no matter what (too many people used recipes to make them proprietary), but somehow you are insane if you regard proprietary software to be unacceptable no matter what (software was successfully made automatically proprietary without a free license, as not enough people used software at the time).
There are plenty of legitimate ways to make money on the system that respects the users freedom - via support, warranty, training, custom development, hosting and much, much more.
Only an extremely limited number of companies and individuals are able to profit from proprietary software, as existing masters do absolutely everything to prevent competition.
It seems there's as just as much money, or more money in custom software (which can trivially be free software if the customer has the purely financial wit to make the contract require that source code is provided and that the software may not be programmed to depend on proprietary dependencies).
>or the software can be used in proprietary software is unacceptable
Weak licenses are a sad case, as while the developer provides the software under a free license (or maybe not if the developer is a patent troll, as many weak licenses don't have a patent license), if you go by the primary usage of such software, it's often the case that it has been incorporated into proprietary software and therefore the software is not free for most of its users.
Clearly nobody shouldn't write proprietary software totally gratis - they should use a strong license instead, or if they are going to write proprietary software, at least they should ensure to get paid.
>I have no idea how you ever get enough normies on board to ever reach the year of Linux.
The year of GNU/Linux was 1995 - as finally you could use a computer in freedom again (alas that freedom was savagely ripped away with the addition of the first of many proprietary programs into Linux in 1996).
Popularity of the kernel, Linux has already been achieved - every computer that matters runs GNU/Linux and even more than half of normies use that kernel (used in Android as proprietary software, as the user almost always doesn't get the source code and can't change it).
I don't consider that even more normies soiling GNU with more proprietary software, never realizing that the OS was developed so the user could have freedom, would be a good thing.
>things like ZFS are really hard to get working because of barely enforceable licensing terms
GPLv2 and CDDLv1.1 are incompatible licenses, end of story.
"openZFS" has only survived as the Linux developers don't enforce their license.
The "openZFS" problem would be quite easily solved if the Linux developers enforced their license and demanded that it be re-licensed to a compatible license and then it could be mainlined, but for some reason they won't do that?
>if you don't have the money to hire attorneys, then the difference between GPL and something more permissive is theoretical.
You don't need an attorney to advise that a license will be permanently terminated unless it is complied with.
You'll likely easily find a no-win-no-fee attorney happy to accept such a easy copyright case - either the company has a license to distribute the software, or is committing copyright infringement for profit.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday December 09, @08:41PM
How proprietary software developers have trouble offering proprietary software that takes the users freedom for GNU/Linux is a feature, not a bug.
Indeed, although I'd call it a design defect. Libre Office, GIMP, Audacity, Handbrake, all have no problem writing programs that run under damned near any OS (although Windows versions of Handbrake and Audacity are pretty much crippled in Windows).
The same small group of people own all of the world's big businesses.
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(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday December 08, @05:54AM
> Yeah, I know about those aberrations Flatplaks and Snaps - they will go nowhere with the layman consumer.
How so? They certainly seem to be going just fine for, say, the people on SteamOS or Bazzite. A lot of the application software used by the "layman consumer" are all packaged in flatpaks, like web browsers, email clients, video editors, media players, etc.
It's the "specialist" software like CLI utilities that are awkward in flatpaks and guess what? The layman consumer cares not for them.
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(Score: 1, Troll) by Bentonite on Monday December 08, @09:22AM (4 children)
If the free software was correctly written, any free software program packaged for Ubuntu can be compiled and installed in Fedora too via the package manager just fine if packaged - if not, it's just the matter of compiling it from source.
Manually copying binaries around is a windowism that should not be emulated.
If you teach the layman how to install things via the package manager when they try to manually look for binaries, they realize how easy installing software with a package manager is.
(Score: 3, Touché) by mcgrew on Tuesday December 09, @08:45PM (3 children)
...if not, it's just the matter of compiling it from source.
You really believe that the average computer user would have the tinyest clue how to compile a program? Most of the dumbasses can't properly operate an automobile!
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(Score: 0, Troll) by Bentonite on Wednesday December 10, @06:12AM (2 children)
It's sad my post that was not a troll was marked as a troll.
If you cannot work out how to compile a program and are not willing to learn, you have no business using a computer.
For decently written programs, compiling them is as simple as; `./configure && make && sudo make install` or `mkdir build && cd build && cmake .. && make && sudo make install` - if you can't even do that, you shouldn't be using a computer.
Sometimes dependencies are not installed, but GNU autotools and cmake will tell you that and installing dependencies is only a little hard on Debian-based distros (you have to work out what stupid -dev name used for the library) and ironically quite easy on Gentoo (as ebuilds always install header files).
In the worst case, there is some badly written software with terrible dependencies that are not packaged, that has nontrivial compile and link errors, but that's an indication that you shouldn't use such terrible software, but for some reason you want to install it anyway, you should be able to use your computer using skills to work out how to get it to compile and link.
The government really should stop forcing the average person to use a computer.
The same is true of an automobile - if you cannot do something as simple as changing the oil and oil filter, you have no business operating an automobile.
The government really should also stop forcing the average person to need to rely on an automobile.
(Score: 3, Touché) by mcgrew on Wednesday December 10, @05:28PM (1 child)
I wouldn't worry about it. As long as most of your posts are unmodded or upmodded they will remain visible. But griping about bad moderation will garner another downmod.
If you cannot work out how to compile a program and are not willing to learn, you have no business using a computer.
In 1980, sure, but not today. Today your phone is a computer, your TV is a computer, etc. Just as in 1905 it could be reasonably said "If you don't know how an internal combustion engine works you have no business driving" but not in 1925.
EVERY office desk has a computer on it today. Most of us here at S/N can compile a program but few "normal" people can.
The government really should stop forcing the average person to use a computer.
"The government"? Really? WHOSE government? I know of no law in any country that forces anyone to use a computer! That statement is ludicrous. Governments have nothing to do with it (maybe in China or Russia) but the government didn't put that computer on Joe Sixpack's desk, his private non-government employer did.
The same is true of an automobile - if you cannot do something as simple as changing the oil and oil filter, you have no business operating an automobile.
I'm starting to see how you got that bad mod. Often ignorance and stubbornness is seen by some as trolling. My new car has no oil filter or oil pan, or starter, or spark plugs and needs almost no maintenance at all. It's a 21st century car. Back in the last century I changed my own oil, filters, plugs, distributor cap, points, and hated it but I had to. I was poor. You simply can't do the most trivial things with an ICE from this century. My 2002 Concorde took a trained mechanic forty five minutes to change the battery, which was under the right front fender and completely inaccessible!
I have to thank you, Grandpa. At 73 I thought I was out of it but apparently not.
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(Score: 1) by Bentonite on Thursday December 11, @04:10AM
>"The government"? Really? WHOSE government?
The governments in most countries, ironically seemingly not the China's government, as they seem to have the decency to avoid attacking the elderly (for example businesses are required to accept cash).
>I know of no law in any country that forces anyone to use a computer!
There is no singular law that ensures such, it's the combination of laws and regulations;
- There's laws that only permits certain types of jobs, most of which need a computer (and clearly employment is usually non-optional - and even if you qualify to claim unemployment, well that generally requires using a computer - even if you go to the unemployment office, there's a computer there you'll need to use).
- Governments, such as the UK government are going to pass laws (it's happening, the ~2.9 million votes against it were dismissed) that require persistently having an unmodified, latest iOS or Android device to work or to claim unemployment - but that certainly isn't a requirement to use a computer?
- Even without such laws being implemented yet, just try doing anything with the government without a new enough approved, unmodified Android or iOS device (many governments have also authorized the shutdown of UTMS and even GSM networks, leaving only LTE and 5G, despite the deaths caused and all the fully functional computers turned into e-waste).
- Governments might still give the option to call, but less often and and most phones are now computers (as landlines don't always exist) and governments also have regulations on "ID requirements", which businesses implement requiring with a computer - usually requiring Android or iOS.
- There's laws that requires submitting tax information and paying taxes with a computer, or regulations that require submitting information with a computer (these are usually targeted at private businesses, but the result is that such requirements are passed onto the employees, who get to handle the regulations).
- The US government requires that each citizen submit tax information yearly with a computer, even if they're not in the country (in the past it could only be done with proprietary software) and submitting on paper really isn't an option.
- Governments had during the past COVID-19 pandemic, required a computer to submit information, merely to go to a business or location.
- Some governments make it a requirement to submit census information with a computer to be submitted every few years and well I can't think of anything truly useful that can be done with such information, but can think of many nefarious things it makes possible.
There's also a bunch of more things, but that's enough.
But still, nobody is forced to use a computer?
>the government didn't put that computer on Joe Sixpack's desk, his private non-government employer did.
"The government has a whole lot of laws and regulations that pretty much require all employers to require that employees use computers, but it was entirely the businesses choice to do so".
>Often ignorance and stubbornness is seen by some as trolling.
I may be stubborn, but I am not ignorant.
It is extremely common for people to not realize things and think that pointing it such is ignorance.
>My new car has no oil filter or oil pan, or starter, or spark plugs and needs almost no maintenance at all.
Despite not requiring oil changes and how electric cars could be manufactured to be far more reliable than a ICE - all currently produced electric cars are specifically manufactured to be unreliable and unrepairable junk.
Those can be remotely bricked and maintenance generally requires interfacing with the computer - except that of course the computer is sabotaged so that only the company and approved repairers can perform maintenance.
>Back in the last century I changed my own oil, filters, plugs, distributor cap, points, and hated it but I had to. I was poor.
I don't need to change the oil and filters and plugs etc myself, but I do it anyway (most mechanics seem to do a terrible job - you need to do it yourself if you want it done right).
Yes, the unreliability of 20th century ICE sucked, but the reliability of decent 21st century ICE is fine.
>My 2002 Concorde took a trained mechanic forty five minutes to change the battery, which was under the right front fender and completely inaccessible!
Yes, many cars are complete garbage - but plenty of newer ICE have an accessible battery.
Trained mechanics often can't even work out that when the oil filter screw states "200N", you don't grab your longest ratchet and tighten it as hard as you can.
I reckon many electric cars might have similar problems with the 12V lead-acid battery they use (instead of an appropriately safe DC-DC convertor from the battery for the 12V rail (not having 12V after a collision isn't a problem if the car isn't a death trap and uses mechanical door locks), there's the dead weight of a lead-acid battery and lead-acid charging circuitry (a HV-LC DC-DC convertor is unavoidable)).
>I have to thank you, Grandpa. At 73 I thought I was out of it but apparently not.
I'm nowhere near grandpa in age, but I will go even further beyond.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by gawdonblue on Sunday December 07, @08:29PM (1 child)
> Indeed, one EU group has created EU OS. This is a proof-of-concept Linux desktop for a Fedora-based distro that uses the KDE Plasma desktop environment.
Fedora seems a questionable choice for a "Digital Sovereignty" desktop. As a subsidiary of IBM, Fedora can hardly be described as outside US control.
Perhaps having access to the source code makes it more acceptable, but surely there are better base distros available.
(Score: 3, Informative) by KritonK on Monday December 08, @08:59AM
As I pointed out when we discussed this before, OpenSUSE is a much better choice for a European, KDE-based distribution: it is produced by a European company, and its primary desktop is KDE, instead of Gnome. Also, it is similar enough to Red Hat distributions, that you'll be in familiar territory, if you switch to OpenSUSE from Red Hat, if that was a reason for choosing Fedora. Finally, Fedora needs frequent upgrading (twice a year or, if you skip every other release, once a year). OpenSUSE has Leap, which is a long term support distribution.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Zoot on Monday December 08, @04:13AM (1 child)
The year of Linux on the Desktop.
(Score: 3, Touché) by aafcac on Monday December 08, @11:37PM
Don't worry SystemD, Wayland and a dozen different incompatible package management systems are still a thing. We've still got time for developers with outsized egos to block it.
(Score: 2) by jman on Monday December 08, @06:21PM (3 children)
Open source variations available notwithstanding, Adobe should finally port PS/AI/ID etc. to *nix.
(Score: 1) by Bentonite on Tuesday December 09, @06:53AM (2 children)
It's only a good thing that adobe has not ported their malware to GNU/Linux; https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-adobe.en.html [gnu.org]
There are already several free software replacements to adobe's malware available, although those might be harder to use (often a lot easier when the software never refuses to stop working due to a subscription check), but those at least respect the users freedom.
(Score: 2) by jman on Tuesday December 09, @04:00PM (1 child)
Yes, switching to a subscription-only model sucked, but it is nice getting rolling improvements and bug fixes.
But it's not malware, and alas Gimp vs Photoshop, Illustrator vs Inkskape, and InDesign vs Scribus is no contest, and while thanks to WinDoze JS is available for automation of their tools, I still prefer AppleScript, verbose though it may be.
For extra credit, will never purchase more Fruity hardware so long as I can't swap mem/storage/etc. at will (the '09 MBP still boots, though like an old favored pet it sleeps a lot these days), so am building one more legacy Opencore Tahoe box, as that's the last one that will still run on x64. By the time their code no longer supports it, guess I'll be forced to bite the bullet and move on. But that's some years from now, who knows what'll happen in between.
(Score: 1) by Bentonite on Wednesday December 10, @06:36AM
>gathering usage telemetry is annoying
Collecting anything at all and sending it off to some remote server, that is not disabled by default and opt-in, is downright malicious, not merely annoying (infringing on privacy is an act that violates human rights after all and infringing on human rights is clearly a crime against humanity (albeit, a moderate privacy invasion is a minor one), but you're not allowed to realize that!).
>I don't use their servers - ah, uhm, cloud - to store anything
The license now states that you agree that anything that the software is use to produce can be sent off for "AI" training.
>switching to a subscription-only model sucked, but it is nice getting rolling improvements and bug fixes.
If the software automatically gets updated, then you are subjected to rolling changes that you may or may not consider to be an improvement and you may or may not consider to be bug fixes (but it's too bad, you either accept what the master has decided for you, or stop using the software and lose access to all produced files - there's even a fee for an early subscription cancellation, as the enemies of humanity always ensure to get as much money as possible, so as much evil can be done as possible).
>But it's not malware, and alas Gimp vs Photoshop, Illustrator vs Inkscape, and InDesign vs Scribus is no contest
If the software has any malicious features that no sane person would want (for example, a backdoor that was used to remotely remove Pantone colours, rendering any file that used Pantone colours to be black and white), then it is malware.
Despite how such software was developed by a community in their spare time (rather than a billion dollar company), it is in fact quite functional and how it allows to user to get whatever they want done and how it at least respects the users freedom, makes it clear that such proprietary malware is no contest to such free software.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday December 09, @08:25PM (2 children)
And it's garbage. Pure garbage, an OS without software.
I just bought a HP Chromebook. Solid hardware, but the damned thing is useless, and Fischer-Price ugly, more so than Windows. You're supposed to be able to run Linux programs on it but it won't; at least I haven't figured out how. Meanwhile Cinnamon hums along nicely.
Brand new computer and I'm going to give the worthless piece of shit away. I went to JDR across town and bought a used Dell notebook. As it has Windows 11, it, too is a piece of shit but at least it's useable, unlike the Chromebook.
Mad at your neighbors? Join ICE, $50,000 signing bonus and a LICENSE TO MURDER!
(Score: 1) by Bentonite on Wednesday December 10, @06:51AM (1 child)
ChromeOS is in fact Gentoo GNU/Linux, but with the freedom removed.
There is an option buried in the settings to enable "Linux mode", where you can gain access to a virtual terminal and GNU bash and compile and run programs written for the GNU OS.
There are slightly less proprietary GNU/Linux distro's available for some models of Chromebooks; https://docs.mrchromebox.tech/docs/getting-started.html [mrchromebox.tech]
Note the installation process is utterly cursed, as for non-early models, you need to open it up and remove the battery to be able to update to a bootloader that isn't handcuffed and then finally you can install a less proprietary GNU/Linux.
Also note that chromebooks often use utter garbage hardware from intel - things like the soundcard can fail to work, due to needing a specific proprietary program that does DSP (the proprietary DSP programs supplied by GNU/Linux distros won't do, as none of those work and how the software is handcuffed with a digital signature makes it certain you can't fix it).
windows 11 is frankly even less usable than a chromebook - but at least a computer that has windows 11, without having to jump through stupid hoops, usually can have restricted boot disabled and have a proprietary GNU/Linux distro installed via a flash drive.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday December 10, @04:50PM
There is an option buried in the settings to enable "Linux mode"
Key words "buried in the settings". Google said the same thing when I bought the piece of shit, but it wasn't where Google said it was and I couldn't find it. It's next to worthless without that. It can only access one of my three network drives (Mint has no problem) and its only real use is as a web browser.
Nearly useless. I wish I could install Mint on it. I tried, no luck.
Mad at your neighbors? Join ICE, $50,000 signing bonus and a LICENSE TO MURDER!