Microsoft has Copilot Plus PCs loaded with AI, and rumors are that Apple is all in on AI, too, but if you don't want AI in everything you do, there is another option: Linux.
And it won’t ever be true until you can pick up a PC running Linux in a big box store. I could see the Steam Deck (and Valve’s rumoured upcoming console) to make a dent in the PC gaming space, but it won’t make a difference to the purchasing decisions of your your aunt who uses her pc to check her emails.
Should corporate buyers ever get tired of MS’ shenanigans they might switch over to Ubuntu, but I’m not holding my breath for that.
At work, we have a strict ban on purchasing any laboratory equipment that requires Windows. After about a year, several of our suppliers have been pressured to offer Linux support, precisely because we don’t have time for windows shenanigans on a $100k piece of advanced benchtop hardware. We just got our first oscilloscope with Red Hat preinstalled.
Also, regular people aren’t buying PCs as much as they used to. The PC is now a workplace and enthusiast device. Everyone else uses mobile.
I find it unbelievable that anyone ever accepted lab equipment with a Windows requirement. I mean, I know it is true, but what the fuck? Glad your work is doing this.
I was not around at that time. Some of the systems I support are very long lived. At the time, having windows running on some of your equipment wasn’t seen as a liability. I guess you have to get bitten a few times before you understand that you need control of that system including the software.
Shit, the iPad pro is pretty damn close to a laptop these days with the keyboard and track pad (just lacking the OS). I had a conversation the other day where someone mentioned how OSX and Windows are locking down their OS’s to the point where it wouldn’t be farfetched to guess that many consumer devices will eventually use essentially a mobile device OS.
I had a conversation with a friend about iPads lately related to the „just lacking the OS“.
The newer iPads with M-chips have all the computing power an average user could need but it’s crippled by the mobile-ish OS, so all the computing power is for nothing basically.
An iPad running MacOS (with some adjustments for the Touchscreen) would be awesome.
But we concluded it won’t happen anytime soon, because then basically no one would buy MacBooks anymore
I’d argue the year of the Linux desktop passed years ago and now it’s just a saturation game. Most serious SW development is now on Linux laptops/desktops, Android owns the mobile space and versions are starting to make huge inroads in the laptop space. You can buy gaming systems running it trivially now.
Conversely, casual users of windows are dying off, fewer non technical people are using desktops for anything at all. Only institutional users are buying Windows keys and they’re some of the easiest to get on Linux because of the cost savings, particularly if you run Linux server infrastructure, a fight we already won over a decade ago.
Thanks to the Steamdeck Linux users on Steam now outnumber Mac users. Still a tiny percentage of total Steam users but if developers increase support we will hopefully see that number take off.
All the larger PC manufacturers do offer Ubuntu at least. There was a time when Best Buy was selling them from Dell and Lenovo, but I’m sure the staff couldn’t sufficiently explain the “why”, and it was also at a time when more technology illiterate folks were the purchasers. That’s not the case anymore, but I guess we will see how/if it shifts at all.
For me the hang up is still hardware compatibility and fuss factor. I still haven’t seen a windows app that will check all hardware and software and give a pain scale rating on what switching would involve. I have an Asus wifi 6 card, a stream deck, a Logitech trackball with Logitech customization software, a Logitech Webcam, a dygma keyboard running bazecor software. I’m sure there are some hidden headaches awaiting the transition. Once I finally get all that worked out, I will probably want to upgrade my surface and my ThinkPad as well and imagine even more headaches with these.
I imagine that most distros probably have a liveboot image, though I haven’t gone looking.
USB drives are maybe slower than your internal SSD drive, but for rescue work or just seeing whether your hardware works, should be fine.
I would expect everything that you listed there to work. The only thing I haven’t heard of on there is that dygma keyboard, and looking at their website, if this is the keyboard in question:
Yes, our configurator software is compatible with macOS, Linux and even Windows.
I mean, I dunno if Logitech puts out trackball software for Linux, but if what you want is macro software or configurable acceleration curves or something, there’s open-source stuff not tied to that particular piece of hardware. And the Steam Deck is running Linux itself.
There’s gonna be a familiarization cost associated with changing an OS. Like, your workflow is gonna change, and there are gonna be things that you know how to do now that you aren’t gonna know how to do in a new environment. But I think that that’s likely going to be the larger impact, rather than “can I use hardware?”
EDIT: Oh, it sounds like the reason that they call it “live install” rather than “liveboot” is because you can use the same image to both just use Linux directly, and can run the installer off the image too.
And it won’t ever be true until you can pick up a PC running Linux in a big box store. I could see the Steam Deck (and Valve’s rumoured upcoming console) to make a dent in the PC gaming space, but it won’t make a difference to the purchasing decisions of your your aunt who uses her pc to check her emails.
Should corporate buyers ever get tired of MS’ shenanigans they might switch over to Ubuntu, but I’m not holding my breath for that.
At work, we have a strict ban on purchasing any laboratory equipment that requires Windows. After about a year, several of our suppliers have been pressured to offer Linux support, precisely because we don’t have time for windows shenanigans on a $100k piece of advanced benchtop hardware. We just got our first oscilloscope with Red Hat preinstalled.
Also, regular people aren’t buying PCs as much as they used to. The PC is now a workplace and enthusiast device. Everyone else uses mobile.
We ship a $50k instrument product running Windows, and everyone hates it.
As the only EE on staff, I got to spend a portion of covid soldering TPM chips to motherboards. Fun times.
Wow, that sounds painful. Not so much because it’s technically difficult, but ridiculous that you have to do that.
Yeah, they were tssop, so not hard. It was only necessary because the parts shortage crunch had the vendor shipping them without the chips installed.
I find it unbelievable that anyone ever accepted lab equipment with a Windows requirement. I mean, I know it is true, but what the fuck? Glad your work is doing this.
I was not around at that time. Some of the systems I support are very long lived. At the time, having windows running on some of your equipment wasn’t seen as a liability. I guess you have to get bitten a few times before you understand that you need control of that system including the software.
Shit, the iPad pro is pretty damn close to a laptop these days with the keyboard and track pad (just lacking the OS). I had a conversation the other day where someone mentioned how OSX and Windows are locking down their OS’s to the point where it wouldn’t be farfetched to guess that many consumer devices will eventually use essentially a mobile device OS.
I had a conversation with a friend about iPads lately related to the „just lacking the OS“. The newer iPads with M-chips have all the computing power an average user could need but it’s crippled by the mobile-ish OS, so all the computing power is for nothing basically. An iPad running MacOS (with some adjustments for the Touchscreen) would be awesome. But we concluded it won’t happen anytime soon, because then basically no one would buy MacBooks anymore
The only regular people I can think of are gamers and my mom but I would like the idea of PC’s returning to techie and specialized use cases
I’d argue the year of the Linux desktop passed years ago and now it’s just a saturation game. Most serious SW development is now on Linux laptops/desktops, Android owns the mobile space and versions are starting to make huge inroads in the laptop space. You can buy gaming systems running it trivially now.
Conversely, casual users of windows are dying off, fewer non technical people are using desktops for anything at all. Only institutional users are buying Windows keys and they’re some of the easiest to get on Linux because of the cost savings, particularly if you run Linux server infrastructure, a fight we already won over a decade ago.
I’d love a source for this. To my knowledge, most people that build to Linux hosts still use OSX.
a good indication is Microsoft making WSL at all
Source: I’m a super pro serious developer and I use Linux. QED if you don’t also use Linux, you’re not serious.
Thanks to the Steamdeck Linux users on Steam now outnumber Mac users. Still a tiny percentage of total Steam users but if developers increase support we will hopefully see that number take off.
Also helps that Valve isn’t porting source to Apple silicon.
All the larger PC manufacturers do offer Ubuntu at least. There was a time when Best Buy was selling them from Dell and Lenovo, but I’m sure the staff couldn’t sufficiently explain the “why”, and it was also at a time when more technology illiterate folks were the purchasers. That’s not the case anymore, but I guess we will see how/if it shifts at all.
I loathe to be the BestBuy employee who sells a Linux box to a customer who only cares about the price difference.
Lenovo ships some models with Mint FWIW.
Framework laptops also ship without Windows if you wish. Certainly nice to save the money for not purchasing an OS license I won’t use.
Most aunts I know primarily use an iPad or phone to manage email.
For me the hang up is still hardware compatibility and fuss factor. I still haven’t seen a windows app that will check all hardware and software and give a pain scale rating on what switching would involve. I have an Asus wifi 6 card, a stream deck, a Logitech trackball with Logitech customization software, a Logitech Webcam, a dygma keyboard running bazecor software. I’m sure there are some hidden headaches awaiting the transition. Once I finally get all that worked out, I will probably want to upgrade my surface and my ThinkPad as well and imagine even more headaches with these.
You can just use a liveboot Linux image on a USB key drive and find out whether there are any issues.
Here’s Debian’s liveboot images (which they apparently call “live install”):
https://www.debian.org/CD/live/
I imagine that most distros probably have a liveboot image, though I haven’t gone looking.
USB drives are maybe slower than your internal SSD drive, but for rescue work or just seeing whether your hardware works, should be fine.
I would expect everything that you listed there to work. The only thing I haven’t heard of on there is that dygma keyboard, and looking at their website, if this is the keyboard in question:
https://dygma.com/pages/dygma-raise-2#section-faq
I mean, I dunno if Logitech puts out trackball software for Linux, but if what you want is macro software or configurable acceleration curves or something, there’s open-source stuff not tied to that particular piece of hardware. And the Steam Deck is running Linux itself.
There’s gonna be a familiarization cost associated with changing an OS. Like, your workflow is gonna change, and there are gonna be things that you know how to do now that you aren’t gonna know how to do in a new environment. But I think that that’s likely going to be the larger impact, rather than “can I use hardware?”
EDIT: Oh, it sounds like the reason that they call it “live install” rather than “liveboot” is because you can use the same image to both just use Linux directly, and can run the installer off the image too.