linux taking over win is an old and outdated dream.
A dream that sadly for PCs failed - face it - it is reality.
FYI, in the vfx world, side effects, autodesk, foundry, studios etc all pretty much agree to this: http://www.vfxplatform.com/
These kind of statistics are pretty ridiculous, and honestly bring me back to the “oh so 20th century” mac vs. pc debate.
Back then The Spice Girls were pretty popular, too. That should say something right there.
My wife and I don’t use Android because we prefer it to iOS. Really, quite the opposite. We use it because it’s cheap and it’s good enough.
I didn’t switch from Mac because I prefer Windows, I switched my Windows because I could get a refurbished Dell for a fraction of the cost, and I don’t really have any opinion about what OS I use to start Blender or Houdini.
And I didn’t switch to Linux because I have some self-righteous political superiority complex, I switched to Linux because I felt it would help me professionally to learn it. The improved Quadro performance and memory management in Houdini was a bonus, but came at the expense of all the headaches that come with Linux (and you can’t say there aren’t any; would you really suggest CentOS for Grandma?).
People choose platforms not because they’re better. They choose them because they’re convenient to their needs.
Android isn’t very good. Actually, it really kind of sucks. A lot. And for varoius reasons, many of which stem from it’s advantages. But it’s good enough, and doesn’t cost anything to deploy, so you can get a semi-intellegent phone for $20 at wal-mart, no contract needed.
Just don’t use your credit card on it.
I do agree that Windows will remain the leading OS for a long time to come yet (especially among the crowd whose PC use is basically email and internet), but look at what people are reading online at various tech sites and online forums.
There’s a growing number of power users who are becoming increasingly critical of Windows (and some of them are looking at a move to Linux). As I mentioned on the last page, even Windows Central is posting articles critical of Microsoft’s development of 10 (and out of the major tech sites is about as pro-Windows as they come).
How is it not ?
You seem somewhat confused, there is no ‘Linux operating system’, there are LOTS of operating systems using Linux.
RHEL, Ubuntu, SUSE, Debian, Arch, Gentoo, etc, these are different operating systems who happen to share several components and one in particular, the Linux kernel.
So why would it somehow not be an ‘acceptable’ solution that if you want to run a piece of software on a unsupported operating system, you will have to work out how to run it there yourself ?
When a vendor say they support Windows, OSX, RHEL, Ubuntu, why would you expect that it would run smoothly on other operating systems than those listed, or at all ?
Or to put it in terms you might find easier to grasp, if a vendor says they support Windows 7 and upwards, do you expect it to run on Windows Vista/XP and call it unacceptable if not ?
YOU as a user pick one and stick with it, only difference here is that you have options.
Now if the vast majority find a specific solution to be the best, it will become a ‘de facto’ standard, which is really the only way to standardize on a open platform.
The real difference between something like FreeBSD and the Linux ecosystem in general is that FreeBSD is developed extremely slowly, but if that’s what you want from a Linux distro then you pick such a distro, enterprise distros for example.
For ‘the masses’, I see no threat to Windows desktop from any of the existing players, even at it’s heyday when Apple was riding the greatest wave of hype and massive marketing, OSX was only able to put a small dent (6-8% IIRC) in the Windows desktop dominance, not even the inclusion of ads right in the Windows operating system is seemingly driving typical end users away.
On the creative pro side things might be different, but I think any uptake there would initially have to be driven by large companies switching to Linux (like with 3d), and for things like Photoshop etc there is no real technical advantage to run it atop Linux as opposed to Windows/OSX.
The pro userbase for Linux remains largely admin/developer, the 2017 Stackoverflow developer survey still has Windows desktop at the top with 41%, but Linux now is second with 32.9%, for 2016 it was Windows at 52.1% and Linux at 21.7%, and I expect Linux will continue growing rapidly against Windows here in the coming years.
That said, as a 24/7 Linux user, I don’t need it to compete with Windows on the desktop, I have the software I need, the hardware support I need, and the desktop environment I need, just as back when Linux desktop user share was 10 times smaller than it is today.
I’m not confused, you’re explaining this to me as if I didn’t know about this subject, even though I probably have a deeper (and more technical) understanding of the situation than you.
RHEL, Ubuntu, SUSE, Debian, Arch, Gentoo, etc, these are different operating systems who happen to share several components and one in particular, the Linux kernel.
That’s technically true, but that’s not the general perception and that’s not how the discussion is led. People don’t specifically ask for “RHEL” or “Debian” support, they ask for “Linux” support. If we really measure Linux usage by distribution, you’ll end up at a small fraction of a percentage for each, which makes the market for Linux applications even less attractive. If instead we could combine Desktop Linux as one thing that could be targeted (like Android), that situation changes.
Secondly, this doesn’t excuse constantly breaking stuff from one version to the next of the same operating system.
So why would it somehow not be an ‘acceptable’ solution that if you want to run a piece of software on a unsupported operating system, you will have to work out how to run it there yourself ?
This may be hard for a Linux user to understand, but… I don’t like wasting people’s time. There’s no telling if you can get the piece of software to run. If you can’t you have wasted your time.
I have personally wasted a lot of time trying to get some piece of software to run on the particular distribution I happened to have installed at the time. I can’t just switch “operating systems” until I find the one thing that happens to run most of what I want. That’s asinine.
When a vendor say they support Windows, OSX, RHEL, Ubuntu, why would you expect that it would run smoothly on other operating systems than those listed, or at all ?
I don’t expect it, but if those distributions cared about being mutually compatible, that could be expected. Linus himself says the distributions are doing a “terrible job”.
YOU as a user pick one and stick with it, only difference here is that you have options.
Not really. Users don’t choose how package/container format are supported by the OS. Distributions do. Then, the developers choose which of those packages/container formats to target.
You as the plain old user only come in last. You don’t have options if nobody cares about your preferred format.
Again, a developer is not going to waste their time on something that nobody uses. New users are not going to switch to a platform where the applications are missing. You have to make it easy for both, or else you will remain irrelevant forever.
Now if the vast majority find a specific solution to be the best, it will become a ‘de facto’ standard, which is really the only way to standardize on a open platform.
I don’t think so. Somebody “at the top” can just decide the standard, users can then adopt it. It doesn’t really work the other way around.
For instance, the users did not make systemd the standard by using it, the distributions did (most of them) by making the decision to ship it.
The same thing could happen with a container format, except the same people that can’t agree on a common package format probably will never agree on properly supporting a container format.
The real difference between something like FreeBSD and the Linux ecosystem in general is that FreeBSD is developed extremely slowly, but if that’s what you want from a Linux distro then you pick such a distro, enterprise distros for example.
I don’t think FreeBSD is developed that slowly (given its means). The difference is in how they aren’t breaking things all the time without a very good reason. Sure, you can use an LTS version of certain Linux distros, but then all your packages will be ancient. Your average Linux Desktop person doesn’t use one of these, either.
Again, you make it sound like you have a choice of an OS, but the software vendors also have a choice to ignore you.
I can only go by what you write here, as I don’t know you personally.
Eh, on the ‘home desktop user’ side, Ubuntu is by far the largest, if we look at pro/enterprise distros, RHEL/CentOS is the biggest followed by Ubuntu, so if you want to target the lion’s share of the Linux market, it’s not very hard.
Again, this is no different from other operating systems that are not supported, or versions of operating systems.
Either you use any of the supported systems, or there is no guarantee that it will work.
Often however you can get it to work, and on popular distros there’s a very good chance another user has made it work and shares the solution with you, as a simple package which you just install like any other, but again it’s not supported by the vendor.
If only Windows and OSX cared about being mutually compatible…
Linux distributions are a lot more compatible than them, but they are still different operating systems, just like the different BSD’s binaries which are sometimes compatible, but often not.
That said, we are seeing de facto standardisation of components increase across the majority of Linux distros, systemd is an obvious example, and if the new distro agnostic package formats (flatpack, snappy) deliver, supporting applications across distros could be a problem of the past.
First off, you pick your OS/distro, so you do pick your package format to some extent.
Secondly and most importantly, the whole point of these new package/container formats (flatpack, snappy) is that they are distro agnostic, did you miss that crucial tidbit ?
This is no different on any other platform, you can only choose between what is available, what kind of point are you trying to make here ?
Who at ‘the top’ would that be ?
There is no ‘top’, no single entity owns the Linux ecosystem, or even Linux for that matter.
What ‘upstream’ can do, and does, is to release solutions which they think are great, and the rest of the ecosystem will vote with their feet.
The distribution maintainers are users of upstream software like systemd.
They were not forced to choose systemd, just as they were not forced to choose Canonical’s competing solution called Upstart (of which few did), likewise the distro downstream users can reject it by moving to a different distro which supports alternatives if the current distro does not.
For distro default package format, I agree that is almost as unlikely as Windows and OSX agreeing on the same format.
However, for the container formats we are discussing (flatpack, snappy), they function outside of the distro specific packaging, the distros do not have to forego their own packaging format in order to support flatpack and/or snappy, and many already do, like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Gentoo, openSUSE, etc.
Please explain to me how Linux distros are ‘breaking things all the time without a very good reason’ ?
At home I run a actual bleeding edge distro (Arch) and not even here things break unless you count a single network driver stability problem in ~7 years of use, anecdotal for sure but at least it’s a data point from an actual user.
Of course they stick to stable packages, that’s the whole point of a stable distro, you want to run tried and tested packages so that you won’t be hit by potential stability issues when running in production.
Do you seriously think companies using FreeBSD in production just upgrade to the latest version when it comes out ???
…from which it should be obvious that I understand the situation. I’m also basically saying the same thing as Linus Torvalds, who you might agree should understand the situation, as well.
Eh, on the ‘home desktop user’ side, Ubuntu is by far the largest, if we look at pro/enterprise distros, RHEL/CentOS is the biggest followed by Ubuntu, so if you want to target the lion’s share of the Linux market, it’s not very hard.
Maybe so, though it highly depends on which statistic/market you look at. The “lion’s share” of the “home desktop user” is still a fraction of a percent of that market (home desktop). Once you specifically look at computer enthusiasts (which are arguably more important anyway), you may be led to believe that “Linux Mint” is really important, by looking at Distrowatch.
If only Windows and OSX cared about being mutually compatible…
This is getting dense…
Linux distributions are a lot more compatible than them, but they are still different operating systems, just like the different BSD’s binaries which are sometimes compatible, but often not.
They’re not different operating systems like Windows and OSX or even BSD are different and you know that. You (should) know that the differences between distributions are often very minor. Yet, a minor difference is the difference between “it doesn’t work” and “it does work” without user intervention.
The Linux distributions don’t care about compatibility even though it’s a very low-hanging fruit that could make the lives of many users and especially developers massively easier.
Not all distributions understand themselves as “different operating systems”, mind you. They’re all very related. The different BSDs are not “distributions” of BSD, they are quite literally different operating systems. The difference is, they do value not changing things around all the time. It doesn’t end at binary compatibility, but also maintaining a file structure, sticking with a package manager, maintaining consistent configuration, etc.
First off, you pick your OS/distro, so you do pick your package format to some extent.
As far as I’m concerned as a user, all package managers and formats are more or less equal. I just want them to work.
As a user, I also don’t care about which container format to use, I just want to click on applications to launch them and I want them to show up in the menus without having to do manual work (beyond dragging and dropping). You know, just like on Windows or (preferably) Mac OS. It should “just work”, out of the box.
As a developer, I don’t want to target three different container formats or build dozens of packages. I want one container format that integrates well on all major distributions. Once again, I do not care which it is.
Even if I bought into the idea that all the distributions are really different operating systems, they still don’t each have their official container format that works well out-of-the-box and where binary compatibility is maintained across releases.
Secondly and most importantly, the whole point of these new package/container formats (flatpack, snappy) is that they are distro agnostic, did you miss that crucial tidbit ?
They are not integrated into the system, that’s the job of the distribution. If I click on an AppImage on Debian with GNOME, it mounts a disk (from which I probably can run the application if I then click the contained binary). Who knows what happens on any Xubuntu or Mint or the dozens of other distributions that ship a different desktop environment. The “official” way to run an AppImage is to open a terminal (and run chmod +x). That says it all, doesn’t it? You could never ship this to a non-technical end-user, but even for technical users this kind of UX sucks.
I don’t know about flatpack or snappy containers because I have never been offered one.
Who at ‘the top’ would that be ?
There is no ‘top’, no single entity owns the Linux ecosystem, or even Linux for that matter.
What ‘upstream’ can do, and does, is to release solutions which they think are great, and the rest of the ecosystem will vote with their feet.
For Linux distributions, those are the decision makers at the respective distributions. There isn’t somebody for all distributions, that’s not what I mean though. Distributions can (and do) decide what to support, regardless of what users want.
For the Linux kernel, there’s Linus Torvalds and his delegates. The users don’t decide what gets to be in the kernel (unless they start patching it themselves).
The distribution maintainers are users of upstream software like systemd.
They were not forced to choose systemd, just as they were not forced to choose Canonical’s competing solution called Upstart (of which few did), likewise the distro downstream users can reject it by moving to a different distro which supports alternatives if the current distro does not.
I’m quite obviously talking about the end-user, the little people that have no say whatsoever on what goes into their distribution of choice. All they can do is decide not to use something. Even those decisions are not that free, because (like you admit), if you want “broad” software vendor support, you have to use RHEL or Ubuntu or whatever.
Please explain to me how Linux distros are ‘breaking things all the time without a very good reason’ ?
At home I run a actual bleeding edge distro (Arch) and not even here things break unless you count a single network driver stability problem in ~7 years of use, anecdotal for sure but at least it’s a data point from an actual user.
I’m not going to explain this to you, because “very good reason” is subjective and you (an Arch user of all things) will probably give me some asinine “very good” reason for anything I say. Then I’ll have to roll my eyes so hard I need to see a doctor.
Of course they stick to stable packages, that’s the whole point of a stable distro, you want to run tried and tested packages so that you won’t be hit by potential stability issues when running in production.
Sure and then I can’t install some application because some dependency is too old and I have to fuck around with the system… great stuff!
You know, for a server that does one thing, that’s fine. For a Desktop user that needs to do more than one thing on a system, it’s not.
Having looked into this, I’m not sure what to make of these numbers. These are clearly non-exclusive (sums up to >100%), but also these must be target platforms, not the platform the people actually use for work, because Android (28%), AWS (28%), Rasberry Pi (16%) and even WordPress (16%) have double-digit percentages going for them.
These are likely just checkboxes that people ticked off in this (very long) survey, because they happen to use that stuff in some way. If you’re a web developer (which a vast majority of the surveyed are) you will almost certainly need a Linux installation, even if it’s not what you actually work on and make purchases for.
It’s also weird that only “Desktop Linux” shows up, but not “Server Linux”, even though “Mainframe” and “Serverless” do.
The question asked in 2016 has different results but also different options for answers. What has actually changed in one year to make for such a drastic change? Interpreting this as an uptick for Linux adoption would be unwise.
For a real example of broken things, here is Blender on my system right now. I don’t even know how long it has been this way. I’ve been too busy to open Blender in months. If I build from source it works, though.
I don’t even bother reporting things like this anymore. It’s always someone else’s fault anyway.
Additionally, someone changed my Blender icon blue. I don’t particularly care, but defacing branding like that screams amateur as far as graphic design goes.
I’d like to see Linux get some standardization and better quality control.
When it comes to the potential update mess that you get with Linux (ie. things breaking at random and other bugs), the Linux Mint team is actually working to resolve that by sorting updates via a dedicated manager.
http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=3235
Essentially, available updates are sorted from levels 1 through 5 depending on their likely-hood of breaking things. People who want to make sure their experience is smooth may mostly want updates ranked at levels 1 and 2 (as level 4 contains sensitive OS changes and level 5, while expected to be rare, contains experimental and potentially dangerous updates).
The nice thing I see about Mint (when checking from time to time though I still use Windows), is that it seems to be developed by one of the few dev. teams that care about making Linux easy enough for use by people who aren’t developers or computer geeks.
@xrg
Screen corruption is most often by graphics drivers. Here two examples in Mac:
Https://developer.blender.org/T45027
Https://developer.blender.org/T43404
If you use nvidia, you try proprietary drivers. Or update your drivers.
Old hardware may also have trouble with latest versions of Blender.
Thank you for heads-up. Can you imagine how much I’m using Windows if in the last six years I didn’t noticed that they changed the butterfly for the fish? Are the new fish’s Windows flying? I mean, like are flying the butterfly’s?
Now, in a more serious note, I’m using daily at my work a Windows machine, at least the front-end is running some sort of Windows interface who bassically only loads the controller of the machine and a CAD software but my bellowed CNC machine in its core is running on plain LINUX, just using a Windows PC as interface. Nobody trusts Windows and with his gazillion of viruses and spywares.
On the sad note, seems that today Ubuntu founder just announced that Cannonical will abandon the mobile market. First I thought that today is first April, but after consulting my calendar seems that we are already on the fifth April?
That’s the main point. With Linux you have always options and freedom to choose. For this reason I love Linux and Open-Source in general.
Like a personal story, more that ten years ago I worked for a company who have a CNC machine running a proprietary CAD/CAM design package. The company behind that software needed to close the doors, so basically we remained without any kind of support or updates. What’s worst, all the work for years was deprecated because that CAD/CAM package used a proprietary file format who wasn’t compatible with anything else. We was still able to use the old files, but basically in time they began to be obsolete just because they can’t be reused by any other software. With the proprietary software, the developing companies are the true owner of your work, the end-user is just an insignificant powerless number in this equation. If they decide to pull the cable from the outlet you remain without power.
Another true story is that of Macromedia-Adobe. Hopefully we can remember that story and learn the lessons. The proprietary software is just much more expensive than seems to be at first sight.
Blender works fine if I build from source. It’s probably the package maintainer not building it correctly.
I posted it in context of what BeerBaron is saying, though. The fragmentation creates a house of cards and nobody takes responsibility for knocking things down. It is always the users responsibility to restack them. If Linux wants the desktop market it needs to resolve problems like that. Even if Photoshop were available on Linux I don’t think it would increase market share much. The average consumer has no interest in troubleshooting their computer all the time.
@xrg, Are you still using Arch Linux?
https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/5us2jh/use_default_application_icons_instead_of_icon/
If you are looking for Stability, you never use a rolling-release distro, that is not serious. You use LTS distros/versions. Rolling release is only for testers and impatient people who want to try the newest features no matter if they have not been tested in depth. I do not know your level of knowledge about GNU/Linux, but Arch is not for users with little experience or common users.
As Ace Dragon suggested, Linux Mint is a good alternative.
Another problem I see, you have an ATI card. You could have problems like those on Mac. How old is your card? Does it support the latest proprietary driver?. Long time I have not used ATI, I do not even know the name of the new drivers.
It is always advisable to use the official Blender release (tar.bz2 file). Download tar.bz2 file from Blender official site, extract to the folder and execute the “blender” file. I think that’s something similar to how to proceed in Windows when you download Blender.
@artisanicview, hehe. They did not replace anything for anything else. it is just one wallpaper they launched with Windows 7 beta.
On linux mint I get on bmw benchmark 1m38s on a OCd 4.3GHz Intel i7-5820k.
On windows 10 I get 1m56s.
That about 15% faster.
That’s impressive. For a render farm a linux system is preferable right now.
CPU rendering + GPU rendering combined in linux would be faster than the same set up in Win10.
@bigbad its most likely because your windows system is performing more background tasks, it is by default optimized to run multiple apps
find the thread in taskmanager of your blender render, and set it to realtime.
If that was the case then everyone would have defaulted to that when rendering.
i assume a fish represents a window user in an aquarium…
“Say bye, bye to windows. Stay in the still comfort of your “home” & enjoy the imaginary world created from my mind, my words…”
Suddenly… voice appears to have a tonne?
“Respect my authoritah!”
