kyub

OP is somewhat correct, but still "short-sighted" with a misleading conclusion. All these valid downsides should be mentioned, but as always there are pros and cons to everything, and in Valve's case, the pros still outweigh the cons, and you always have to weigh pros and cons against each other.

Valve has done a lot in the last ~10 years to push desktop Linux for mainstream gaming viability and several other features as well (open source shader compiler, Direct3D-to-Vulkan translation stuff, HDR support in KDE Plasma, lots of improvements for the open source AMD GPU drivers, and much more stuff). You can't simply disregard that. Sure, there are lots of companies involved in improving Linux - but it's mostly for the server side or the enterprise desktop segment. Almost no big company invests meaningful amount of resources into improving the common Linux desktop significantly and challenging Windows' dominance for home entertainment/gaming, read: the casual home user. Valve did just that, of course also mostly for their own reasons, but their own reasons still do benefit general desktop Linux massively, and they are almost alone in doing so. And I probably don't have to mention that having a rich company investing lots of money into pushing stuff does really help development speed. The development pace of the Linux kernel for example is only so high because many big corps spend developers and resources on it to improve it for their own data center use cases. Almost no one (again, except Valve) pours any significant amount of resources/devs into the desktop Linux ecosystem and drivers so far.

Look at GOG - in theory a shining example of how to do several things better than Valve (no DRM, etc.), but they still do close to nothing for desktop Linux, probably because they lack the resources or see it as a wasted effort overall. Like many companies do -- the typical chicken-egg-problem. Linux won't be better supported by companies until its market share grows, but its market share won't grow until it is better supported by companies. The GOG Galaxy client probably still has no Linux version. That's just how things have been for a long time and I'm glad to have Valve really be serious about it and demonstrate it publicly that this can work and that this is an example for other companies to also look at it. Their exact reasons or methods don't even matter - we need companies pushing desktop Linux, or otherwise you can still sit in a corner and cry about Windows' dominance in 2050 still because nothing really changes on a fundamental level fast enough. Which is why I see it as important to be favorable to Valve for doing this when no one else is doing it. If you want things to change, then do support changes that meaningfully contribute to Windows losing exclusive market share in certain areas like gaming, and tons of people will migrate away from Windows over time because they will start seeing Linux as a viable, practical alternative, not just a theoretical thing. Sure, always be mindful of any disadvantages. But please don't act as if there weren't any major advantages as well.

Be glad for how things are developing currently. It could always be better, sure. But it could also be massively worse. And it has been massively worse for a long time. It's high time to change, and desktop Linux needs all the help it can get to become mainstream. It's on its way there, thankfully, but that way hasn't been so clear all the time. Desktop Linux share has always been sub-1% for many, many years. Only very recently it made significant strides forward.

Steven Wilson - Impossible Tightrope - vom neuen Album

(Alle Links gehen zu einer Piped Instance, ein privacy-freundliches YouTube Frontend/Proxy, womit euer Browser keine direkte Verbindung zur Datenkrake Google herstellt)

I don't think so. Android has been marketshare leader for a long time. Maybe iOS is massively popular in USA, but outside of USA it isn't. Also, as long as marketshare has a sort of "critical mass" it's fine. Look at OSX for example, it has around 20% marketshare and that number is still high enough that it can't be ignored. So I think both are here to stay whether they have 20% or 80%.

There are many great ones. Off the top of my head, each with a sample:

• Baldur's Gate 3 (recent addition)
• Return of the Obra Dinn
• Portal 2
• Deep Rock Galactic
• Doom Eternal
• Deus Ex - Human Revolution
• Ori and the Will of Wisps (haven't played it enough yet but music stood out)

(All links point to a Piped Instance, which is a privacy-friendly YouTube frontend/proxy. If you want to visit YouTube directly and tell Google what you're watching, just change the domain name)

Not really relevant. The majority of teens isn't able to make an informed decision about which is better anyway, and in fact none of the 2 is recommended anyway unless you count in AOSP-based distributions (based off of the open source Android without Google apps), then Android wins of course. But when you compare iOS vs. proprietary Android, it's like comparing 2 different forms of diseases.

So yeah while statistics are interesting it's important not to interpret too much into some. Like, "majority of teens dislikes Jazz music". Well, it doesn't really matter whether they dislike it or not. Popularity doesn't represent quality necessarily. Sometimes, but certainly not always.

In Germany the mobile landscape is more "diverse", I'd say closer to 40%/60% iOS/Android from my own observations. And since we "care" "more" about privacy in schools or public institutions (we still care plenty little but I guess Germany is on average at least known for being a country that does more for data protection than others, so maybe that counts as something?), it's also probably less iOS infested, although I do know that some schools and public institutions do use iOS devices. But I don't think everyone does.

1. False promises early on

We desktop Linux users are partly to blame for this. In ~1998 there was massive hype and media attention towards Linux being this viable alternative to Windows on the desktop. A lot of magazines and websites claimed that. Well, in 1998 I can safely say that Linux could be seen as an alternative, but not a mainstream compatible one. 25 years later, it's much easier to argue that it is, because it truly is easy to use nowadays, but back then, it certainly wasn't yet. The sad thing is, that we Linux users kind of caused a lot of people to think negatively about desktop Linux, just because we tried pushing them towards it too early on. A common problem in tech I think, where tech which isn't quite ready yet is being hyped as ready. Which leads to the second point:

2. FUD / lack of information / lack of access to good, up to date information

People see low adoption rates, hear about "problems" or think it's a "toy for nerds", or still have an outdated view on desktop Linux. These things stick, and probably also cause people to think "oh yeah I've heard about that, it's probably nothing for me"

3. Preinstallations / OEM partnerships

MS has a huge advantage here, and a lot of the like really casual ordinary users out there will just use whatever comes preinstalled on their devices, which is in almost 100% of all cases Windows.

4. Schools / education

They still sometimes or even often(?) teach MS product usage, to "better prepare the students for their later work life where they almost certainly use 'industry standard' software like MS Office". This gets them used to the combo MS Windows+Office at an early age. A massive problem, and a huge failure of the education system to not be neutral in that regard.

5. Hardware and software devs ALWAYS ensure that their stuff is compatible with Windows due to its market share, but don't often ensure this for Linux, and whether 3rd party drivers are 100% feature complete or even working at all, is not sure

So you still need to be a bit careful about what you use (hardware & software) on Linux, while for Windows it's pretty much "turn your brain off, pick anything, it'll work". Just a problem of adoption rate though, as Linux grew, its compatibility grew as well, so this problem decreased by a lot already, but of course until everything will also automatically work on Linux, and until most devs will port their stuff to Linux as well as Windows and OS X, it will still need even more market share for desktop Linux. Since this is a known chicken-egg-effect (Linux has low adoption because software isn't available, but for software to become available, Linux marketshare needs to grow), we need to do it anyway, just to get out of that "dilemma". Just like Valve did when they said one day "ok f*ck this, we might have problems for our main business model when Microsoft becomes a direct competitor to Steam, so we must push towards neutral technologies, which is Linux". And then they did, and it worked out well for them, and the Linux community as a whole benefited from this due to having more choice now on which platforms their stuff can run. Even if we're talking about a proprietary application here, it's still a big milestone when you can run so many more applications/games suddenly on Linux, than before, and it drives adoption rates higher as well. So there you have a company who just did it, despite market share dictating that they shouldn't have done that. More companies need to follow, because that will also automatically increase desktop Linux marketshare, and this is all inter-connected. More marketshare, more devs, more compatibility, more apps available, and so on. Just start doing it, goddamnit. Staying on Windows means supporting the status quo and not helping to make any positive progress.

6. Either the general public needs to become more familiar with CLI usage (I'd prefer that), or Linux desktop applications need to become more feature-complete so that almost everything a regular user needs can be done via GUI as well

This is still not the case yet, but it's gotten better. Generally speaking: If you're afraid of the CLI, Linux is not something for you probably. But you shouldn't be afraid of it. You also aren't afraid of chat prompts. Most commands are easy to understand.

7. The amount of choice the user is confronted with (multiple distros, desktop environments, and so on) can lead to option paralysis

So people think they either have to research each option (extra effort required), or are likely to "choose wrong", and then don't choose at all. This is just an education issue though. People need to realize that this choice isn't bad, but actually good, and a consequence of an open environment where multiple projects "compete" for the same spot. Often, there are only a few viable options anyway. So it's not like you have to check out a lot. But we have to make sure that potential new users know which options are a great starting point for them, and not have them get lost in researching some niche distros/projects which they shouldn't start out with generally.

8. "Convenience is a drug"

Which means a lot of people, even smart ones, will not care about any negatives as long as the stuff they're using works without any perceived user-relevant issues. Which means: they'll continue to use Windows even after it comes bundled with spyware, because they value the stuff "working" more than things like user control/agency, privacy, security and other more abstract things. This is problematic, because they position themselves in an absolute dependency where they can't get out of anymore and where all sorts of data about their work, private life, behavior, and so on is being leaked to external 3rd parties. This also presents a high barrier of convincing them to start becoming more technically independent: why should they make an effort to switch away from something that works in their eyes? This is a huge problem. It's the same with Twitter/X or Reddit, not enough people switch away from those, even though it's easy to do nowadays. Even after so much negative press lately most still stick around. It's so hard to get the general population moving to something better once they've kind of stuck with one thing already. But thankfully, at least on Windows, the process of "enshittification" (forced spyware, bloatware, adware, cloud integrations, MS accounts) continues at a fast pace, which means many users won't need to be convinced to use Linux, but rather they will at some point be annoyed by Windows/Microsoft itself. Linux becoming easier to use and Windows becoming more annoying and user-hostile at the same time will thankfully accelerate the "organic" Linux growth process, but it'll still take a couple of years.

9. "Peer pressure" / feeling of being left alone

As a desktop Linux user, chances are high that you're an "outsider" among your peers who probably use Windows. Not everyone can feel comfortable in such a role over a longer period of time. Just a matter of market share, again, but still can pose a psychological issue maybe in some cases. Or it can lead to peer pressure, like when some Windows game or something isn't working fully for the Linux guy, that there will be peer pressure to move to Windows just to get that one working. As one example.

10. Following the hype of new software releases and thinking that you always need the most features or that you need the "industry standard" when you don't really need it.

A lot of users probably prefer something like MS Office with its massive feature set and "industry standard" label over the libre/free office suites. Because something that has less features could be interpreted as being worse. But here it's important to educate such users that it really only matters whether all features they NEED are present. And if so, it wouldn't matter for them which they use. MS Office for example has a multi-year lead in development (it was already dominating the office suite market world-wide when Linux was still being born so to say) so of course it has more features accumulated over this long time, but most users actually don't need them. Sure, everyone uses a different subset of features, but it's at least likely that the libre office suites contain everything most users need. So it's just about getting used to them. Which is also hard, to make a switch, to change your workflows, etc., so it would be better if MS Office could work on Linux so that people could at least be able to continue to use that even though it's not recommended to do so (proprietary, spyware, MS cloud integrations). But since I'm all for having more options, it would at least be better in general for it to be available as well. But until that happens, we need to tell potential new users that they probably can also live with the alternatives just fine.

True.

Well, ever since Win8 or Win10 I stopped having much sympathy with Windows users. They deserve things like that, when they still remain on that ship. Since these things are being introduced in small portions (salami tactics), the users will slowly become familiar with these things and just accept them because they can't change anything anyway, thus slowly incorporating a defeatist's attitude towards all the bloat, ads and spying. AKA, learned helplessness. In a couple of years, Windows will be absolutely horrible, but people will be used to it. I'll just say this: Windows used to NOT have this kind of crap integrated.

Yes. Even though not using all this crap may sometimes feel like you're missing out on certain stuff, it is still the right thing to do. I don't support abusive behavior, bloatware and spyware, so companies doing that will not receive any money from me if I can help it.

We're basically just one step ahead of the general population, who basically (still) eats up anything that's being served by big tech corporations, without any second thoughts or hesitations. The general population IMHO is currently at the stage that nerds were like 25 years ago, in that they tend to be naively enthusiastic about every new piece of tech. But nowadays, tech can be abusive towards their users, and so it's important to choose the right tech. The general population hasn't made that realization yet (or they don't care, which also must change).

The media is also partly to blame for this, for example almost every new review of any Samsung or Apple phone is usually very positive, usually just reporting about the advancements in hardware and UI, without even mentioning any of the downsides these have on the software side. And so when reviews don't even mention downsides anymore, there's a lack of information available.

And it's not even that regular users don't like the alternatives. For example I convinced a friend to move from a regular spyware-infested Samsung Galaxy phone (which he was using all the time, and he even wanted to buy a new one) to a Pixel with GrapheneOS. He's not missing anything, even though his transition wasn't super smooth, overall he's happier now, and he mentioned that he likes the OS being so clean and unencumbered. He doesn't particularly care about the privacy and security improvements which he now also enjoys, which is a bit sad, but at least he's happy with the lean and unmodified Android (open source) experience.

So, as usual, information/knowledge is power. People need to know that alternatives exist and that some alternatives are actually really, really good. And they need to know what the problems are with the "default stuff everyone uses", so that they can make better informed decisions in the future. They also need to become less dependent on big tech companies. The alternatives have little to no PR and thus little public visibility in comparison, except via word of mouth, so we need to make the most out of that.

What she (and other climate activists) have done and do is spread awareness about this issue. As you can imagine, it's important to keep important topics (arguably even the most important topic humanity faces, yes even more important than soccer (lol)) present in media and in people's heads for them to not be forgotten soon after again. People need to be constantly reminded that our current way of life currently destroys our planet, especially considering that not much happened to steer against this problem within the last couple of years after the Paris agreement. And we don't even know many of the tipping points that could accelerate disaster even further. When some ecosystems stop existing and food chains become disrupted, for example.

In a way, she's like a PR person for the most important topic in science currently. And she (and other climate actrivists) is successful at it, considering it's so often in the news and so many of the polluters hate her and try to discredit her and others.

Always remember though: it's about the problem, not specific people. Of course we like talking about people, and the media does it as well, but as the saying goes, "small minds discuss people, great minds discuss ideas". It's about the problem at hand, irrelevant of Greta or other activists. She's just trying to bring the point across to a mass audience, that's all. We (as in: the whole humanity, no exceptions) need to take action against the problem, not talk about Greta. This "ad hominem" strategy is sometimes deliberately used as a distraction away from the issue at hand. When articles talk about Greta or try to discredit her or whatever, then the debate is shifted away from the actual problem at hand. Even articles about her in a positive light are, in the end, irrelevant. It's not about her, or other climate activists. She even says that herself. If the activists didn't exist, we'd still face the exact same problem.

Also die Farbgebung ist wohl angelehnt an Pringles, da ist gelb = Paprika und rot = "Original". Da Pringles extrem bekannt ist, kann das Sinn machen, sich an die bekanntere Farbgebung zu halten. Aber was der Unterschied zwischen Original und Paprika ist, weiß ich nicht. Für mich sind Paprika-Chips immer die Default-Chips.