Quotes article from the Epoch Times, the Falun Gong paper. This may not the most credible source.
What would "China" dropping Microsoft windows mean? Surely not all Chinese companies stopping use, since that would be extremely disruptive. More likely a few ministries starting a program to try Linux.
Not that a scenario where possession of an install disk would be a crime doesn't appeal to me. The weight of the entire Chinese state might help the Linux desktop crack 10% usage but suspect I'll have to dream on.
Isn’t the linux desktop mostly a driver problem? If it is the case I would assume that given the number of chinese manufacturers, China could force them to release suitable drivers. The linux desktop would reach a critical mass that would make it hard for non chinese manufacturers to neglect it.
It would require more UI that there currently is. Even for simple things I often find myself stuck in front of a terminal, looking at the documentation to figure out how the damn thing works before I can even look for the right syntax.
As a 20-year Linux user, I must say that many points are valid, but yes, there appear to be at least as many FUD items on that list.
My pain points, when trying to build a HTPC:
- Proper video support (like GPU offloading or vblank syncing) is haphazard at best.
- Font management is a pain. Not just the antialiasing, but adding a custom font and making sure all apps can find it.
- Audio support is a mess; pulseaudio creates as much problems as it solves (for example last I checked, it did not support IEC958 passthrough over spdif).
- Bluetooth connectivity appears to be a desktop-environment thing, so good luck logging in with your BT keyboard.
- Zeroconf service configuration is archaic (for example, advertising a Samba print share so that local machines can find it, or advertising a DLNA media source). It requires hand-editing xml configuration files.
Still, for all its flaws, it still beats other commercial offerings in terms of productivity.
> It's picking up every issue on Linux and paints it as a disaster.
Every time I tried to use Linux on desktop, I stopped due to a dozen of issues from that list.
> There's no concept of drivers in Linux
In Windows ecosystem, you buy hardware, plug it in, install drivers, and it works. On modern Windows, often they downloaded automatically by Windows, and start without reboots.
I think the OP meant that Linux can't offer comparable UX. The drivers are compiled into the kernel.
On the source level, this is due to the lack of the ABI.
There is plenty of great Desktop Environments nowadays that can easily compete with the UX you are used to from Windows (KDE Plasma, Gnome 3, Deepin,...).
Most things just work out of the box even without installing drivers. Yes there is still some problems (e.g. Laptop WiFi / old or exotic hardware) but I stumbled upon them in Windows and OSX as well.
Every OS has issues but I prefer Linux for everything besides graphics and working on PDF because most of the times I find a solution I can implement myself without much hassle.
OSX on the other side is very closed in comparison but I don't bother because Photoshop and Acrobat run just fine and I don't need much more.
Windows is just spyware, a security threat to people with free minds. I totally welcome China to switch to Linux and probably this will bring our world to a path towards more free software (very ironically because the US always tries to appear as the "Sheriff of the free world").
The average user is not the average HN user; the latter can solve the minor issues they stumble upon, but not the former.
Would you buy a car where "most things work", if you had no mechanical skills?
I'm a hardcore Linux user, but even with that, I don't advocate it unless I know exactly the platform a given user is going to work on.
There are surely issues on any system, but in Windows/Mac there is the expectation of everything working out of the box, since there is more of a "package" ("box") culture.
In this sense, projects like the Dell XPS are certainly big steps forward (and even the XPS has at least one significant issue out of the box).
You are basically right but for me this is a bit different.
My family and friends like to come to me with their IT problems and it's easier for me to solve them if they use Linux.
The big problems with Mac/Windows can in many cases also not be solved by me, easily (e.g. Driver for XYZ doesn't work - on Windows this means searching another EXE that could work but if it doesn't you can exchange the device in question because my Latin is exhausted at that point).
Sure there is problems with every system - it just depends on what you do and how you use computers what problems are the most concerning ones I think.
> Every time I tried to use Linux on desktop, I stopped due to a dozen of issues from that list.
At this point in time, given how technical a site HN is, and how many people have success with linux, it looks very much like the problem might be you. I don't mean this to be nasty, but installing and customising linux now is a pretty trivial exercise.
> On modern Windows, often they downloaded automatically by Windows, and start without reboots.
On modern linux, they are usually already present on the system and it just works. You don't need the download stage for the vast majority of things. Nvidia Graphics cards are an obvious exception, but for the most part, this complaint is spurious.
This includes me. I successfully develop commercial-quality stuff for Linux servers, also embedded for ARM devices (using Debian kernel so far). But the desktop is different.
> usually already present on the system
The hardware is just too diverse. I have following USB devices plugged into my desktop right now. USB 3.0 DisplayLink monitor: proprietary protocol, still experimental support on Linux, chip vendor only supports Ubuntu, monitor vendor doesn’t support any. Logitech C920 web camera: microphone, auto focus, on-board h264 codec. Logitech G700s: a mouse with 7 extra buttons and horizontal scrolling. Microsoft LifeChat LX6000: 2 way USB audio, OS volume controls, a couple extra buttons. Also wireless adapter for xbox gamepad: 6 analog axes, many buttons, two vibration motors, two way audio.
More likely a few ministries starting a program to try Linux.
Worth noting that this is far from the first time China has done this. First there was the original Kylin OS, based on FreeBSD, then they created their own Linux distro called Red Flag OS, and now they have the new Kylin project which is Ubuntu based. Interesting to see how it plays out this time around.
What would "China" dropping Microsoft windows mean? Surely not all Chinese companies stopping use, since that would be extremely disruptive. More likely a few ministries starting a program to try Linux.
Not that a scenario where possession of an install disk would be a crime doesn't appeal to me. The weight of the entire Chinese state might help the Linux desktop crack 10% usage but suspect I'll have to dream on.