Do…do people really think Microsoft is stupid enough to kill off non-cloud based Windows? There are a lot of Windows users who, for either performance reasons, lack of reliable internet, etc. who would never get good use out of a cloud version. Microsoft is more than aware of this and there is no way in hell they’d shoot themselves in the foot like this.
Honestly … they’ve pulled a lot of dumb shit that makes me think it’s within the realm of possibility.
I’ve set up multiple Windows 11 machines for work with no internet connection, and zero need to use a command line. There’s a create local account prompt on the account set-up page you can just click, and set up an offline account.
Why do people keep lying about this? It’s the fourth time today I’ve seen someone parrot that lie about Windows 11.
People aren’t lying about it. When windows 11 first dropped this literally what you had to do. They may have back pedaled since then, but there are bunch of threads all over reddit about getting around using a microsoft account on windows 11.
Then people missed the local account button. I’ve installed Win 11 on 5 machines or so with no internet, and never once had to use a command prompt, or any funny business.
Maybe it only affects non enterprise editions? I assure you, I looked everywhere for an “offline account” option, it did not exist.
IIRC it doesn’t matter what version you have, but you need to select “English (World)” when installing, instead of “English (United States)”. After doing that you can see a button to create a local user, instead of a MS account user.
No shit, really? That’s a pretty shitty thing for Microsoft to do.
Maybe non enterprise. I only pirate the enterprise version and setting cloud account is actually a chore.
maybe it’s an European version
I’m in Canada.
Then dunno. Tbf I never had to be connected to the internet or to connect a remote account, but maybe things have changed since last time I installed W11
This is what the Microsoft system requirements page for Windows 11 says
Windows 11 Pro for personal use and Windows 11 Home require internet connectivity and a Microsoft account during initial device set-up.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/windows-11-specifications
I guess you were building machines with a Windows Enterprise license. This would explain why you had the option to setup an offline account.
Steps to setup a local account on Windows 11 Home https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/install-windows-11-without-microsoft-account
It is probably Home vs. Professional. Home has no AD either.
The comps at work are all on Windows Home so far as I know, we’re a small lab and just get cheap home computers. Local accounts were no issue. Not sure what you mean by AD.
Active Directory, for joining an account in a network.
Not sure what you mean by AD.
Active Directory?
Ah, I never use an active directory.
They already tried to just kill win32. Not only did it fail miserably but it’s the reason Valve started looking into Linux to begin with.
They’re too locked in themselves to kill off non-cloud.
Yeah microsoft is unlikely to pull the rug out from under windows users in one go, their strategy is much more likely to be pushing people in the direction they want to move computing slowly and incrementally over a number of years. They appear to want everyone who plays games, does office work, runs a business, or writes code to have a microsoft account, which they can then monetize in various ways using cloud services because that will be the main way they will deliver what people need.
I feel like we are in the middle period of this strategy.
I’m sure this will play out like the office 365 subscription service. Everyone I know uses it as work. Microsoft doesn’t sell to IT people. They sell to middle management and finance departments. Ba ha ha ha.
This. They might release a cloud version and work towards a future where that is the default, but realising that due future is several decades away.
Cloud only would be unworkable for say, 50% of Australians - I imagine that would be similar in most countries.
I also don’t think there’s any chance Apple would move to the cloud. They’re a hardware company…
Not to mention, they’re not going to just leave you to pick your own OS in order to get to the cloud version. They’ll still provide at minimum a thin client Windows OS.
I do actually. Not any time soon tho
Yeah…MS understands they still have a huge market in developing countries and moving everything to cloud would be suicide.
That’s not because suddenly, everyone will realize that the Linux desktop is wonderful. Sorry, folks, if it hasn’t happened by now, it never will.
I agree that there will never be a “Year of the Linux desktop” just simply because that’s not how consumer switching works. There will never be one single year where a huge swath of people suddenly switch (short of some dystopian Windows virus or something). It will always be a trickle of more and more people slowly over time switching. Valve and Proton have certainly helped boost numbers in more recent years but it’s still a trickle. Even if it picks up more momentum, it’s still not going to be a tidal wave of users.
Why does it need to be? Plenty of products, systems, habits, customs, etc. have come from obscurity to mainstream over a VERY long period of time. It doesn’t have to be a race.
IDK, if there will ever be one, I think this year or next year is it. Steam Deck seems to have really hit the mainstream, and Linux is overtaking macOS in some stats. GNOME Wayland also works well and has finally solved my variable refresh rate issues (one monitor @60Hz, one with FreeSync at higher refresh). That’s pretty amazing, and worth recognition!
I don’t think Linux will ever become #1 on desktop, nor do I think that’s the intention behind “the year of the Linux desktop.” Linux as a desktop platform is as or more viable than macOS for a majority of users, and it’s competitive with Windows for many if not most.
The only thing left for me is to see major software vendors natively support Linux. That means:
- AAA games support Linux directly - kinda happening with Steam Deck
- Adobe products - probably won’t happen, but I can dream
- Microsoft office - I guess cloud counts, but I’d like to see desktop client support like exists on macOS
- another game store - EGS, GOG, Origin, Xbox Game Pass, should make a native Linux client
And so on. Once major software starts releasing on Linux, I think we’ve won.
GOG not having a native Linux client baffles me, like, there’s this whole bunch of people who clearly care about software freedom and your store focusing on selling DRM-free games will just ignore them? Oh well. At least we have Heroic.
Exactly, and last I checked, it was the most highly upvoted feature on their user voice.
If they made a native Linux client that worked well on Steam Deck, they’d get a ton of customers. In fact, I’d switch from Steam to GOG for most of my purchases.
Probably because GOG/CDPR don’t actually give a fuck about Linux. They made that perfectly clear with the whole “Witcher 3 coming to Linux” fiasco. Maybe I am just bitter, but I feel like even the DRM-free aspect of their business model isn’t through any values they hold. It is just a business decision to corner a niche market.
Hopefully by the time MS and Adobe port their cash cows to Linux, no one thinks they need their closed stuff any more. Moving to an open platform but still running closed software loses some of advantages of an open system.
I guess in an abstract sense sure, but not from a practical one. I really enjoy using Steam on Linux, and that absolutely isn’t open source, nor are any of the games I’ve launched with it. I’ve been on Linux for ~15 years now and used various proprietary software on it, and I really like the flexibility of having options.
If Linux is going to truly go mainstream, it needs to have those options. If I really want to run Adobe products (I don’t), that should work, ideally through something like FlatHub so I can keep it separate from the rest of my system.
I don’t play games, so it’s a non-issue to me. Steam probably has been good for Linux adoption, and games being closed is a different issue than tools. Problem with closed stuff is required frozen dependencies. One of the great things about an all open system is can be all compiled to use the same versions of dependencies. You have one copy of each in use. This saves disk and memory as well being more secure, because that one version can be the latest patched one. As well as you can fix/read/add-to anything you like.
I bet each Steam game has a complete copy of it’s dependencies. It is the easiest thing to do. Though, compared with all the art assets, that’s probably a drop in the ocean. Plus it is ok for a game to consume the whole machine. The problem with a closed box like that is, it can’t have everything. It has to interface with stuff and those interfaces will change and one day the game will no longer work. As it is closed, the game can’t be updated to new interfaces and compatability layers may bring out bugs in the game itself. Then game can be lost. Which is lost culture.
Closed tools is different. The problem is power inbalance. That comes out as vendor lockin and high prices. Plus, you get the same closed issues with duplicate, out of date, dependencies. It isn’t acceptable for tools to use up lots of the machine as you use multiple of the them. It’s part of the reason Windows is so bloated.
As long as can keep a clean open system myself, I don’t care what others are doing. Them giving me their non-standard closed tool files pisses me off, but I either find a way to import it or refuse it until they send me a proper format.
Disk space and memory are relatively cheap, so I don’t see having duplicate libraries as particularly problematic, especially when most applications are dominated by assets (e.g. icons and other images).
My larger concern is security. There are two major ways of thinking here. One is the shared library model where everything uses the same handful of libraries, so if a vulnerability is found, that handful of libraries can be updated and everything is secure again. However, if a vulnerability is discovered, every application that links to it is potentially vulnerable, so it’s kind of like putting all your eggs in one basket.
The alternative solution is containerization. Basically, put all of an application’s dependencies in a container and restrict what access the application has to the outside world. This way, if the application has a vulnerability, the attacker has to also break out of the container, and there’s not as high of a chance that the rest of the applications have a similar vulnerability if they’re using different versions of the library.
I personally believe containerization is on net more secure than having all applications use the same version of a dependency, provided the interface between the container and the rest of the system can be limited.
game can be lost
This is also fixed with containerization. I can still play old Windows games through WINE because WINE essentially packages those dependencies. For Steam games, Steam ships a directory of libraries for Steam games to use, because many Steam games don’t ship every dependency.
Steam could take this a step further and run Steam games within a container to limit access to the rest of the system. You could also run Steam within a container and limit its access yourself.
tools to use up lots of the machine
But how much is “lots”?
My system uses well under 10GB for libraries, and many of those are only used by one or two applications. I could duplicate the entire system 3-4 times before I start to notice the disk usage. If I converted everything to FlatPak, I’m guessing I’d still be well under 50GB, which is my personal limit for considering the disk usage to be a problem. Many packages use a similar base, so many would share the same base image layer.
If your priority is security, you’d probably be better if e containerizing everything and managing access of each app to the rest of the system than trying to secure a handful of shared libraries. If your priority is preservation, again, containerizing is better because you can freeze dependencies as needed. If your priority is space, then you won’t want containerization. But given how cheap storage, that doesn’t seem like it should be the target.
This debate is older that Docker/Flatpack/Snaps/etc.
It’s basically the same as static linking everything vs dynamic linking. Or even, App folders of RISCOS of my youth.
Disk and RAM disk usage does add up, reference: Windows and WinSxS directory. Also, having all those old interfaces hanging around doesn’t scale. RISCOS taught me the value of centralized libs as compared to every app having it’s own (which was RISCOS’s norm).
WINE does an amazing job, trying to match Windows “bug for bug” so stuff runs, but it’s a thankless task that doesn’t scale either. Unfortunately WINE gets the blame when stuff doesn’t run, not the concept of closed software, or the vendor of that software, or Microsoft for the platform design. I’m glad WINE exists (and it’s code is well written) but it’s fighting a war from a weak position.
I want up to date libs, and some containerization on things exposed. Containers doesn’t have to mean duplicate old libs. We can have the best of both. If it’s open.
If it’s closed, it all gets bloated and stale and crusty.
If taken to either extreme it can become problematic. On one hand you try to dynamically link everything and you can end up with huge issues when you try to upgrade one of those common dependencies. On the other hand if you statically link everything (or have separate copies of dynamically linked libraries) you have a lot more disk and memory usage.
So the sensible thing is to take the middle road. Dynamically link all of your system packages, like your desktop environment, core utilities, etc, and containerize the rest of your apps. That way all of your riskier applications (closed source, or stuff with a big stack surface like a browser) can have a layer of security between it and the rest of the OS and also have a separate set of libraries that the vendor ships with. You’ll pay a small penalty for duplicate libraries, but you should only have a handful of them.
I think every containerized application should have duplicate libs. You want this exposed applications to have whatever the vendor has vetted, and you want to make sure it’s only interacting with other containerized libs.
Another day, another circlejerk post \o/
Looks like someone just discovered Linux after his Windows install fucked up and had to write about it…
HAHAHA same, been using Ubuntu for 3 months, I’m so ticked off, someone never told me Linux excisted!!
looks like somebody didn’t read the article
If you count Android and Chrome OS as Linux, which I do, the Linux desktop accounts for 44.98 percent of the end user market.
I don’t. Simply because Android or ChromeOS apps are not compatible with GNU/Linux, thus they can’t be treated as one platform that developers can’t target directly all of it at once. Same the other way around - Linux apps can run on Android, but it requires containers and some way to display stuff (like a xserver or Wayland compositor running on top of Android).
Even if Android and ChromeOS count as Linux, it’s a stretch to say they’re Linux desktop distributions. ChromeOS is closer to it than Android.
Honestly a big part of why I run Linux is because I could not give a removed about the OS. I don’t want or need the OS to dictate how I launch applications (the Win11 Start Menu sucks), or how I access the file system (try using explorer.exe alternatives).
And I definitely don’t want to have to call a support line just to activate their product after replacing a faulty motherboard just so I can change my desktop background again.
The OS should be as transparent as possible, and Linux gives me that freedom. X or Wayland, dmenu, rofi, lf, ranger, Thunar. I can interact with my PC however the removed I want. I tried Win 11 for 2 weeks and was just outraged that they felt the need to cripple the start menu and revamp the explorer right click behavior.
This is actually a really great point. If I have to treat them as different platforms as a developer, since for example my code isn’t platform agnostic/cross-platform for whatever reason, why should these market share studies do it any different? In the end it’s the software or rather the developers/companies deciding if it’s worth their time and money investment these market shares matter for.
Sorry but Android != Desktop. It’s literally in the name. No one is running Android as their desktop OS, except for the 7 Dex users on the planet.
Not only it’s not Desktop, the Linux kernel is buried under such an alien user space that it’s has nothing to do with a Linux Desktop.
The article is dumb. It states:
If you count Android and Chrome OS as Linux, which I do, the Linux desktop accounts for 44.98 percent of the end user market.
Linux != Linux desktop, and that’s the point of the article, but in their premise they’re equating them.
I used Dex for a while as a software developer, it works surprisingly well for most office tasks and at the company I was working at at the time we did most of our work in cloud VMs anyway
With everything moving to the cloud it’s going to become more and more attractive to just have a tablet (with a keyboard case) instead of a laptop/pc and just dock it when you need peripherals I think
That said that’s good for those of us wanting to use Linux as our desktops because we’ll be on basically the same playing field as all the windows users if they go entirely cloud based. No longer any need to use onlyoffice/libreoffice (I like them but my manager seems to think they aren’t fully compatible with office files that we get from clients )
Hey I dex from time to time. However, the shortcut keys, or lack of, are the big issue for me.
well I don’t count android as linux, so no.
If I had to replace my linux desktop with an android “desktop” I’d probably abandon general purpose computing completely. Windows is still infinitely better than android on a desktop.
Some people use their desktop to get shit done, not just to doomscroll passively
What a dystopian future for Windows.
Sounds good to me, I would just deploy linux clients and the end-users can do their “365 cloud stuff” online on it.
What a Linux sysadmin dream, I love it.
I’m using Linux on my main PC, to work, maybe I’m not supposed to do it but anyway 😁 and I’m using Teams of course, and it’s shitty. The old electron app or whatever is not supported anymore, the new PWA does not work well with chromium and I needed to install Edge in Linux just to use Teams. I was a un*x sysadmin and I’m glad I’m not supporting windows/Linux in a company 😋
Really? Might be a chromium thing, I’m running the Outlook and Teams PWA’s with google-chrome without issue. I only use google-chrome for my work account though, everything else is with Vivaldi or LibreWolf.
The problem I had was screen sharing not working with chromium
Yes, with the google-chrome PWA I’ve had no issues sharing one of my multi-monitor desktops, or just specific apps.
Teams has a flatpak. Is it shitty, too? And btw. You misunderstand me here, Windows 365 would be a Cloud OS running in whatever (maybe browser), so there will be a use of Teams in the Cloud OS not on the local host.
I know similar use cases. We use for example docker based containers for browsers or libreoffice, they are accessible through domainnames and nobody who surf to this domain has to install these apps.
Edit: we have already Linux clients and It’s so nice to maintain them. I use some ansible playbooks + cockpit and everything runs automatically.
Whats old is new again. Anyone else hear “cloud pc” and think “oh, mainframes” from the 80s? Mind i never used one, but thats where my mind went.
Mainframes peaked by the 70s. 80s bored the fruit of the standalone PC revolution.
Yep. Much easier to extract value from customers with it centralized to all mighty mainframes/cloud. Renting is more experience in the short term. They want to remove the buying option all together if they can.
Lots of things people think they bought, are really life time renting for a one time payment. But they can still cut your access, by accident or purpose, so you don’t own it.
My very first thought. At the same time, it brought to mind stories of Richard Stallman’s “blank password” protest shenanigans…
I’ve got one main problem with this: it assumes Microsoft will just abandon the regular desktop. I don’t think that’s happening. Now, it’s possible the reason they had the crazy system requirements for Win11 was to prepare people for Win365, but I don’t think they will give up the regular desktop so easily. I’ve seen similar articles from the register, and the evidence is there, no doubt, but are you sure M$ will release a Win365 Boot, as a Linux app? Are we? And if it does, what packaging will they choose, huh? Native packages, so only the popular distros could run it, Flatpaks, which mostly allow only open source apps, or Snaps, which are backed by a long-term business partner in the face of Canonical. Yup, I think if we get Win365 Boot or whatever this 1984 bullshit is called, it will be packaged as a snap. It might be packaged under multiple formats, and it might even be open source (although I wouldn’t count on it), but this is the likely future, if it even gets a Linux package. What if it doesn’t? What if everyone moves to the cloud but can only use Win11 on the desktop to access it?
Win365 like GeForce now (or stadia). You could run it from an android TV, but will you run it in the end? It’s a dangerous path
“bro, just trust me,
2020202120222023 will be the year of the Linux desktop!”Keep going back much, much further. I remember hearing that phrase back in the early 2000s, and wouldn’t doubt it if if was referenced as early as 1999.
We’ve been hearing this since 1999.
how many people live in an area where the internet is not good enough for Daas.
If you believe the service area maps provided by most US ISPs, not that many.
oh like those are honest. 🙄
I was hoping the /s would be implied
As much as I’d love to see Linux become a big player in the market, this article is completely wrong on why Microsoft is selling Windows in the cloud and the ultimate result of it.
My bet is that Windows in the cloud is being developed and will be targeted to enterprise clients that already use similar solutions for having secure environments for their employees, such as Citrix or VmWare solutions, or RDP desktops.
They don’t want to kill the desktop with the cloud, they want to steal market from older enterprise big players and increase their cloud dependency among businesses.
I agree, but I also believe that Windows desktop will become increasingly closed and limiting for those who don’t use the Enterprise versions or the new pro edition.
Windows 365 is a contingent against the growth of mobel and MacOS. You are right, it is there for business. It competes with other RDS solutions, but I think the focus is to allow business to keep old tools around while everyone is demanding iPads and MacBooks, without having to go to a third party.
Windows 12 won’t be a thing client with a subscription to a cloud PC. The economics and technology aren’t there. But a good RDS solution tied strongly to M365 is valuable for Mac users and contractors that might not be issued a company computer.
This is becoming more common in the enterprise. And it makes so much more sense in that environment (and where M$ makes most of their money - business side, not consumer).
The consumer market would be trickier to implement with this model. Large portions of the US are still stuck with trash tier isp service.
I wonder which OS the devices are going to run that access the cloud
Hard to say. In the enterprise it’s still a windows base that’s heavily locked down with group policy. You then use that to connect to your virtual environment.
For the consumer side though, maybe an embedded windows that’s effectively read only, that would then give the option to connect. Or, something like pxe boot handled by eufi. I highly doubt theyd try to leverage something like Linux or even bsd for it. But again, the consumer market would be a harder sell for this, due to our overall garbage internet.
