Last Phase of the Desktop Wars?

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8764

by zdw • 6 years ago

118 162 6 years ago

esr.ibiblio.org

easton• 6 years ago

Or, perhaps they said “Chromium compiles easily for Linux and we can get a little goodwill from corporate IT that wants to provide managed browsing for their Linux folks”.

I don’t think the situation that the article provides is impossible, but at the same time I don’t think that Edge is a good indicator.

johncalvinyoung• 6 years ago

Yeah. Edge would be much more of an indicator if they hadn't just opted for a repackaging/repurposing of an available cross-platform engine. Nontrivial work, I'm sure, to port the Edge-specific parts of New Edge, but scarcely comparable to porting a complete legacy codebase.

hestefisk• 6 years ago

Many, many enterprises still pay Microsoft billions of dollars in licenses for Windows and Office to run Excel ‘apps’ powered by VB macros. Until that has need has diminished, I really doubt Microsoft will give up their NT kernel. At least not on corporate land, maybe for consumers.

GoOnThenDoTell• 6 years ago

Perhaps Microsoft will still sell Excel, but provide a proton layer

tyingq• 6 years ago

I wonder if this is why the online versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint remain so terrible. Online Word can't even grok some very simple types of formatting done in native Word.

ColanR• 6 years ago

I just wonder where the point of convergence will be - I imagine that even consolidation of linux and Windows will be a local minima, just like Linux as the primary Unix-ish OS (not counting apple stuff) is a local minima.

With the increasing dominance of cloud-based infrastructure, will laptops/smartphones/tablets in the 2050s all be Linux based zero-clients running on 8G networks?

belltaco• 6 years ago

Accordingly, the return on investment of spending on Windows development is falling. As PC volume sales continue to fall off , it’s inevitably going to stop being a profit center and turn into a drag on the business.

Would that mean Microsoft could become like Apple on iDevices and force all Windows apps to be sold via the Windows Store for a 30% cut, to increase security of Windows and cut down most malware? What would be an estimate of how much money MS would have made over the years with a 30% cut similar to Apple? A couple trillion?

dathinab• 6 years ago

Yes and no, at least for the next 5 or so years the cut will be much less, but lock-in will come, they already tried to go there before.

That is except if the US court messes up in the ethic vs. Apple case giving Microsoft a implicit green lighting for such a thing.

mimixco• 6 years ago

I think the OP is right and few people seem to realize what MS is doing by "featurizing" Linux. If devs and enterpise want FOSS and Linux (which they do) and all the enterprise users are on Windows (which they are), it makes sense for those distinctions to go away. The easiest way for MS to accomplish that is to fold Linux into the Windows desktop. Everybody gets what they want since users don't care where software runs or how.

msh2• 6 years ago

Is anyone still listening to esr? He seems to have gone off the deep end quite some years ago.

rvense• 6 years ago

Eh, try two clicks previous on "previous"; have yikes.xbm at the ready, esepecially if you make it to the comments..

msh2• 6 years ago

OMG

gotadollar2• 6 years ago

Despicable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond#Political_beli...

FpUser• 6 years ago

Frankly the article reads like a wet dream of some wishful thinker.

mixmastamyk2• 6 years ago

That’s what we thought about IE and Edge until one day, things changed.

x87678r3• 6 years ago

Linux finally wins the desktop wars

ChromeOS is storming along - best desktop version of linux around. If I could easily run IntellJ on it I would switch.

nix235• 6 years ago

best linux distro around. If I could easily run IntellJ on it I would switch.

It's not a Distro.

x87678r3• 6 years ago

You're right, I've amended.

alkonaut6• 6 years ago

What makes a distribution a distribution? Wikipedia and others list it as a distribution.

I thought any packaging of Linux kernel + whatever surrounding software needed to make an OS is a “distro”?

quesera4• 6 years ago

It's not a Distro.

Sure it is.

It's not a general purpose distro (running on GP/COTS hardware), but it is a software distribution built around a Linux kernel.

moeris• 6 years ago

You can't run it in crostini?

x87678r3• 6 years ago

Yeah my chromebook doesn't support it and is too weak to really run IntelliJ, I use it for web guis and some shell work. I haven't tried hard because Crostini still seems a bit bleeding edge - I think you can run linux apps directly without Crostini now too. I was waiting to see what the new PixelBook is going to do and how things settle down next year.

Shared404• 6 years ago

best desktop version of linux around.

If you don't mind surrendering yourself to Google, at least.

thekyle• 6 years ago

Why can't you run Intellij on it? Chrome OS supports all the Debian apps.

zozbot234• 6 years ago

So, 2020 might be the year of Linux on the Desktop after all.

somerandomboi3• 6 years ago

Perhaps, although I cannot cite market share statistics.

lkramer• 6 years ago

well, all the other signs of Armageddon has appeared, so why not that one...

higerordermap• 6 years ago

2022 year of WSL webshit

II2II• 6 years ago

I suspect the reason is much more simple: it is more profitable for Microsoft to be platform agnostic. If that means supporting Linux, so be it. That does not mean they are going to abandon Windows, nor does it mean that they are going to reinvent Windows as a layer on top of Linux. It just means that they aren't picky about what their revenues are derived from.

mdifrgechd• 6 years ago

I'm buying a new computer. Currently I have only ubuntu linux machines and was just saying to someone that I would actually consider trying windows and WSL because it would let me use the linux tools I want alongside MS office, and it might be interesting to play with windows versions of things. The reason I wont actually do it though is because I'm sure that windows will be filled with commercially oriented intrusions and annoyances that I don't see in linux. I admit I am hypersensitive to that kind of thing, but getting reminders and popups from the task bar etc destroys my concentration. Maybe there is a way to shut all that down but I always felt like windows was bothering me about stuff a lot more than linux ever does.

Solve that and I may be a convert.

genpfault• 6 years ago

windows will be filled with commercially oriented intrusions and annoyances

And how!

ericmcer• 6 years ago

Definitely agree, a Mac you get Mac OS, Ubuntu you get Ubuntu, Windows you get some Frankenstein of the OS, Mcafee, Dell, and various other companies applications all stitched together.

3np• 6 years ago

Those parts are easily removed by doing a vanilla install the first thing you do. Windows (esp 10) still had some built-in things you don't get away from though. And also all the dialogues from self-updating software and plugins.

modzu• 6 years ago

i booted into my windows machine the other day, and when it finally came up, it was full of crap: my start bar had a bing ad for a halloween quiz, 3 different versions of candy crush, half my settings reset, etc... compared to my daily (linux and macos) it sure felt like i had little control over the machine, it was a microsoft ad platform first and place to get actual work done second

blowfish721• 6 years ago

Hopefully you’ve disabled Ubuntus motd service on your machines.

https://mobile.twitter.com/lelff/status/1210619413885575168

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14662088

fmajid• 6 years ago

Those instructions don't strike at the root. What you should do is remove the motd entries in /etc/pam.d/login and /etc/pam.d/sshd

zabzonk• 6 years ago

I use Windows 10 with Classic Start Menu. I see no adverts. I do see some notifications, almost all of which are useful. Probably you should try things first, before jumping to conclusions - I find Windows 10 a pretty good experience, and yes, I have also been using Linux for about 30 years.

hackerfromthefu• 6 years ago

So do I .. however recently Windows has been causing Classic Start Menu upgrade commands to fail - Classic still seems to work, but I don't know for how long.

I think this is a trend of MS breaking the tools we use to get some control back over Windows, because they've broken some of my others recently also, such as Windows defender flagging Spybot S&D's immunization as a hosts hijack. And of course there's no easy way to work around that, pressing ignore didn't work it produce the same result as quarantine .. I'm so angry at MS for all the shit they push, but there's just not a better alternative they closely walk the line of costs/benefits .. which is why I fear that as their position on the desktop strengthens with things like wide WSL adoption, we will see more of their anti-features and domineering breakages of the tools people write to resist them.

jlgaddis2• 6 years ago

Probably you should try things first, before jumping to conclusions

I don't need to smoke crack to know that I don't want anything to do with it.

unnouinceput4• 6 years ago

I solve it. Here's my setup:

- don't use online account, but offline (local) one

- use WPD to uncheck absolutely everything related to windows telemetry / sending info. I keep only updates and those set to manual.

- and can't stress this enough - get a PiHole, either on RPi or re-purpose a crappy old laptop. This one is also good for your smartcrap you usually get to your spouse/kids

eyeball2• 6 years ago

WPD?

alyandon• 6 years ago

In addition to that all that, I once caught Windows Defender submitting places.sqlite out of my Firefox profile directory so I'd recommend you turn off "automatic sample submission" in Windows Defender if WPD doesn't already do that.

executesorder662• 6 years ago

The fact that you have to do any of that in the first place, is reason enough to not use windows at all.

heavyset_go• 6 years ago

Solve that and I may be a convert.

As a Linux desktop user, I've only ever been able to tolerate LTSC releases of Windows 10, and those still have telemetry features. They also lag behind Windows 10 releases so that things like WSL2 are still unsupported.

I tried running Windows as my daily driver because I was somewhat sold on WSL and WSL 2, however using non-LTSC releases of Windows is a frustrating experience, and there were too many incompatibilities between enterprise Windows and the desktop/development environment I was trying to use it as.

My solution is to have an LTSC virtual machine set up so that I can dip into Windows when I need to, and just use a sane Linux environment as the host OS.

simonblack• 6 years ago

it would let me use the linux tools I want alongside MS office

I used to go this route. I used WABI (Windows Application Binary Interface) on Solaris in the 1990s, sort of like a very early WINE. However as time has gone on, I found that the Linux Office Suites (LibreOffice, more recently) have become more and more sufficient for my needs.

I realised recently that I haven't really booted Windows itself more than half a dozen times over the last few years. I got my first Windows 10 a month or two ago with a new laptop. I then proceeded to squeeze it down to under 100 gig on a 1 terabyte hard drive. On my main desktop, Windows 8 is relegated to a mere 50 gig out of 12 terabytes of storage.

I have used Windows 7 on VirtualBox more often for running my HP Scanner's MultiFeed software, just because I can. Though normally, I just run a single-sheet scan most of the time under Linux.

In summary, Windows could completely disappear and it would not affect me adversely at all.

cjohnson318• 6 years ago

I tried to use WSL to run a cron job, but that wasn't supported as of 2019. I wasn't able to figure out how to schedule and run arbitrary Python code on Windows.

dublin• 6 years ago

But Windows lets you do things no Linux distro really can - use modern, state-of-the-art interface technologies like multitouch, pens, and dials. A Surface with WSL is about the ideal setup, with the best of both worlds.

Also, the author of this article seems ignorant of the fact that Windows' kernel internals are one of its strongest features - Cutler's NT Kernel incorporated many things he learned from building VMS, and while the shell and outer parts of Windows have often left a lot to desire, the NT (not DOS/Win9X) kernel is and always has been excellent. I don't see Windows evolving to run on a Linux kernel - that would be only viable with vast improvements/changes to the Linux kernel.

jlgaddis2• 6 years ago

Also, the author of this article seems ignorant of the fact that Windows' kernel internals are one of its strongest features ...

I would not be surprised at all if he's ignorant of Windows' kernel internals or, really, much else about Windows.

[...] ESR, is an American software developer, open-source software advocate, and author of the 1997 essay and 1999 book The Cathedral and the Bazaar. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond

In fact, this article likely would have gained little attention were it written by anyone else.

qubex• 6 years ago

This argument totally ignores Microsoft’s consideration of what might happen after that endgame-state, and what utility (if any) it would have for them. Specifically, Microsoft would have everything to lose if it placed all of the Windows-like APIs into their Linux kernel, even if that were in the interests of “de-complexifying” their Azure business, because after that they’d be on par with every other Cloud/PaaS provider and they’d be outcompeted on cost by the likes of Amazon Web Services.

mixmastamyk2• 6 years ago

AWS is one of the most expensive options. MS, despite its traditionally anti-competitive management has better tech chops than anyone besides google.

walrus01• 6 years ago

I think this would have been obvious when Microsoft pushed a "free" upgrade to every Windows 7 Home PC, to bring it to Windows 10. What they care about now are recurring revenues from monthly subscription services (xbox live gold type things), office365 type things, and azure services. And all of the usual tricks used to get people to use Edge as their default browser. Giving away the OS for free to accomplish that is clearly the way they're going about that.

varbhat• 6 years ago

I am afraid of EEE strategy of Microsoft . But,Windows having WSL means that Developers can target Linux only without even considering Windows , being sure that all Linux binaries run on WSL . But proprietary extensions of WSL should never ever be used.

vikramkr• 6 years ago

EEE is not going to have any impact on Linux (and also, EEE hasnt been Microsof's strategy for a while). Once they start extending with proprietary additions, you basically just end up where you were with two operating systems, a proprietary windows and an open source Linux. They can't force the kernel to accept proprietary extensions.

quesera4• 6 years ago

They can't force the kernel to accept proprietary extensions.

They don't need to. They just need to offer a "better" Linux (kernel and/or distro) that also runs Excel, and is backed by a global Fortune 10 corporation.

It's Linux, it's legal, it's E₂ and brings E₃ within reach if they choose that path.

wmf• 6 years ago

There is a concern that mainstream proprietarized "Linux" becomes completely incompatible with real Linux to the detriment of Linux's values and the people who care about those values.

xnyan• 6 years ago

But,Windows having WSL means that Developers can target Linux only without even considering Windows

I've been using WSL1 and WSL2 regularly since they were in beta. They have both exceeded my expectations. I still SSH into my local development box I use for webdev and the like because it's still faster, less limited and more powerful than WSL/2. Again, I think WSL is awesome and I use it all the time - to do a few linuxy things here and there on my windows box. It's nice, but it is in no way a production-grade replacement for native linux.

tedyoung• 6 years ago

"Ten years later, Azure makes Microsoft most of its money."

Well, no, not yet. Microsoft doesn't break out Azure separately. It's usually included in their "Intelligent Cloud", which is the largest segment, but that also includes SQL Server (a big money maker), Windows Server, GitHub, and other stuff. "Commercial Cloud" revenue (which is all the cloud portions of their products, from Azure to Office 365 Commercial) was $51.7Bln of $143Bln overall. So yes, Azure makes a lot of money, but not "most".

jpalomaki• 6 years ago

Also, Azure is running on Windows. While majority of VMs may be running on Linux, the hosts are running Windows.

I would assume Microsoft sees competitive advantage in using their own OS and hypervisor.

gpm• 6 years ago

Microsoft is talking about swapping out the windows portion of their azure stack for Linux. Still running their own hypervisor, but with Linux as the "dom0" controlling it.

scarface742• 6 years ago

Will this meme ever die that Cloud revenue includes Office 365?

Office is part of “ Productivity and Business Processes” not “Intelligent Cloud”.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/23/microsoft-msft-earnings-q1-2...

Analemma_• 6 years ago

Microsoft doesn't break out Azure separately ... "Commercial Cloud" revenue (which is all the cloud portions of their products, from Azure to Office 365 Commercial)

I'm begging people, please stop repeating this. Microsoft has been reporting O365 revenue separately from Azure revenue for like five years now.

mr_toad• 6 years ago

Whichever way you spin it, Microsoft isn’t making much money from desktop Windows licenses.

And if they did move to Linux you’d still need CALs for all the proprietary stuff on top, so it’s unlikely they’d be losing much, if any money by doing this.

davidcollantes• 6 years ago

Edge running on Linux isn't that great of a feat, is it? It is built with Chromium as a base, which already ran on multi-platform (including Linux).

drewmate• 6 years ago

I agree that we'll see the boundaries between Windows and Linux blur, but I don't think we'll ever see Microsoft give up the decades of backwards compatibility that have kept people on Windows since the beginning. There will always be demand for running older Windows apps (games, legacy business software, etc..) on a modern OS, and I don't think Microsoft will cede that space to a competitor (and with good reason!) It will likely continue to shrink as a proportion of revenue, but it will be worth much more than that to keep it as a toehold to deliver other software and services: Xbox game pass, visual studio, azure services, etc...

emteycz• 6 years ago

Microsoft could produce a very well working WINE

est31• 6 years ago

Wine has become better at running legacy Windows apps than Windows itself.

somerandomboi3• 6 years ago

What about Linux distro virtual machines? It seems as though some users prefer running a virtual machine on different hardware rigs. I'm not sure if this will increase in popularity, yet it appears as a manageable solution.

chucky• 6 years ago

I don't think MS is porting Edge to Linux because they want to test the waters for running Windows on a Linux kernel as the author speculates. It seems much more likely that Microsoft recognizes the web is an important platform for them to be a player on in the future, and they want web developers to be able to test stuff on Edge regardless of which OS they use.

This is the reason why Edge is available on MacOS and Linux.

ChrisLTD• 6 years ago

It’s also a trivial port because the underlying Chromium engine already runs on all those platforms.

somerandomboi3• 6 years ago

I saw a previous comment mention Chrome OS as improving in terms of market share. Honestly, running a Debian virtual machine over Chrome OS appears to remain a lightweight desktop environment, especially without extensive hardware configurations.

greyman• 6 years ago

Just a sidenote, after 25 years of using Windows, I switched to OSX. But following the article logic, that can also be considered a Unix. :-)

scarface742• 6 years ago

OS X is not considered Unix. OS X is officially certified Unix by the Open Group.

quesera4• 6 years ago

OS X is officially certified Unix

And, notably, Linux is _not_ Unix, for a variety of reasonable reasons.

SomeHacker44• 6 years ago

I did the opposite. After switching to OSX 16 years ago, I am switching to Windows.

Either way I have been a Linux user since 1992.

Reasons:

* WSL1/2 * Better, cheaper laptops and desktops with better keyboards, F-keys, more GPUs * No wondering when the next thing Apple will do to remove something I use (F-keys, ESC, 32-bit, ability to actually do stuff on my own filesystem, etc.) or break something that just worked (like Homebrew) ...

sz4kerto• 6 years ago

This is the Android problem all over again. Some argue that Linux is the most popular graphical desktop/mobile OS. I think, however, that back then when we were dreaming about Linux desktops we wanted the freedom, not necessarily or only the kernel itself.

So if Linux and Unix end up dominating everything in the form of Android, MacOS and Windows, that's not a huge win for the FLOSS community.

indigodaddy2• 6 years ago

“The OS itself , and its userland tools, has for some time already been Linux underneath a carefully preserved old-Windows UI.”

I’m not sure how anyone could arrive at this conclusion. The OS itself is certainly not “Linux underneath a carefully preserved old-Windows UI.”

oxygenoxy• 6 years ago

This is a prediction as to how Microsoft can announce EOL for Windows.

indigodaddy2• 6 years ago

Sure, but that’s not what Windows is right now. You can’t just make up facts to support a hypothesis or conclusion.

millstone2• 6 years ago

Microsoft has already ported Edge to run under Linux. There is only one way that makes any sense, and that is as a trial run for freeing the rest of the Windows utility suite from depending on any emulation layer.

This is a very strange conclusion to draw. Chromium was already ported to Linux. Microsoft just "ported" the Edge skin which likely uses very little Windows-specific code.

iNate2000• 6 years ago

But why Linux and not macOS?

millstone2• 6 years ago

They ported Chromium-based Edge to macOS before Linux.

TheRealPomax3• 6 years ago

and Linux finally wins the desktop wars, not by displacing Windows but by co-opting it

That's not a "win", though. That's "being subsumed". After all, if LSW works, why would anyone with normal computing needs ever need to install Linux on a computer ever again? Or even in a VM, for that matter? As long as they have Windows, they get the parts of Linux they need for free, without the headache of actually learning the convoluted finer points of properly using a well configured Linux distro.

If anything, Linux finally loses the desktop war, by no longer being needed as a standalone OS. It's now something you just fire up on the side if you need something that only has a Makefile, rather than an .sln file...

Your desktop is still Windows, your applications are still Windows, and LSW is there for when you need to do "that thing that only people who work with computers for a living need to do". No one even needs to be told that when they run "bash", they're running Linux: it's now just another app you run. Linux didn't just lose, it got made irrelevant.

pjmlp9• 6 years ago

Not all, my Windows machines are yet to see any instance of WSL running.

As for your bash example, I have run various versions of it across many kinds of POSIX like OSes.

Yes Linux is irrelevant, it is just a free beer UNIX clone, tomorrow another UNIX clone can take its place.

TheRealPomax3• 6 years ago

If you've run many kinds of POSIX-like OSes, it should be fairly obvious you're not the vast majority of folks when it comes to the Windows user base.

executesorder662• 6 years ago

I don't necessarily see it as a "win" for Linux, but I do see it as an admission of defeat for windows.

If windows (and it's related tooling) is so garbage that you have to literally bundle an entire OS and tools in it just so that a developer can get real work done, then that speaks volumes.

And also why would I want all of the pain of using windows, (with linux bundled in it) if I can just use linux?

Kuinox• 6 years ago

Never needed linux until xyz tool chain that is not crossplatform require linux to compile... I welcome WSL only because it will be easier to test my apps against linux.

qwerty456127• 6 years ago

Bundle WPF with .Net for Linux desktop and then we'll talk...

pjmlp9• 6 years ago

MAUI is what you're looking for.

fareesh2• 6 years ago

As a developer I've been quite happy with the Linux desktop experience. I only ever use Windows for games.

I have a Macbook Pro, which I bought for the combination of weight and hardware but frankly the experience has not been good. The model I purchased suffers from the "staingate" issue and good Apple customer service where they do repairs and replacements for free is non-existent in this part of the world. I am still running El Capitan because I hear the upgrades break a lot of CLI stuff. One of the speakers is completely distorted as well. As an OS, macOS is great if you buy in to the other Apple ecosystem because it is all built to work well together.

macOS is a lot more polished and a lot more pleasant to use than a Linux desktop, unfortunately it is all very bad value for money, and Apple operates like a criminal enterprise as far as I'm concerned. I received Airpods for my birthday this February and one of them no longer charges or has its battery detected. Apple Support shrugged their shoulders and said they aren't covered by any warranty. By contrast I have Chinese knock-off ones that are working fine. I got them for free when I bought a suit off the rack.

I have recently learned that a lot of the more modern Apple hardware is near-impossible to repair because Apple has locked down the supply chain for spare parts.

In Western countries, there is some semblance of consumer protection and customer service. In the rest of the world you are pretty much hung out to dry.

Since the OS only works with their hardware, that's enough of a scam to keep me away from it. I keep reading all kinds of anecdotes online about how Apple is a benevolent company and has good customer service, but I am wondering if many of those stories are astroturfing. I'm also surprised that they have such a loyal fanbase. I have never owned an Apple product that wasn't horribly defective after being barely used. I have also recently been following the great Louis Rossman on YouTube who regularly talks about the bad design and engineering practices that go into their hardware, which almost make it seem like they are designed to fail and earn servicing revenue.

amelius2• 6 years ago

I think Apple's story is that they keep OS and hardware tightly coupled because that way they can better control quality.

But of course, the consumer (even the average one) isn't really served by this attitude, in the long run.

Personally I think this should be regulated more. If a device is built as a general purpose device, then it should be accessible as such by its owner. There are many advantages for the consumer (not just functionality but also privacy), and also the environment can benefit as fewer devices will become obsolete because of software.

fareesh2• 6 years ago

In theory if they do ARM macbooks and ARM phones and ARM tablets, they pave the way for merging iOS and macOS which has great potential because app developers can basically maintain a single codebase and use the features of the development process to carve out the parts that work on-the-go. It has the potential to be great, perhaps the greatest OS, but the foundational problem of the scammy business model is where they lose me.

amelius2• 6 years ago

It seems to me that, sadly, the desktop war was won by a laptop: the MacBook Pro.

dartharva• 6 years ago

This sounds like over-the-top speculation. Just because their larger source of revenue has shifted to their high-value, high-capital PaaS, it doesn't mean they'll be killing off the Windows platform entirely in favor of Linux. Windows is an operating system that has evolved over decades for the PC and it still outperforms Linux in some very crucial things (like priority hardware support from manufacturers, optimization of hardware, etc.) by miles. It's hard to imagine even if Linux distros fix their glaring lack of standardization, bring about sane package management systems and manage to create bearable user experiences.

The writer seems to be treating the porting of Edge to Linux as the first stage of this "phase". This appears quite weird, a rather simpler explanation would be just that Microsoft wants as many people as possible to use its browser. I'm not an experienced programmer but I don't think it's such a phenomenal and revolutionary thing to release Linux builds for Edge, especially considering that it is now based off of Chromium which already has some presence in Linux distributions.

jmnicolas• 6 years ago

it still outperforms Linux in some very crucial things (like priority hardware support from manufacturers, optimization of hardware, etc.) by miles. It's hard to imagine even if Linux distros fix their glaring lack of standardization, bring about sane package management systems and manage to create bearable user experiences.

They could create a "Microsoft Linux" distro, that would probably be much less effort than to maintain Windows & Windows Server. If every PC would run on the Linux kernel, hardware vendors would support it.

For Edge I think it's just to be able to data mine more people whatever their platform of choice is.

pjmlp9• 6 years ago

It already does on top of Hiper-V.

projektfu• 6 years ago

Calling game-playing a stress test of a translation layer is a bit misleading. The idea is to abstract out the incidental complexity of system and library calls and function names, etc., so that the irreducible complexity of writing graphics data to the GPU runs at the same speed.

For business software, the complexity is not incidental as shown by the difficulty of writing Wine. When Microsoft makes up entirely new chunks of software and calls them "system libraries", Wine has to replicate their functionality. Such as with including IE as a component of Windows, Wine essentially had to replicate all that functionality in order to run things like Quickbooks. When they added .NET as a "system" component, Wine had to make that work by allowing .NET installs that work or replicating the functionality. Now, with WPF-based Universal Windows Platform apps, the windows API has become horribly complex with lots of little features and bugs that have to be copied to bring a translator to feature parity.

If you go through the Wine source code, you'll see that a lot of stuff is still unimplemented, for features that existed as of 1999 or so in Windows.

Windows has like 3 different ways of formatting text on the screen. It has several graphics apis. It has multiple apis for accessing the same hardware (like scanners). There are lots of little bits of functionality shipped as part of the operating system that seem unnecessary until a random business app uses them.

Getting the "essential" services for a small slice (like with ndiswrapper drivers) is a lot easier than being able to take one of these old applications like Quickbooks and make it work correctly.

lars-b2018• 6 years ago

There is a good chance that something like what the author proposes is occurring, especially if you consider the Windows product distinct from the NT kernel. Does it make sense in the long run to support two separate Office code bases - the web based ones, and the desktop versions? I don't think it does, and I would think that Edge/Chromium is going to be their new base upon which the present day web based versions of office are going to be integrated into such that they can gain desktop access, similar to VS-Code and Teams running in Electron. VS-Code is wildly popular with developers, so there is some evidence that the user experience can be a positive one.

Large corporate applications are increasingly being built using web tech, which doesn't require Windows. If an organization can run a web based desktop and provide a remote desktop for "legacy" Windows apps, then this can reduce admin costs and improve security. The browser is increasingly the platform and the underlying OS just doesn't matter as much anymore.

At some point in the not too distant future, it won't make sense financially to continue to put a lot of R&D into the Windows kernel. It won't make sense financially to maintain two versions of Office and the huge amount of logistics that entails. If Microsoft can slide Windows over a different kernel (and it has been done before from Win95/DOS to NT), they can still preserve their user base, but reduce a lot of dev money spent on maintaining the NT kernel. Same goes for the legacy Office applications. If they can reduce their development spend, and focus resources on the app+win layer, this is what they are going to do.

unilynx• 6 years ago

It seems unlikely that Microsoft could ever move Windows over to a different kernel and save on development costs that way, because no suitable kernel seems in sight.

For example the whole Handle and ACL infrastructure has no real equivalent in Linux (at most a bit on the filesystem level) and having to rewrite that for Linux seems pointless and would bring enormous backwards compatibility risks. Office is easy compared to the tightly integrated Windows Server/Active Directory stack.

But that still doesn't mean MS has to invest a lot of R&D in the NT kernel and stack. For userspace they indeed have electron, and on the kernel side they still have Hyper-V, and are even supplying patches to Linux for better integration.

Perhaps eventually Linux and NT will be mostly invoking virtual drivers with the real 'hardware control' work being done in the hypervisors, and the NT Kernel can just be considered 'done'.

ngrilly• 6 years ago

“Microsoft Windows becomes a Proton-like emulation layer over a Linux kernel”

That’s similar to what Apple replacing Mac OS 9 with Mac OS X based on a MACH kernel.

tibbydudeza• 6 years ago

MS Teams is the new OS :).

znpy2• 6 years ago

I really don't care much about the desktop wars thing, but if there's one thing that I honestly thing this is it:

In the desktop wars nobody has really won, but all the users have lost.

GNU/Linux on the desktop has improved a lot, but it's still very far from being good.

Mac OS is very good, but it's extremely expensive because of the hardware.

Windows was very good for desktop but had stability problems. Nowadays Windows is just awful for the desktop user, Microsoft is literally conducting a war against its own users.

Just tonight my father in law was complaining because he couldn't find the solitaire app. Turns out that my gf installed the binary of the previous version because the stock windows one was filled with advertising. Windows update had different opinions, and REMOVED A BINARY THAT THE USER HAD SETUP BY HAND.

It literally: either you do computing the way Microsoft tells you, or you don't do computing at all. Microsoft literally removed a binary off the system.

Unbelievable. I wonder if I could sue Microsoft over that. It's borderline sabotage. They removed a binary that the user installed by hand, knowing what they were doing.

thelazydogsback4• 6 years ago

Windows was very good for desktop but had stability problems. Nowadays Windows is just awful for the desktop user, Microsoft is literally conducting a war against its own users.

I don't get this. I've been using *nix since PDP11 and VAX/Ultrix and I have no problems with Win10 at all, stability or otherwise - I'd much rather use it as a desktop dev environment than Linux. When it comes time to deploy something, sure it makes sense to run on Linux.

WWLink• 6 years ago

I'd much rather use it as a desktop dev environment than Linux

Yikes! I use Windows on my desktop at home because I like to play games on my computer that tend to not run well in WINE. I cannot program in Windows. I just can't. Even with WSL and vscode, I can't. Maybe I just suck as a programmer, but windows has a way of getting under my skin when I'm trying to get shit done.

I can use a Mac, but stuff like SIP forcing me to have a nonstandard disk layout (god forbid I want /usr/bin/python3 to be a thing because it is on every linux machine I use) pisses me the fuck off. I'm kinda tired of Apple making the computer into an iPad. Which is too bad, because it's been my programming platform of choice for a very long time.

znpy2• 6 years ago

We technical people should really start to understand that we're not the average use. Not even close.

I'd have no problem in mutilating Windows enough to make it usable, and keeping an eye for when it tries to do something nasty.

But the average user won't, and will have a computing experience filled with unnecessary advertising, encumbered by background processing and bandwitdh usage (telemetry collection and other windows background stuff that are not end-user activities).

It's just awful.

fsflover2• 6 years ago

GNU/Linux on the desktop has improved a lot, but it's still very far from being good.

Not sure what you are talking about. Just buy a Linux-certified laptop and don't install Linux on Windows-certified one and it will work just fine. Happy Linux user here.

rstuart4133• 6 years ago

yeah, that statement surprised me too.

I guess the most telling statement about it came from my wife. She asked me to do to her laptop whatever I did to my daughters to make it run so fast. What I had done was replace Windows with Linux. I suspect I have the rapid change mobile phone GUI's to thank for no one even bothering to mention the difference between Linux and Windows - let alone needing to ask how to use it. How can they be "very far from being good" when they are so close?

I guess I'm biased, as for me Linux + Cinnamon about as good as it gets. But it is a close thing. They are all good - Android, iOS, OSX, and yes Windows. I'd put Windows at the bottom of the pile, mostly because it's slow and because Microsoft's continual nags to hook you into their ecosystem (one drive, get Microsoft account, email, yada, yada). Oh, and the other annoying thing about Windows is the 1/2 baked transition between the control panel and the newfangled way of configuring things. There is enough clicking as it is without having to check a bunch places for a setting.

littlestymaar• 6 years ago

Mac OS is very good, but it's extremely expensive because of the hardware.

Every update for the past 5 years had gone between bad and nightmarish, and the power user ergonomics are going from bad to worse every time. MacOs was probably the best OS in 2015, but it has steadily damaged itself since then.

The solitaire example you give is a good illustration: on MacOS Catalina, you wouldn't be able to run the given binary without clicking twice on a button saying almost “yes I want to install a virus that will destroy my computer”, the default choice being “delete the said file”.

magnetowasright• 6 years ago

Totally agree that users have lost.

GNU/Linux on the desktop has improved a lot, but it's still very far from being good.

What do you think is lacking for it to be 'good'?

toyg• 6 years ago

503 - it’s dead, Jim.

throwawayhacka2• 6 years ago

great article and I think shows the way forward. HN has a very technical userbase and overestimates linux as an desktop operating system. Desktop ubuntu installs are down year over year. If you're not a software engineer, getting linux working well (even ubuntu) and keeping it that way is pretty much impossible. Comparatively, W10 will boot on any hardware and take care of itself. even a mechanical or EE engineer without a lot of linux administration skill will struggle; Literally just talked to a friend going thru this yesterday.

Win10 running WSL2 with docker integrated is a better dev experience than running native linux - you can flip up new machines at will, from any distro and they're easy to manage and play nice with VSCode. I used to dual boot windows and ubuntu and have moved over to just running WSl2, as it minimizes the time I spend administering linux , patching and doing upgrades.

4gotunameagain• 6 years ago

Since when are all the technically inclined people software "engineers"?

throwawayhacka2• 6 years ago

sure. you might be something else and have a lot of linux experience - I think most people who have this are either devs or some related profession, perhaps sysadmin or adjacent roles. Still, you're kidding yourself if you think the average EE or ME, hell pick any STEM field, knows what the hell is going on with linux (not that none do)

AtlasBarfed• 6 years ago

The last phase of desktop wars is apathy, unfortunately.

OSX is ignored/unimproved by Apple. Windows is ignored/unimproved by Microsoft. Linux continues to be horribly balkanized, and lacks market share to be fundamentally improved.

timvisee• 6 years ago

Great article. Would like to see this become a reality.

I'm not so sure about this idea though, if Microsoft would ever take this path, it'll probably be far far in the future.

I think Microsoft releases and Edge version for Linux in an attempt to get Linux users on board to use their products. People using this will probably be less reluctant to try other Microsoft products as well.

Edge is based on Chromium, which is already Linux native. It probably took Microsoft minimal effort to release a Linux binary as well, making this a win-win situation for them.

Now to strengthen that argument; Microsoft did not release any other enduser software for native Linux yet, such as Office or other Windowws native tools. At least, I'm not aware of any. Maybe this is something they'll take on in the future, only one can dream. Now I know there's .NET Core and PowerShell, but I'd hardly call that enduser software.

At the same time they're working on various things that seem like a vender-lockin. I'll give two examples.

The first is the Windows/Microsoft Store and UWP. More and more applications (and AAA games) are released through this store as UWP apps. These UWP apps (and the store) cannot be emulated (yes I know Wine is not an emulator) on a Linux host at this moment and function as a DRM layer, nor do I think this will happen anytime soon.

As second example, take DirectX. Microsoft recently showed plans for supporting DirectX on Linux (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/directx-heart-linux/). There's a catch though, this only works on Linux in WSL, locking you to a Microsoft Windows host.

It seems to me, these aren't here to enhance Linux, nor to brighten the path to start using Linux more under the hood. These things only appeal to Windows users, and it rather seems like Microsoft is attempting to lock users to Windows hosts to me.

Obviously I don't know where they're headed. I sure hope more and more Windows software will become usable on a Linux host, and I like the idea of Windows using Linux as true kernel.

This might sound like a rant, but it's not intended to be. Just wanted to extend yourarticle with these notes so everybody can come up with their own ideas on this topic.

By the way, the comment box on your website seems broken.

throwaway12757• 6 years ago

I would completely switch to Linux if they offered onedrive and office 2019 (not office 365).

I think it will happen soon, within the next year. Edge first, then office, finally onedrive

forsakenharmony• 6 years ago

I feel like WSL2 was a step in the opposite direction, previously it was integrated with windows directly, now it's basically just a vm with some nice mappings

FS performance WSL2 -> Windows is almost unusably slow

gotadollar2• 6 years ago

And I thought systemd was bad news....

Last Phase of the Desktop Wars?

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