this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2024
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So just like Windows numbers being massively inflated because of corporate computer fleets?
Right, so again, the mostly the same with Windows for both office and personal use.
What are you expecting exactly? Is the choice of each person supposed to be formally announced? Are we supposed to real into a populated areas and declare like Micheal Scott "I declare: I'M USING LINUUUUUX!"?
You just described the entire world. This is far from unique to India. Most people I know don't have a desktop and maybe have a laptop, and I live in North America.
Not to be conceded, but I'm guessing this post is in response to my comments from a couple days ago?
I really don't understand your point. It's like you're saying "the users in India don't count because they're not using Linux the way I do".
Does that mean that all the workstations at CERN don't count? Or that the systems up on the ISS don't count?
To me (and I'm certain most people in general would agree) the ISS story is very important, because they were originally running Windows on those systems, but it kept crashing. They switched to Linux to get more stability out of those systems and have been using Linux ever since.
Also, does the story of the City of Munich switching to Linux not count either? It's supposed to be a major win, btw. A city government switching away from Windows and choosing to go with Linux is huge. I see it the same way with India. The more often people are Linux in the wild, the more normalized it is and the more mind share it generates. And mind share is huge in getting people to make a certain choice. It's the reason why product ads are everywhere. The more often you see a product/brand, the more likely you are to say to yourself "that's the thing I'll buy".
Before anyone says Munich switched back to Windows, they didn't. Microsoft made an under-table deal with some officials with the at-the-time in power government to switch back to Windows if they set up a Microsoft office in Munich. Then a new government was voted in a few months later and said "hell no, we're continuing with the Linux rollout" and that's where we are today. The City of Munich is a Linux success story.
Ultimately your post was just stating some facts and then waffling on about how it doesn't count.
Pretty sure that they mean that most people's only device is a phone. Desktops and laptops are basically the same thing, packaged slightly differently.
Yes, which is why I said "Most people I know don't have a desktop and maybe have a laptop".
My sentence implies that most people don't have a desktop or laptop, and if they are to have one, then it's more likely to be a laptop.
Ah! In that case I misunderstood you, sorry!
I was in reddit just a few minutes ago. I don't think I have seen a comment like this there in forever. Kudos!
I'm pretty sure in Europe, UK and Switzerland almost every household has at least one PC. A lot even one per person. Everyone I know from Europe has their own in their room and kids usually get their own in their teens. The difference between poorer households and rich are usually just how good/new those PCs are.
I'm in Canada and work in IT. Most of the people I know that have desktop systems are other IT people or PC gamers. Otherwise most of everyone else uses a laptop.
You work in IT but you distinguish between desktop systems and laptops? Why?
Lol, especially because I work in IT. I'm tired of companies only issuing laptops to employees when SFF systems get you more for less. The company where I work currently sends out a laptop, two monitors, a mouse, and keyboard for all hires.
They were giving out 8GB systems to developers (mostly running Windows and Visual Studio). It was a massive issue. I made a big deal out of it and advocated for new systems with 32GB. They bought new systems, sent them out, and it turns out they all had 16GB.
The person doing the order missed that detail and thought they were getting a deal for the company. Which resulted in a complicated process of ordering everyone an extra stick of RAM and then trying to instruct everyone how to open a laptop to install the RAM.
A SFF system would have solved much of these problems. Cheaper than laptops, usually better specs and thermals, and far easier to upgrade.
So to me, there's a massive difference between desktops and laptops.
By SFF you are talking small form factor? To my knowledge there is only one big player in this field which is Intel NUC and I am not even sure THEY have business support. Thats a big argument for laptops, because you get proper business support compared to niche products like SFF devices.
But maybe I completely missed your point.
SFF is an entire class of desktop computing with multiple product lines from HP, Lenovo, Dell, etc.
The Intel NUC was a unique subset often called a "mini pc".
Businesses buy SFF systems all the time. My point was simply that SFF should be favoured over laptops in many cases, instead of being the default employee device within a company.
In india due to low cellular data prices and android phone prices (chinese brands are huge in india) situation is very different. Consoles and pc hardware are priced differently compared to other electronics.
So most of the entire world is using windows/mac if they want to do something serious other than web browsing. And most of the linux desktop usage is contributed by enterprise and office pcs using linux. People still use windows and mac on their personal pc. So it is not a huge win if you want developer support for games and apps. Even if developers follow these numbers and start supporting linux, they will soon realise it is not worth their time because linux usage is mostly due to enterprise running chrome.
Absolutely not. Depending on what you want to do, Linux enables you to do way more than Windows.
Do you have actual numbers for this, or is it just entirely your own anecdotal observation?
Garbage argument. It's like the whole induced demand nonsense city project planners use. No one ever says "I'm only using Linux because I don't need the extra stuff Windows can offer", instead what you often hear is "I'd switch to Linux if this one specific application wasn't Windows only".
The largest thing that has held Linux adoption is application compatibility.
And one fact that I know that questions your "it's only cheap enterprises" argument is that Linux is huge in the academic sector in India (and the world also). More than half of the AI and ML demo videos on YouTube are from Indian accounts.