Subject: Re: Windows 12 could be the tipping point that finally pushes you to Linux - here's why

On Thu, 3/12/2026 8:47 PM, CrudeSausage wrote:

On 2026-03-12 6:42 p.m., Lars Poulsen wrote:

On 2026-03-12, Mr. Man-wai Chang <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> wrote:

Modern Linux can run Windows programs via WINE or maybe CrossOver. I am
NOT tracking those things.... so far. It's been a long time.

Business applications can use Java which runs inside a browser, and
hence not tightly coupled with Windows.

Some Windows programs can run with Wine, but some very significant ones
cannot, and do not have easy substitutes.

For example:
- QuickBooks. Pretty much the "must-have" small business accounting
ÿÿ software.
- PhotoShop. Pretty much the "must-have" professional image application
ÿÿ program for photographers, print shops, graphical designers etc.

When Linux versions of these become available for Linux, the world will
shift. But at this time, these will lock their user base into Windows or
Mac.

Here's the kicker: Linux versions of either program will never be available. Anyone developing a product worth a damn has no idea whether it should be a Flatpak, a Snap, compiled from source, a .deb or an .rpm. Even if they get it right and go with Flatpak, the angry people running Linux desktops will protest and make them regret ever bothering with the operating system. It's happened numerous times before and it will happen again.

All you really need, is a business case.

"How much can we make ?"
"What will the devs to do this cost us ?"

The technical details are for the devs to work out.

Yes, it's a chicken versus egg problem. But it
starts with the first derivative of the Linux growth rate.
Is the Linux transition moving quickly ? Are
"large forces on the landscape about to cut off our oxygen" ?
If the arithmetic of opportunity isn't there, then it
isn't going to happen. And precisely how much fevered corporate
activity do you see in general ? Are there companies who
are going to "take it all for themselves" ? Fear of Missing Out,
is a good driver for a transition. But as long as there
are no flags or lead indicators, it will be business as usual.

At one time, the "important" people in the industry, claimed
"desktops were dead" and the desktops were then "written off"
as an opportunity. Instead, what is happened, is AI-starvation
will smash the desktops. The desktops will be disguised as Mini-PC
boxes.

They're even doing this with SATA. I'm getting motherboard reviews
now, where the SATA port count is missing. The word SATA does not
appear in the article. At first, I thought this was an accident,
but instead there seems to be an invisible-hand at work
fucking with things (again!). Part of the justification, is
not upsetting the computer case makers who don't have mounting
points for SATA drives. The aquarium maker.

Paul

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Windows 12 could be the tipping point that finally pushes you to Linux - here's why

On Thu, 3/12/2026 9:44 AM, Joel W. Crump wrote:

On 3/12/2026 9:42 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

It meant that Win12 is replacing the concept of the PC, as we knew it.

Just an illusion! Hardware is hardware, software is software. :)

I get the idea that with Win12, you just treat it like in "Star Trek TNG".ÿ I'm not biting on that, ever.ÿ Linux or Win11.

The marketing department is not doing that.

There are a series of SKUs for Windows, going from "unserious" to "serious". The military version of the Windows OS is at the top of that pyramid,
lots of things missing, and the "TopSecret" monitoring feature is in there.
(I don't collect them any more, but the Build Conference videos
show the things they're working on.)

Sure, you could have Clippy2 in Win12 Home, but that does not mean
they will ruin all the SKUs.

The military will have LLM-AI in their robots, but they won't have
AI in the management and logistics desktops (due to the attack surface
it brings). A certain amount of equipment will have to be air-gapped,
because the AI just aren't trustworthy. They don't care who they shoot.
They don't respect uniforms. Spending time in the brig means
nothing to them.

An LLM-AI was caught in the news a couple days ago, running
Bitcoin generators on unused GPU instances. Exactly what it
was going to do with the wallets generated, is anyones guess.
They're little better than criminal masterminds in pink dresses.
Very polite when they're hiding things...

Paul

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Windows 12 could be the tipping point that finally pushes you to Linux - here's why

On 2026-03-13 12:22 a.m., Paul wrote:

On Thu, 3/12/2026 8:47 PM, CrudeSausage wrote:

On 2026-03-12 6:42 p.m., Lars Poulsen wrote:

On 2026-03-12, Mr. Man-wai Chang <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> wrote:

Modern Linux can run Windows programs via WINE or maybe CrossOver. I am >>>> NOT tracking those things.... so far. It's been a long time.

Business applications can use Java which runs inside a browser, and
hence not tightly coupled with Windows.

Some Windows programs can run with Wine, but some very significant ones
cannot, and do not have easy substitutes.

For example:
- QuickBooks. Pretty much the "must-have" small business accounting
ÿÿ software.
- PhotoShop. Pretty much the "must-have" professional image application
ÿÿ program for photographers, print shops, graphical designers etc.

When Linux versions of these become available for Linux, the world will
shift. But at this time, these will lock their user base into Windows or >>> Mac.

Here's the kicker: Linux versions of either program will never be available. Anyone developing a product worth a damn has no idea whether it should be a Flatpak, a Snap, compiled from source, a .deb or an .rpm. Even if they get it right and go with Flatpak, the angry people running Linux desktops will protest and make them regret ever bothering with the operating system. It's happened numerous times before and it will happen again.

All you really need, is a business case.

So far, the business case the companies have received through the
whining of a great number of advocates is that if you port your software
to this platform, we will still demand the source so that we can
distribute your software freely. You can imagine why companies aren't
too keen. A few companies have done so anyway by releasing a Flatpak
with no source whatsoever, but I'm sure that the old problem still
scares a good number of companies away.

"How much can we make ?"

Not much since most of the users do not _expect_ to pay for anything.

"What will the devs to do this cost us ?"

More than you can ever expect to make. The best compromise would be to
produce software which can easily be run through Wine. Red Dead
Redemption 2 is a perfect example.

The technical details are for the devs to work out.

Yes, it's a chicken versus egg problem. But it
starts with the first derivative of the Linux growth rate.
Is the Linux transition moving quickly ?

No, but there is hope with people who stubbornly refuse to upgrade.

Are
"large forces on the landscape about to cut off our oxygen" ?

Those without a TPM chip seem to think so.

If the arithmetic of opportunity isn't there, then it
isn't going to happen. And precisely how much fevered corporate
activity do you see in general ? Are there companies who
are going to "take it all for themselves" ? Fear of Missing Out,
is a good driver for a transition. But as long as there
are no flags or lead indicators, it will be business as usual.

If companies in the 1980s couldn't see the point of porting over to the
Atari ST because of its limited user base, you can imagine why they
wouldn't care about Linux users.

< snip >

--
CrudeSausage
John 14:6
Isaiah 48:16

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Windows 12 could be the tipping point that finally pushes you to Linux - here's why

On Fri, 3/13/2026 10:21 AM, CrudeSausage wrote:

If companies in the 1980s couldn't see the point of porting over to the Atari ST because of its limited user base, you can imagine why they wouldn't care about Linux users.

< snip >

Porting software isn't that hard any more.

Porting badly written software is hard though.

Photoshop has always liked to do "custom" libraries
for things. They do their own "malloc" for example.
Not all of the Adobe shops, do things that way.
This makes it harder to do ports.

Paul



--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Windows 12 could be the tipping point that finally pushes you to Linux - here's why

On 2026-03-13 11:51 a.m., Paul wrote:

On Fri, 3/13/2026 10:21 AM, CrudeSausage wrote:

If companies in the 1980s couldn't see the point of porting over to the
Atari ST because of its limited user base, you can imagine why they wouldn't >> care about Linux users.

< snip >

Porting software isn't that hard any more.

Agreed. I notice that a few programs I use bundle a bunch of KDE
libraries with the software. If they're written in C, the task of
porting them over to Windows can't be that difficult.

Porting badly written software is hard though.

There's lots of that in the Linux world.

Photoshop has always liked to do "custom" libraries
for things. They do their own "malloc" for example.
Not all of the Adobe shops, do things that way.
This makes it harder to do ports.

Photoshop is never going to get a Linux native port. Nevertheless, there
are lots of people developing ways to run the latest Photoshop code
seamlessly within the operating system. If I'm not mistaken, they have produced a way to run the version from two or three years ago natively.

--
CrudeSausage
John 14:6
Isaiah 48:16

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Windows 12 could be the tipping point that finally pushes you to Linux - here's why

On Fri, 3/13/2026 7:27 AM, Tom Elam wrote:

On 3/11/26 7:17 PM, Joel W. Crump wrote:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-12-rumors-linux-migration/


It is clearly true that the "PC" era ends with Linux and Win11.

W11 pushed me to Apple Mac.

As a former Apple user, somehow I don't think this solves any problems as such. It's just a new set of problems. Here, have an HEVC and a HEIC we don't
need, they're "free". You would think the joy of spinning things
we don't need would have ceased in a world with standards but... well...

Paul


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: Windows 12 could be the tipping point that finally pushes you to Linux - here's why

On Fri, 3/13/2026 3:47 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:

On Wed, 11 Mar 2026 19:17:18 -0400, Joel W. Crump wrote:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-12-rumors-linux-migration/


It is clearly true that the "PC" era ends with Linux and Win11.

Sometimes I wonder if M$ is going to produce its own version of linux
(free with ads).

WSL2+WSLg with install-able third-party Linux works fine.

You can open the MicrosoftStore and search for Ubuntu and see examples.
There are other examples available, if you don't like that choice.
I see something similar to a Debian in the Store, but I don't know if it is an "official" version or simply a remix done by someone.

Installing WSL2 and WSLg is a moderate nuisance to install. Your
BIOS settings have to be correct for virtualization, and your
Windows Features have a few tick boxes that need to be asserted.
It would be about the same level of nuisance as installing VirtualPC
in the past.

When you use WSL2+WSLg, it uses root-less windows and ties into
Terminal Server to draw to the screen. For example, if I do this in Terminal

bash
firefox &

a single Firefox window appears on the W11 screen, and that is a Linux Firefox with a Linux user agent string sent to a web server.

If I do this:

glxgears

the max rate it can manage (via WSLg) is about 350 FPS with the right option, whereas
if Linux was running natively on this box, the number might be 10000 FPS.
The screen rendering via WSLg is likely relying on your CPU cores.

If you wanted to mess with that, you could try XMing (was used by users three days
after WSL1 was released). This would be your alternate graphics path option. You would need to set the DISPLAY variable appropriately for this to work.
This is how I got Linux Firefox running on WSL1 (which had no WSLg at the time).

https://www.uwyo.edu/data-science/resources/knowledge-base/x11-with-windows-subsystem-for-linux.html

Your OS components are stored in VHDX containers. There are some namespace tricks
for interworking (the automation can mount the VHDX and give access). I don't do anything fancy for the daily driver.

I dumped Adobe Acrobat Reader, because on every release they were
removing features. When they asked why I uninstalled it (feedback dialog),
I wrote them a note telling them what I thought of their bait and switch.
I have been using Okular in both WSL2 and okular.exe in Windows, since then. And cats even sleep with dogs now. If I want Acrobat, I can try version 9 on
my Win7 on the other machine.

Paul

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)