Those are generally caused by the database and how it’s implemented. It’s not really Linux fault if the company didn’t secure their servers against SQL injection and the likes.
Yeah. And it’s not like if every device with linux installed is comparable. It’s not because it’s the main OS installed on supercomputers that you should have it on your PC.
I mean, there are other reasons, but this one is wrong.
Also, Linux is not an operating system upon itself, but a kernel operating systems can be build upon. I don’t see the point of merging GNU and Android systems into one number.
This meme have sense for servers, but for mobile devices it’s so simplified that it’s wrong. 99% of mobile devices is also wrong, iOS does not use Linux kernel.
I came into it quite a bit later, but I’ve noticed a similar thing with programmers, despite the stereotype of “brogrammers” there are some pretty diverse pockets about
I LOVE The Net. Just rewatched it last year. Now I need to re-rewatch it from a queer lens. 👁👁
I was clueless to all the queerness in the media I consumed as a kid, so it’s pretty exciting to find a new source. I am curious what stood out to you in these movies as queer.
it’s really mostly just because she was basically everything i wanted to be as a closeted trans kid and sapphic kid :) also i literally watch while you were sleeping every christmas because i’m also a hopeless romantic :)
but also it’s legitimately a great movie from the lens of a woman being her own self and it’s pretty empowering too :)
I’m an architect and designer. I’ve tried switching to Linux on several occasions. Unfortunately you just can’t really CAD/CAM, 3d model for fabrication, or for architectural documentation in Linux. There’s also a lot of work I do with fabrication robots which further complicates matters. Finally, the creative tools on Linux are limited. It’s hard to find good software substitutes for things like after effects, InDesign, and figma. Rendering is also a pain; having to use blender as the intermediary adds a significant extra step to the process.
Also, anything having to interact with MS is a huge pain in the ass (specifically no onedrive support, which is what a lot of AEC firms have switched over to using in order to collaborate besides BIM360).
I tried to install ArchiCAD via bottles done time ago. At first I thought the DRM inhibits it but they even have native Linux support. And ArchiCAD does have a good MacOS version, too. I don’t get it…
The easiest way imo to “use Linux” is to start by running it as a virtual machine using virtualbox or free VMWare Workstation (free for one VM). That way, you can find what is useful or not for you in your Profession and go from there.
Yep AEC is a Windows world. I was tasked with building Revit Addins to leverage within the Design Automation API. Had to run it in virtualbox which was a ball ache. Eventually moved to parsec to desktop stream instead.
Shame IFC won’t take off. It’s so limited but at least the files are editable in a text editor. CAD and RVT are a database wrapped inside a binary file which is a holy mess if you load them into a DB viewer.
Need the EU to step in to pull some things away from Autodesk for Linux to have a chance.
In reality, the inertia is too much and AEC professionals are too entrenched in Windows tools since they do the job just fine.
While I personally deem Windows to be worth not much more than the sum of its software and hardware support, that is certainly an important factor for many. I would encourage many people to at least attempt to use Linux, as Microsoft’s monopoly on non-apple pcs is rather worrying, and they may even prefer Linux completely disregarding that factor, as I did, but you have clearly tried and figured out it doesn’t work for you. Depending on the distro Linux can satisfy developers, average computer users, at this point even many gamers, but creative support is clearly lacking and if you need it then that’s the final word on that.
While I encourage you to take another look in half a decade, or maybe a full one, please remember that people here on Lemmy are rather… preachy about Linux. So you’re gonna get backlash for that decision, no matter how much sense it makes. Please do not let that behavior taint your view of Linux as a whole <3
Or in other words: Every OS has its advantages, I’m happy you found the right one for you at the moment, do give Linux another shot eventually, but for now just ignore the people telling you you’re wrong or that there’s some kind of easy fix for your multitude of issues and don’t let that annoy you :3
Similar to interoperability between Apple’s services and Windows. iCloud exists for Explorer, but it is not well written. And there’s no iMessage, which is super annoying.
As far as your issues with Linux, sure. Software doesn’t exist for everything there is on Windows or Mac. For certain purposes though, like development in general or just as a general purpose desktop, I far prefer Linux.
Fair enough, but there’s tools like KiCAD that is used to fabricate the electronic systems of the LHC. And efforts with other tools like FreeCAD and LinuxCNC fill in the gap. And please dont under estimate the contributing power of Blender in the creative arts.
It’s been my primary desktop for about 7 years now, at least. Ubuntu + gnome, tweaked and extended a bit. It’s difficult to boot into windows even for gaming at this point.
Honestly, the only thing that’s keeping linux from taking over desktop is unreliable gaming experience. Most distros are already easy to install and use anyway. If it had a gaming experience as smooth as Windows it would be the norm.
This is such a bubbled and disconnected opinion from the greater global population. Please be aware of that fact and don’t let yourself get so bubbled again
Yeah exactly. The desktop stats are the way they are because of business machines mostly needing to run Ms Office. And no, open office etc is no substitute for excel. Yes maybe the most basic of spreadsheets but there are some monster sheets out there in most businesses which use excel only functionality.
I’d argue that those “monster sheets” should not be on excel, but they will figure that out once they have transitioned to the cloud and then their important stuff isn’t accessible one day.
You’re right but it would still be a significant enough jump that it would be noticeable, nothing crazy like doubling or tripling numbers but definitely noticeable. Out of my 4 close friends 3 of us would be on Linux if it wasn’t for games.
Nah, the real reason is that Linux doesn’t come pre-installed on new devices. The average user doesn’t even know that you can install a different operating system. This is a much larger hurdle than the gaming experience.
I know, why would I use a slovak website when I know the czech one exists (but yeah you had no way to tell if I knew, thanks for telling me either way)
In my experience, gaming in Linux works even better than on Windows. Every game I installed so far was supported by proton.
The main thing holding Linux back is professional software I think. If Photoshop and the likes are supported better, a lot of people will switch and find out that they also can play games on Linux.
OnlyOffice is mentioned so rarely but it has an UI much more resembling the ribbon based MS Office and in my experience a good compatibility with docx and xlsx files. Don’t know what’s happening when confronted with macro-monsters though.
It seems to format documents differently though. That means it scrambled a few files for a co-worker I sent it to who uses MS Office. Stuff like that never happens with LibreOffice although I like the OpenOffice UI better.
Ah thanks for letting me know. Scrambled sounds dire. Spreadsheets or documents?
Thought the devs nailed it pretty good. At least I never saw differences in my not overly complicated letter layouts when I opened them in MS Office.
Though I had your use-case just with a few rather simple spreadsheets I got from colleagues for me to modify and send back, they never complained.
Anyways I’m glad I don’t have to do with office products very often but I’ll look into OpenOffice as well. Looks indeed very good. Like a streamlined and modern MS Office without ribbons.
I get better game performance in Linux, but I still use Windows mostly due to CAD software (just like you’re saying). I hope those companies see the value in developing for Linux, but I’m not sure the statistics are there to convince them yet. Chicken/egg problem?
Don’t know about OP, but I have and do use FreeCAD regularly and it’s a fantastic piece of software - in it’s current form it’s not suitable for use a lot of professional engineering setups.
I’ve used Freecad for a few projects. It’s definitely usable, but the learning curve is really steep, even for someone who already knows other CAD. I don’t think the workflow/features are there yet for being able to use it professionally in most cases. It feels much more like an engineering tool than an industrial design tool, which is part of why I hold that opinion.
That’s not my experience at all. Most people I know who say they can’t use Linux do so because of professional software. Games on Linux have come a long way and unless you insist ob playing windows-only games, you have more games for a Linux than you could play in a lifetime.
Even for games only released for Windows, with proton most of them work, its games with hardware tied intrusive DRM that are most of the ones that have any issue, and honestly, I have no issue boycotting that shit
most games work but have minor annoying issues, even native linux versions.
for example celeste has broken steam overlay (linux native game!!!) if running on amd gpus
Nah although I agree that Linux is a huge sleeping giant, Microsoft systems in general still have a huge hold over quite a lot of things, and also does a good job of providing business as whole to a variety of sub groups, everyone that runs engineering software, antivirus software, hell, SQL databases, even the dating apps, and the creators of spywares, all these things work with Microsoft et al for money, if they had to switch over to using Linux, they would find the same ways they do today to make money, you would see huge increases in use of one common desktop and window manager package, spyware, hacking tools, targeting Qt, supply chain hacking and diversion, gitlab DDOSing, etc.
The reality is that all of these things are things that Microsoft and partners has already had to consider and deal with, so if Ubuntu or Arch were to step into the mainstream marketplace even with OEM support, they would have to face the same scrutiny and problems which someone would eventually expect to have to get paid for to resolve it help out with.
This isn’t even remotely accurate. The average person isn’t a PC gamer.
The reason is because for the average person, Windows “works”. It works with the applications they know, it looks and acts like they remember, they can get it repaired, and there is zero incentive to change.
Furthermore, Linux isn’t as user-friendly as Windows on the desktop. The average user doesn’t give a fuck about the terminal, privacy, ads, or any of the shit other people care about.
When someone creates a distro that has 99% support for all Windows applications, zero maintenance, no need to ever touch a terminal or change a config file, and comes preinstalled on the crappy machines they buy from the supermarket, then Linux has a chance.
“the norm” part isn’t accurate, but if it could match gaming performance/compatibility I know a lot of people who would switch. Myself included.
And seeing as how 2% isn’t a very large percentage (but I think the number of gamers who are sick of windows, or have privacy concerns is quite large), I think it would be a notable increase in the userbase.
Even an increase to 2.5% market share is a 25% boost. A lot of products would be very excited indeed to boost their market share by 25%.
It might even light a tiny, tiny fire under Microsoft that they can’t just keep being shit with no consequences.
The average user does not use a variety of apps either. All they need is a browser, a rich text editor, a simple image editor, a video player and maybe a messenger. All but the browser can be effectively substituted by web apps nowadays, so the browser is pretty much the only thing they really need. But then, they’re better off with a chromebook, as it doesn’t offer as much options to brick itself.
Numerous times I’ve heard Linux Mint be referred to as exactly this! :)
The funny part is some distros like that are perfect for the other extreme that basically just needs a browser and maybe a way to write letters or print things.
Mint is very GUI-heavy and tries to keep itself out of the box and simple to maintain while staying out of the way.
…and tech support scammers have no idea what “a linux” is half the time, for added benefit. Lol
IMO Mint is more “Your Mum Can’t Brick This”. I wouldn’t hand it over to my grandma and expect to not get a call in the future saying it’s all gone to shit 😂
Ahh you have one of those truly destructive force-of-nature grandmas that no UX can stop from working over a system until it begs for a complete reformat!
I feel for you <3
… Maybe keep a remote access service like RustDesk handy if she’s more than a few miles away then. 😆
… And install with BTRFS and Timeshift rollbacks.
Haha but I’ve seen it posted multiple times: “I set them up with it and my phone stops ringing for tech support calls and they’re happy with it!” haha. Some like to learn, some don’t sadly.
But YMMV, depending on the appetite for chaos wielded by one’s particular gran-gran. XD
OSS rich text editors work, but then you send out the document to someone who has Word and they complain about the formatting since it doesn’t translate some times. Messenger app experience usually goes “Native Windows > Web app > Linux”, at least in the few corporate I used. Stuff like Lark not even being up to date with their web app and Telegram having strange interactions with some window managers.
It works and I gotten people to use raspberry pi instead of their windows computers, but it just feels very unpolished overall.
And then there’s the whole package/flatpack/snap/cosmopolitan thing
When someone creates a distro that has 99% support for all Windows applications
This seems to be a common misunderstanding.
It’s not that Linux doesn’t support Windows applications, it’s that the developers of those applications chose to only support Windows. They are different OSes that require executables targeting the platform.
Expecting Linux to run .exes built for Windows is like expecting the sea to support your car
And yet, Linux desktop users insist that it’s a viable consumer OS instead of accepting that they’re using an industrial OS not well suited for the average desktop user.
Well aware, but Mint also isn’t broadly consumer ready. It’s ready for power users who don’t mind going into a command line occasionally, or people who have their whole machine locked down and administered by someone else.
Android’s a pretty big fork of desktop Linux, and it’s not even that usable without Google Play Services, nor is it particularly usable as a desktop operating system.
it absolutely fits the second part of that sentence:
OS not well suited for the average desktop user
You’re literally just getting hung up on the word industrial and making a pointless semantic argument. Android also isn’t a viable consumer OS without the closed source Google Play Services bundle
The fact that Android is not an “industrial OS” proves that Linux is not just an “industrial OS”. The fact that Android is an “OS not well suited to the average desktop user” does not prove that a Linux is an “OS not well suited to the average desktop user”, so of course I didn’t use it to prove that point.
Even so, you seem to take issue with the point that I did make. Is it, or is it not, “an industrial OS”? They’re your words, don’t come complaining to me because you chose them poorly.
Android also isn’t a viable consumer OS without the closed source Google Play Services bundle
This is patently false. The fact that Google Play isn’t even available in one of Android’s biggest markets, China, should have been a clue.
Bonus:
The average desktop user seems to be digging those newfangled Chromebooks. What say you about those devices?
Would you consider BSD to be “an industrial OS not suited for the average desktop user?” Because, cards on the table, the BSD and Linux kernels are quite similar in the grand scheme of things, and one of them has a 17% desktop/laptop market share.
maybe normal users should just get over it, and use the command line once in a while. its really not as hard as people make it out to be, if youre just running basic commands.
you do realize that people can learn new things. im tired of treating people as clueless ‘consumers’ who just ‘arent tech savvy’. learn the basics of how to use a computer, such as copy/paste, and know how to troubleshoot. thats all im asking.
this wouldnt be too big of a problem if it were something like switching people from ubuntu to arch, or xorg to wayland (as examples of intra-community arguments). but the alternative to linux (for consumers) is windows or mac, which are actively harmful to our society. its not just a matter of linux being easier, faster, simpler, more extensible, or anything, although it is. its about people understanding what corporations are using them for, and the common sense to recognize this.
I know and use Linux as a desktop. I constantly switch back to Windows because Linux flaws aren’t worth my time. It’s not about clueless consumers. It’s about not dealing with an os that actively makes it harder to use your computer than the competition.
And the rest of society is tired of nerds saying garbage like “why doesn’t every single consumer spend a week taking a training course to learn how to use my crappy UX” instead of spending the time to make an intuitive UX that doesn’t need a week long training course.
How about, no. I want my computer to work for me. I don’t want to work for my computer. This is why the majority of programmers out there, people who clearly can use the command line, use Windows.
I barely have to use the commandline, that’s more for power users. And that’s on Arch (after configuring everything the way I want). On distros like Mint it’s not even necessary after a fresh install. I used to help people with their pc, and to my surprise I came across Linux Mint multiple times, at older people no less.
How is it not? You never have to go in a terminal 99% of the time (and on Windows there are those cases as well). The only reasons I use the terminal is either to edit my Nix Flake and rebuild switch, which is only because I use NixOS and would not be required on Mint, to use Distrobox, which wouldn’t be needed on Mint as 90% of Linux app are either Deb Packages, Flatpaks or Appimages or simply because I find it easier to do some power-user stuff in there. But for the average user on Mint, they wouldn’t even need to touch the terminal.
exe, msi, sh… It’s honestly not very difficult to get the difference between debs and other formats, and you don’t have to either. You open the app store or download a .deb from a webpage and you’re done.
There’s bits where Linux is too fragmented, but for most distros with a good appstore setup, this flat out isn’t one of them.
I switched recently and it took a while to be a ‘power user’ again, but the mainstream functionality works and makes sense about the same as Windows.
Yeah if anything it’s more “consumer friendly” than Windows!
“Oh hey we forced another update on you…anyway can you find the tiny ‘skip for now’ link on like 10 ads before we let you use your property we’re running on? Or you can just do yourself a favor and click on the big bold ‘please daddy Microsoft take care of it all here’s my credit card and I want more ads’ buttons on your way. That’d be great!”
If my 80 year old tech illiterate grandma can use a windows laptop to check her emails and use amazon then it’s user friendly enough. I genuinely shudder at the thought of trying rk coach her through setting up Linux.
Through setting up?! Oh I’m going to get nightmares now!
I just meant “Hey, here’s a computer, that’s the Internet button, there’s a repository app store with free programs, and occasionally you can click update when it says so and have a nice ol’ time.”
Using something like Mint or Elementary to set up a nice padded play pen. XD
Yeah I’m just against invasive commercialization, I don’t envision or encourage trying to move towards “Granny uses Arch btw”
If the average user has to interact with a command line interface, EVER, as anything but a truly desperate last resort, with someone holding their hand the whole way through, they’re probably gonna give up and never wanna look back.
A lot of people barely know how to copy and paste, or don’t even know what the phrase “right click” means.
When I did some work from home training a year ago, I looked like a goddamn wizard for knowing how to manage browser tabs and put folders on my bookmarks bar.
TLDR: It needs to just work for people that don’t know jack shit about using a computer, which in a lot of cases it just doesn’t.
Sure, Mint (and other distros) do exactly that. But the installation part will always be out of reach for most users. That part is scary to them. Ergo we need beginner friendly distros preinstalled on devices to get a higher market share.
I helped my neighbor “fix/restore” her computer… which she had already paid someone to backup her files and clean. I showed her how to plug in her external hdd to access her documents, re-signed into her mail client, and re-installed MS Office. And that was pretty much it
While she was looking for her MSOffice product key, I did a quick “systeminfo” in the command prompt; I was just curious about her hardware. She saw the terminal and of course made the comment of “you must be a programmer”… I absolutely am not. I have literally gotten to printf (“Hello, World!”) in C and moved on to another hobby lol
Some people really just don’t mess with computers at all. Of course it seems silly from my perspective to not know how an external hdd works, but I mean… there’s plenty of silly shit I don’t know either. Doesn’t matter, she was stoked to have her system back up like she wanted. But yeah, that was my most recent encounter with someone who really struggled with computers. No shame, cause she surely knows a lot about some stuff that I’m clueless about.
I did install Firefox with ublock just for my own use while I was there, because I refused to use Edge. Maybe she’ll keep it
Not only are there people who don’t mess with computers. There are also people who are just never online. They don’t have internet or even a smartphone to speak of.
They live in a different reality compared to us techies. And they get around just fine.
And no, I am not just talking about the Amish, but people we encounter in our daily lives.
They can be wood workers, plumbers, mechanics even welders, and not ever touch a computer in their lives.
Linuxians need to remember to get out of their bubble sometimes, big parts of the world don’t revolve around computers.
I find this differentiation difficult. Most companies run Windows computers in their non IT office functions. The ones that don’t mostly use Mac OS.
Given that any reasonable company IT is not allowing any User modifications on the systems and distributes white listed applications only, it would be perfectly viable to run Linux on every company computer. If something is broken, the User would call IT or write a ticket. No sane IT department lets 55 year old Jane from accounting anywhere near a command prompt.
Customizeability does not make an OS “industrial”. 99% of the Users in an industry setting are not supposed to customize anything on their computer aside from maybe the desktop background.
Most companies allow users to customize their machines however they want outside of a few restricted and locked down settings.
Hell I’m looking at a laptop issued to me by one of the world’s largest automotive companies and I can change any setting I want outside of some specific security settings.
What point are you trying to make? That if I can’t customize absolutely everything on it, then being able to customize most things without using the command line isn’t valuable?
The point i am trying to make is that you are not being allowed to do any of these, if the company has any reasonable security in place.
So the settings you can change are things anyone can change on a windows machines just as easily using the GUI. So customizeability by the end user is not a characteristic that makes an OS “industrial”. Linux distros are not “industrial” because they are customizeable by the end user and most companies run windows computers outside the IT and backend, even though a linux system could do the same without any problem for the end user.
I never claimed that Linux was industrial because it can be changed by the end user, I claimed that it’s industrial because there are basic things that any normal power user would want to do that can only be done via command line.
Tbf if Linux is already installed and running on the computer you really don’t need to use the CLI at all now. And if Windows isn’t installed on the computer your average user couldn’t figure out either. This is more a matter of Windows usually coming pre-installed and configured.
This is all very true, but I feel like the society has also failed to properly teach basic IT to the general population. Personal computers are a massively used tool in today’s everyday life and work. It deeply concerns me that even the “tech generation”, i.e. gen z I guess, generally don’t even understand what files and directories are. Generic boomers are even worse because they just never learned anything, even touch screen UIs. These people can just about get by now, but I’m not so sure anymore when we go forward a decade or two when we rely on IT services more and more.
I feel like there was a very short window where PCs were just easy enough to use that most people had one, but the OS experience was just complex enough, with things breaking frequently enough, that you had to learn some basics out of necessity.
Like , I’m a 100% not an IT guy - but I know all sorts of shit that seems like it should be common knowledge, but isn’t. Any time I manage to get something in our IT and software environment functioning at work, or explain the chain of events to some catastrophe based on evidence in our software logs, and I get talked about like some kind of wunderkind, it is frustrating more than anything else.
I’m not some IT genius, I’m your average asshole who knows some basics about the tools we use in 99.9% of the work we do. Chances are if there were more of said assholes we wouldn’t run into the problems I address in the first place. But admittedly, perhaps some of that knowledge/ability to think that way comes from having to figure out shit like why my DOS game wouldn’t work in 1995, or what the fuck that purple monkey Mom downloaded a few years later was actually doing.
Ugh - sorry, this turned into a rant, this kind of shit has been top of mind recently…
Yeah, I am kinda the opposite - I’m halfway through a master’s in software engineering and I work in the field, using Linux at work and Windows on my own PC.
Still, as I never use e.g. Word or other office programs I don’t know jack shit about them. But as one of the family “computer guys” I am constantly asked to help with stuff that I rarely use or even have never used before. If they had the ability to think in the correct way, like how you just mentioned you do, they would be able to resolve at least 70% of the problems pretty effortlessly. Society definitely needs to teach these basics better so that people could just google their problem and deal with it.
I feel like this is a good time to point out that Linux is but the kernel. There are server-focused distros, there are consumer-focused distros. Linux supports them all; it isn’t really industrial in itself.
That’s because it is a perfectly viable consumer os. At least the distros are, Linux is just the kernel. What makes a distro an industrial os? I wouldn’t use Arch for industrial purposes. So no, I won’t accept that I use an industrial os, because it isn’t.
Because it is. What is an “industrial OS” anyway? Also it’s important to remember that “Linux” is just a kernel (the software that acts as a “bridge” between the rest of the OS and the hardware). Android is Linux, Ubuntu is Linux, Arch is Linux, Debian is Linux, Slackware is Linux, etc. And yet those are vastly different OSes. You would maybe run Ubuntu, Debian or RHEL on a server (which maybe you could consider industrial). But you would never use Arch or Android on a server. Android is the most popular mobile OS, would you consider that industrial? And for the desktop, the average user would use something like Ubuntu, Linux Mint or Fedora. But you’d never use the graphical version of those on the server and I don’t think they would be considered industrial OSes.
A non-consumer focused OS. One focused on serving commercial industry.
So anyway, what’s your point exactly?
I’ve never once been able to setup a Linux distro, and walk through my normal steps of customizing settings the way I’d like and installing the basic programs I need to do office work, without at some point running into instructions that tell you to use the command line. I’m a professional programmer and have no issue with that, but I’m also someone capable of understanding where the average human being is at technology wise and recognize that would be a non-starter for them.
A non-consumer focused OS. One focused on serving commercial industry.
Linux was actually developed as a (kernel for a) desktop OS. It doesn’t focus on the server or the desktop, distros do that.
What distros did you try and when? In 2023, you can totally set up Ubuntu or Linux Mint without using the terminal. Obviously for “power-user” settings you might need to use the terminal or edit config files, but just as regular users cannot do those things, they also don’t need that functionality.
Linux has purpose built distros for pretty much anything. It’s not that you’re wrong, you prolly just tried and are talking abt something that didn’t fit you. Try Mint or something.
I see this stat a lot and it has to be a majority of web servers. I just don’t believe that most servers aren’t running windows. I’ve worked with so many companies large and small as a consultant and the amount of Linux servers in production that aren’t just web servers or load balancers is just miniscule. If you were to search on a job board for a sysadmin job managing Linux servers you have to look for a completely different job title “Linux sysadmin” because nine times out of ten “Sysadmin” means your environment is at least 80% Windows Server.
My experience in the industry is very tangential, but your argument seems sound. Tons of intranet stuff is based on Exchange, and while IIS market share is minuscule, web servers are a pretty small part of “servers” as a whole.
In what universe does Linux run on 99% of mobile devices? Android is nowhere near 99% market share, and iPhones are not and never have been based on Linux.
pretty sure they weren’t talking about smart phones exclusively:
mobile device ≠ smart phone
could be anything from smart watches, to portable gaming, to health trackers/monitors, baby monitors, etc.
when you add everything up, it’s probably somewhere around 75-85%
although i tried to search for a better number than a guesstimate and…yeah that’s borderline impossible; all the results get spammed with smart phone OS numbers and google thinks it’s smart to ignore search parameters…
maybe someone with better google-fu can get a better number: i just took the average smart phone number and added a couple percent on top.
99% is an exaggeration, but 75-85% sounds about right!
especially once you factor in things like raspberries and other small IoT devices, which could reasonably fall under “mobile” devices…but then the definition of “mobile” gets murky…
The difference is that with permissive licenses everyone can take any amount of code, add literally whatever and make it all proprietary. This way, things like MacOS, as well as gaming console firmware for example, were made.
Licenses like GPL don’t allow you to do that - if you borrow anything GPL, you have to make your creation open-source, or else a juicy lawsuit awaits you, technically on copyright basis. For example, Android as a base OS is open-source simply because it uses code from Linux kernel, and the latter is licensed under GPLv2.
The latter is superior since it propagates the open-source code by forcing everyone who used the free code to share their code as well. This proved to be very useful with even corporations having their hands tied into showing the code, ensuring transparency and security for everyone.
GPL is one-way compatible with Apache - that is, you can license programs made with GPL code under Apache, the latter being open-source, even though permissive.
Yes, but it wouldn’t be accurate to say the entire device is. There are multiple pieces of software that are in use on modern Android phones, and some are under copyleft licenses while some pieces are proprietary. opensource.samsung.com
They’re both free software licences (i.e. you can get the source code for for BSD licenced software and GPL licenced software that you’re using at no extra charge and modify it as you please). The GPL licence has an additional restriction for developers that says if you use any GPL code in your codebase, your entire codebase must also be GPL or some other compatible open source licence.
This means that if I made some code parses a file format and another developer includes that code in their program to support that file format, they’re now forced to licence their whole codebase with a similar licence to the GPL. If it was BSD then they would only have to mention that they used my BSD licenced code and include a copy of that licence. A user would then be able to go and see my original code that was used, but not the rest of that application’s code or any modifications that the application author made to my code. Because the GPL is too restrictive for most developers here, there’s a version of the GPL called the LGPL which is often used for code meant to be used by other programs which is closer to the BSD licence but additionally requires that if they modify your code, they must also share that modified code.
I usually use a licence in the middle called the MPL (Mozilla Public Licence), which is similar to the LGPL but has a few things I prefer and has the advantage for me of not being connected to the FSF and GNU project.
I prefer copyleft licenses too, but I really like BSD for servers and raspberry PIs. Very stable, modern packages, modern versions of security relevant packages like openSSH.
I think it’s a bit disingenuous for them to claim mobile dominance when android isn’t really anything resembling a typical Linux operating system anymore. Just the fact that it’s owned by Google should basically disqualify it immediately.
Yes, it’s technically correct but functionally it’s meaningless
Edit: yes, I understand Android is built on Linux. Please read the other comments before lecturing me about it. The point is that when somebody says “I primarily use Linux“ they are almost never talking about using android. I’ve literally never heard Android included in a conversation about booting and using Linux. Again, yes, I know it is a Linux based system.
I disagree. Linux is a kernel, and Android uses and develops its features to a great extent.
It’s very different to GNU though, and this confusion is why calling it GNU+Linux makes sense.
It definitely doesn’t have the vibe of most Linux-based operating systems, but I’d say it’s functionally very similar. Most Linux software will run just fine on Android, including X.org and Wayland apps, since you can just run X/Wayland servers.
I don’t think I have ever met somebody who when they said “I use Linux” meant they were using android. Anecdotal of course so feel free to dismiss I guess. It’s just kind of odd to me.
Even though Google is developing Android it is open source and you can run it without Google. I believe projects like LineageOS and GrapheneOS would continue development with the existing code base if that ever changed. But yeah, personally, I still would love to see a Linux phone that does not rely on Google which is why I appreciate the efforts of the likes of Pine64.
Nobody in this thread seems to be discussing kernels - but rather talk about Linux distros. While GNU userland still dominates most distros, most of the rust replacements seems to be mit or bsd-like licenses. Like the coreutils
The license doesn’t say whether it’s part of the GNU project.
The existence of other Unix-likes (GNU-likes? :D) or program implementations doesn’t play a major role here, as Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, etc all use GNU userland. The distinction feels like bike-shedding.
Your first sentence actually reenforced my point.
There’s no requirement from the kernel that the userland is GPL. It’s by chance - and replaceable. Like with Android - there’s not much left of gnu userland there afaik. If you look at end user devices this makes up the bulk of devices running the Linux kernel.
Looking at today’s landscape of Linux development, replacements for userland is likely to be rust code. The majority of this code is MIT or BSD licensed. The coreutils implementation was an example of this. It’s not GNU licensed.
Personally I feel part of what makes a linux distro a linux distro is community, if more android devs regarded it as linux there would be a good chance many others would
The android development may be led by google, but it’s still FOSS Software. And if Linux ever breaks into the consumer market, this is pretty much what it will look like. Some big manufacturer will pre install it and add their own bloatware
iOS is not, it’s running apples version of BSD. Sort of related to Linux, which is where OPs misunderstanding probably comes from, but definitely not Linux.
A piece of software that is the core of each operating system which handles tasks like talking to hardware, scheduling tasks, allocating resources etc.
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