An operating system that runs on millions of different hardware configurations is not a service. It can’t be updated as easily, and you’ll run into issues with hardware, drivers, and software when you change things. The upgrade process isn’t instant and transparent—it’s a big download and can take a while to install.
Tag Archives: desktop
Global PC shipments grew 1.4% in Q2 2018, first increase in 6 years
Gartner estimates that worldwide PC shipments grew 1.4 percent to 62.1 million units in Q2 2018. The top five vendors were Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple, and Acer. Lenovo in particular saw big gains (its highest growth rate since the first quarter of 2015), although that’s largely due in part to the inclusion of units from its joint venture with Fujitsu.
Source: Gartner: Global PC shipments grew 1.4% in Q2 2018, first increase in 6 years | VentureBeat
Desktop OS market share 2013-2018
This statistic shows the operating system market share worldwide on Desktop PCs 2013-2018. In February 2018, the OS market share of the Windows operating system range was at 82.55 percent.
PC market shows signs of recovery
IDC expects PC vendors to ship a total of 258.2 million units this year, a figure which would be 6.4 percent lower than last year. The previous estimate was a 7.2 percent fall, which IDC announced in August. Growth will still be negative in 2017, but shipments are expected to decrease by just 2.6 percent compared to this year.
SteamOS will “really help” Linux on desktop
Should SteamOS gain traction among gamers and developers, that could force more hardware manufacturers to extend driver support beyond Windows
via Torvalds: SteamOS will “really help” Linux on desktop | News | PC Pro.
Amen. Getting NVIDIA graphic drivers working is a mind boggling exercise and must be redone with every kernel upgrade. This is one of the reasons I rarely upgrade Fedora — it’s too complicated getting video drivers working well enough to the point a video can be played and the desktop environment looks right.
Open source desktop lowers TCO by 40%
In 2011, the Gendarmerie added 20,000 Ubuntu desktops, and in 2012 added another 10,000. This year, it added 2000 so far. Between March and June of 2013, the police force also performed an update of Ubuntu, upgrading to version 12.04 from 10.04, over its network. “This January, the last constraints will disappear, and we will replace the last proprietary desktop PCs by Ubuntu.”
via French Gendarmerie: “Open source desktop lowers TCO by 40%” | Joinup.
Windows: It’s over
Perhaps most of our computing will move to the cloud, but you know what device we’ll still be using for most of our interactions? It will be a PC, simply because it’s easier to enter data with a real keyboard than any other interface.
Intel to leave desktop motherboard business by 2016
Intel will continue rolling out desktop motherboards that are currently in production, in addition to the fourth-generation Haswell desktop boards that are in the design and development phase and due to be released later this year. These products will have a typical lifecycle of about 18 months, said the Intel spokeswoman, adding that Intel customers will continue to be supported with a full warranty during that time.
via Intel to leave desktop motherboard business by 2016 | ZDNet.
The way I read this it’s just the motherboards themselves, not the chips included in desktop motherboards.
Main Linux problems or Why Linux is not (yet) Ready for the Desktop, 2012 edition
In this document we only discuss main Linux problems and deficiencies while everyone should keep in mind that there are areas where Linux has excelled other OSes (excellent package management, usually excellent stability, no widely circulating viruses/malware, complete system reinstallation is not required, free as a beer).
This is not a Windows vs. Linux comparison however sometimes I make comparisons to Windows or MacOS as the point of reference (after all their market penetration is in an order of magnitude higher).
via Main Linux problems or Why Linux is not (yet) Ready for the Desktop, 2012 edition.
QubesOS
Qubes is an open source operating system designed to provide strong security for desktop computing. Qubes is based on Xen, X Window System, and Linux, and can run most Linux applications and utilize most of the Linux drivers. In the future it might also run Windows apps. [more]
via Home.
Architecture page here.
Qubes lets the user define many security domains implemented as lightweight Virtual Machines (VMs), or “AppVMs”. E.g. user can have “personal”, “work”, “shopping”, “bank”, and “random” AppVMs and can use the applications from within those VMs just like if they were executing on the local machine, but at the same time they are well isolated from each other. Qubes supports secure copy-and-paste and file sharing between the AppVMs, of course.