Linux is growing in popularity amongst gamers, thanks almost exclusively to Steam…
https://overclock3d.net/news/software/linux-use-hits-an-all-time-high-on-steam-passing-5-user-share/
Of course the headline figure is still tiny, only 5% of users, but the fact it’s more than doubled in just 2 years is interesting. Microsoft is pissing off people who now have a viable alternative.
Meanwhile Palantir embeds itself within the NHS!
I got teed off paying MS for Office 365 or whatever it’s called. Apache is an open source alternative which I now use instead.
Claude … Does Adobe Lightroom work on Linux OS? 13:08
No, Adobe Lightroom does not officially support Linux. Adobe only releases Lightroom for Windows and macOS. 
I guess it’s in the interests of major European users of IT - gov depts, big biz etc - to ditch MS if they can. If there’s a simple and effective way to get personal users out of it, so much the better. I have a couple of spare/redundant laptops. I guess I should try to educate myself on Linux asap.
I moved to Linux Mint simply because I had a perfectly good PC that would no longer be supported by Windows.
I still subscribe as it’s a cheap way to get 5TB of storage.
Does anyone know if you can get something like, exact audio copy, on Linux, please?
Yes, multiple tools both command line and gui.
Look at “asunder” Asunder: Home
Thanks Billy, I’ll pass that on to OH, he needs to upgrade his pc but if he can use Linux instead that will make him happy!
Practicalities and the fact that work is 100% M$ on the desktop means I can’t quite eliminate Windows but my desktop is Linux, my servers, and my routers are all Linux based.
I think M$ has shot itself in the foot a little here, for most people a PC which is five or six years old is perfectly good enough for the daily tasks that they want to do with a PC. Heck the laptop that I leave in France is an Intel 4th gen chip so at least ten years old and it is still “fast enough” for lightweight use. I have moved virtually nothing to W11 even where hardware supports it and have little in the way of intention to do so.
I see that Google is moving to exploit it with Chrome OS Flex, so that you can install ChromeOS on older machines. I inherited my father’s Chromebook when he shuffled off and I really quite like it though it does have a few foibles to get used to.
I guess why Microsoft moved to trying to get people who’d already purchased their product, to pay continuing “rental fees” in various ways like the 365 produucts, is because when the market is expanding then your R&D costs for new versions and support for products previously sold are paid by the new incoming users.
But when the market is saturated and everyone has a software setup they can live with then suddenly you’ve got to work out how to fund new development and some of the support needs for people who’ve bought your product and found defects etc (at a minimum).
Hence for the past x years MS has held corporates to ransom and tried, but largely failed, to extract rental money from personal users.
Like any other product I think they have to cost in and define support and for major new products they need to do a financial plan, risk assessment, marketing plan and raise money that they hope will pay off in, basically, injtial product sales just like everyone else has to do with other products.
Haven’t ever felt the need to play - to a certain extent it is Android for the desktop - a Linux kernel on which is layered a propitiatory user space.
Which I find slightly problematic as it hides the free/libre and open source messaging that should be there.
For me, I don’t actually want to get rid of Microsoft, but rather what I want is something that works with me and doesn’t continually either report to the mother ship or foist AI stuff on me, plus works without too much bloat. I find apple’s OS worse for its opacity and inflexibility, although their hardware seems much better right now. In the end I just want a system that does what I need and reliably. I’m no fan of Microsoft, but having owned a MacBook I like Apple much less.
Chinese hardware - pretty much universal right now - is a concern, not least because hardware can be set up to work independently of the OS to report home or control your computer. But no other country is going to make components at an acceptable price point in the near future, and if they did then should ask questions about how they could do so.
Flex isn’t even that. It’s entirely cloud based and has no access to the app store.
So - the return of the thin client?
I think it’s pretty easy to say let’s ditch microsoft and move to linux - one has to factor in the support, maintenance, training needs that companies/governments will incur and the costs of all these - not that much of a big problem for individuals. Also, not sure what this will buy us in terms of independance from the US - better to find ways of ousting Trump even if it takes several years. The US used to have fairly robust checks and balances but these seem to have disappeared…
It’s that that has surprised me most, dumbfounded me in fact. I get that Trump was elected, it is a democracy after all. I can even get the why of people voting for him. He wouldn’t have been my choice but that’s neither here nor there. But a dictator was not elected. I really don’t get how he’s been able to wield an axe in the manner that he has. I’m frankly stunned that a system of checks and balances hasn’t been able to curtail, or at least hamper, his worst excesses. Or maybe it has? What a shuddering thought.
An analogy I’ve just read likens the it to an aircraft carrier. It’ll take time to slow and turn the ship, such is the momemtum. It’ll start with the midterms, and the hope that they’ll show voters turning against Trumpism.
The founding fathers somewhat anticipated a rogue president - what they did not make provision for was a rouge president backed by a corrupt party.
More orange than rouge
They were more worried by Perfidious Albion trying to game the system, hence the electoral college system instead of a FPTP system like the UK has.
The USA isn’t a democracy, it’s a Constitutional Republic.