Linux has over 6% of the desktop market

[UCyborg]

Someone installed it 3 years ago on their distro with KDE and it apparently just worked.

https://old.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/xc8c5e/how_is_it_that_the_running_kde_with_compiz_yields/

Guess I assumed it'd be more complicated. Though looks like it is on current Cinammon.

[Night Wing]

I have been surfing YouTube today on a number of topics such as longboard surfing, standup paddleboarding (sup) which includes surfing waves with a sup, field archery, saltwater fishing, flounder gigging and "linux".

I ran across this video today and it has a lot of good information in it on why Windows 11 is basically helping Linux gain market share. The one thing I do not agree with in this video is the promotion of "Wine" for running windows only programs on linux. From my own experimentation with Wine, it is "hit or miss" if you get my drift.

As for the comment on maybe "The Year Of The Linux Desktop" might be at the end of 2026, that might be a stretch, but not a far stretch. With the strides Linux is making in our small town where I live computing wise and worldwide, the "year of linux" might be at the end of 2027. Just a guess on my part.

But getting back on topic. The video is a good look see for someone who is contemplating on making the move from Windows to Linux. Just like I did back in January of 2013.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCTEoYTKoS0

[moonbat]

Can you get Compiz working on something other than MATE these days?

Worked great for me when i was on Mint XFCE.

[frostknight]

I have been surfing YouTube today on a number of topics such as longboard surfing, standup paddleboarding (sup) which includes surfing waves with a sup, field archery, saltwater fishing, flounder gigging and "linux".

I ran across this video today and it has a lot of good information in it on why Windows 11 is basically helping Linux gain market share. The one thing I do not agree with in this video is the promotion of "Wine" for running windows only programs on linux. From my own experimentation with Wine, it is "hit or miss" if you get my drift.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCTEoYTKoS0

proton from SteamOS

or winboat are more likely to be good if I had to guess but even they probably have their flaws.

[UCyborg]

WINE can be useful, especially for software that isn't too convoluted.

Messing with Linux Mint in recent times, I installed latest stable WINE 11.0 on it today. Then decided to try one very specific program on it, VCDS. It required one specific geeky Linux skill, adding udev rule for the program to have access to diagnostics interface (HEX-V2 in my case) over USB. But other than that, it went smoothly. Even updated the firmware on the interface, which survived without getting bricked in the process.

It's a bit slower compared to running it on Windows, eg. windows being populated with larger number of measurable values exposed by various control modules take couple more seconds to populate. With my specific laptop, scanning my specific car model, it took 1 min 20 s to scan all control modules for fault codes. On Windows 10, it takes exactly 1 minute.

It's cool seeing that kind of software running on Linux.

[solitude]

Messing with Linux Mint in recent times, I installed latest stable WINE 11.0 on it today. Then decided to try one very specific program on it, VCDS.

I almost mistook that name for VSDC https://www.videosoftdev.com/, a video editor I remember using years ago on Windows 7.

[Mæstro]

When I migrated to Linux, I had confirmed that my visual novels all ran in Wine. All of them worked on Windows 2000 and up, so I faced no difficulties here. Since I have got Virtualbox 6 working with sound in 2025, I have instead been using an XP virtual machine for any Windows software which has interested me. One casual game from 2001 which I tried, Snake Arena: Special Edition, sets the colour depth to 16-bit, which created lag in Virtualbox, but ran properly in Wine after toggling some monitor settings until I came to the final level in its first game mode of two, which needed to be completed before unlocking the other mode. Beating the final level in the first mode failed to unlock the other as was intended. I have not attempted to diagnose this further, but is remarkable as the only time that I have ever encountered errors with Wine (4·0).

[UCyborg]

VCDS worked on XP for a long time and likely still does, so along with your visual novels, they may not be the best to stress test WINE. Although that 20 seconds difference I observed is not insignificant IMO. Could modern hardware on the more expensive side just brute forces its way through and minimize these differences? I also realize my choice to support AMD at the time rather than already well-off big bad Intel has consequences[*]. Though, I'm not even sure if expensive hardware helps Pale Moon much when it comes to handling heavy sites.

There are people that report WINE ran their games with same or better performance than Windows. I've yet to observe that. There was always some hit, even if small in the best case scenario. A lot of success reported these days is thanks to DXVK. But I was told for pre-Vulkan GPUs, things aren't better than in the bad old days. But for certain buggy games, there may be differences where they crash or not crash, compared to Windows. One amusing example of programming error, certain plane disappeared from GTA: San Andreas with Windows 11 24H2.

I wonder if any current version of Firefox or Chromium even launches on WINE. Stock versions are Win10 exclusive. What's the point? They use a lot of WIN32 API calls.

[*] That remark is more applicable to desktop computer of mine as I have that laptop because I only really needed a basic PORTABLE computer for one short period of my life.

[UCyborg]

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/dual-booting-windows-linux-total-harmony-2025

[Mæstro]

VCDS worked on XP for a long time and likely still does, so along with your visual novels, they may not be the best to stress test WINE.

My goal has not been stress-testing. Visual novels were, when I migrated to Linux, the only software I meant to keep for which I could not find Linux versions. Being creative works, visual novels cannot be substituted, although a port exists for one’s engine. Back then, I had tested Qemu for virtualisation and suffered sound problems. I wrongly concluded that the fault was in Debian’s virtualisation support, when in fact it was Qemu. It was only last year that I bothered to try Virtualbox, and it has worked splendidly for all my purposes but that one odd game which degrades the colour depth. Running an XP virtual machine lets me feel I have got my free choice of contemporary software to run, a feeling which i have never had with Wine, which happens to have sufficed for the purpose of preserving my access to some favourite stories.

[UCyborg]

Not stress-testing per-se, may just appear that way in context of WINE.

[Mæstro]

I remember someone quipping long ago that Sid Meier’s Civilization Ⅲ (2001) fails in Wine. I have been proven wrong.

[Night Wing]

There a few threads about "age verification" in other parts of the forum site here on Pale Moon. But I wanted to find out what is "evolving" in the world of Linux specifically for all of the many linux distros.

So I decided to make this post about two of the linux distros I am now using in this topic thread since it is a Linux topic. And this "age verafication" could affect the Linux market share "down the road" if you get my drift.

Right now at the time of this post, I use two linux distros and they are MX Linux and Debian. I wanted to seek out any information by the maintainers of these two distros and see what is going on with their thoughts on this subject.

I found two good thought out articles for each distro. But in the end, the consensus is, this is "far from over" and not as "cut and dried" as one would think. BTW, I "neve"r encountered the dreaded "Cloudflare" pita challenge on either of these two sites.

The first link deals with my main linux distro I use everyday as my preferred first choice and that is MX Linux.

https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/mx ... principles

The second link deals with my second distro which is Debian. I basically use Debian as my backup linux distro.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Debian-Undecided-Age-Laws

[Gemmaugr]

There a few threads about "age verification" in other parts of the forum site here on Pale Moon. But I wanted to find out what is "evolving" in the world of Linux specifically for all of the many linux distros.

Seems like this could be a good resource for that. https://github.com/BryanLunduke/DoesItAgeVerify

Especially as it's not just California anymore, there's also Florida, Massachusetts, Kentucky, South Dakota, Wyoming, and outside the US it's in Singapore and South Korea (Apple), EUID (especially Germany and UK), Brazil, Australia, Russia, Canada, and more https://reclaimthenet.org/?s=age+verification

Though I think US might be fine, at least in some parts (as judges have struck down Age Verification laws in Texas and Louisiana as un-constitutional).

[Night Wing]

Though I think US might be fine, at least in some parts (as judges have struck down Age Verification laws in Texas and Louisiana as un-constitutional).

Since you mentioned Texas (the state where I live) and Louisiana, the Age Verification law by the judges in these states may be relying on their "own state constitutions".

The "the elephant in the room" so to speak is the US Federal Government. If the federal government decides to implement age verification to be the "law of the land" for every state in the USA, where every state must comply with, there will be state lawsuits.

If this hypothetical scenario happens, then I think this age law will go all the way to the US Supreme Court where the supreme court will have the final say so and it's ruling cannot be appealed.

[Gemmaugr]

Though I think US might be fine, at least in some parts (as judges have struck down Age Verification laws in Texas and Louisiana as un-constitutional).

Since you mentioned Texas (the state where I live) and Louisiana, the Age Verification law by the judges in these states may be relying on their "own state constitutions".

The "the elephant in the room" so to speak is the US Federal Government. If the federal government decides to implement age verification to be the "law of the land" for every state in the USA, where every state must comply with, there will be state lawsuits.

If this hypothetical scenario happens, then I think this age law will go all the way to the US Supreme Court where the supreme court will have the final say so and it's ruling cannot be appealed.

That would indeed be the very worst (if implemented) or best (if ruled un-constitutional) case scenario.
The “The Republic Unifying Meritocratic Performance Advancing Machine intelligence by Eliminating Regulatory Interstate Chaos Across American Industry” act doesn't look good..

[Night Wing]

That would indeed be the very worst (if implemented) or best (if ruled un-constitutional) case scenario.

Many people are under the wrong impression that when a case is petitioned to the US Supreme Court, they automatically think the supreme court will hear and rule on the case. This is not true.

Past history has shown in some cases petitioned to the US Supreme Court, sometimes the supreme court "declines" to hear and rule on the case. These cases get thrown back to the States so basically, there could be 50 states deciding on how this age verification law will be implemented "by each individual state".

Which means if the individual state has already ruled where the age law has already been ruled consitutional or unconstitutional, those fighting this law will have to come up with a different battle plan lawyer speak wise to get around the first ruling if it can. It is watching a "game of chess".

I've got something extra to show you. A YouTube video on this "age law" which I think you will like. It is quite interesting coming from a "common sense" point of viee, but I will have to find it again since I did not bookmark it.

Might take me awhile since I will have to comb through about 30 videos to find it on this subject which will affect some (or all) linux distros like the two distros I use.

[Night Wing]

I finally found the video I was looking for. Took me a lot longer that I thought it would take. But this video will deal with a lot of linux distros. Both domestic and foreign. The guy recording the video states he is not a lawyer, but he has a calling for it if he ever decides to "give up his day job".

In this video he names quite a few distros. It is a long video. Time length is just a shade shy of 20 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8oxATrqGwU

[Night Wing]

At the computer repair shop where I volunteer at, I cater to the customers who are already running or want to learn and use a linux distro. My next door neighbor, who owns the repair shop, sent me this YouTube video about ten linux distros which are popular in the linux world.

The two linux distros I am presently using, MX Linux and Debian, are in the video. It is a good video for people who might want to step into the world of Linux if the Windows operating system, specifically Windows 11, is irritating them enough and they are having some serious thoughts about "trying something else".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB5mk6bQt9A

[solitude]

I've grown bored of Debian and distros based on it. The older packages don't really "bother" me, it's pretty reliable and everything works, but I get curious when new software or updates come out and there's many new features and fixes. I've been considering Fedora since it seems great for me, but I'm too lazy to switch everything over right now, especially since it requires more effort to do so with a Raspberry Pi as one's only computer. :P