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The role of desktops has changed over the decades, because nowadays so many people use mobile devices instead. What we meant by the phrase “year of the Linux desktop” in 2010s was very different from what it means today.
At home, people use the desktop for gaming, while most computing activities can now be done on any mobile device. In the past, the desktop was the only computer in the house, and it was used for communication, browsing, photos, videos, and everything else.
I think we should start using a different term. How about something like “year of the Linux gaming PC”, because that would really tell you what’s happening right now. The rest of the things you can do on a Linux desktop aren’t really that important to most people anymore.
Personally, I still prefer a laptop over a tablet, and I think many people on Lemmy would agree. However, most people outside this bubble clearly don’t see that much value in an x86 desktop OS.
Let's not exaggerate like that. A lot of pcs are used by university students/professors, researchers, office work, engineers, software devs, audiovisual production, designers, hobbyists from many areas, etc. And linux has been gaining space in all those areas.
Professional use is a whole different story, and I left it out because the previous message was getting a bit too long. 😃
If your work relies on a specific piece of Windows software, Linux probably won’t be good enough. Even if you can technically use that application through Wine or Proton, the work environment usually requires every feature to work as intended. If there's weird behaviour that interferes with your work, it's pretty clear that you can't tolerate that. This can easily happen when your work involves using a computer to control a machine or to pull data from it. You may also need your computer to talk to other systems that expect you to use a client running on top of Windows.
However, many people need apps that were designed to run on a browser. That's when you really begin to have options. Even MS Word and Excel kind of sort of work through a browser as long as you don't intend to do anything even remotely advanced with them. Many people just need basic office applications, and in that context, Linux has been a viable option for many years already. Even though the docx->odt conversion is far from perfect, it's usually good enough.
Many people also require specific functionality, but don’t really care which application actually provides it as long as the job gets done well enough. If that’s the case, Linux can usually provide an alternative. Don't know about professional video production, but hobby videos can definitely be edited on Kdenlive. Same logic applies to Gimp, Krita, and Inkscape.
I agree. That said, I've recently acquired a 2020 15" HP Spectre x360, which runs LMDE 7 beautifully with KDE Plasma on Wayland. Tablet mode works, the screen orientation accelerometer works, Thunderbolt works, the OLED 4K display is gorgeous, and it's got a really funky yet clean design.
Best of both worlds IMO.
Congratulations! How’s KDE running on Wayland?
When I got my current laptop, I chose Gnome because Wayland support was decent at the time and virtually no other desktop supported it. Later, a few others began supporting Wayland but I haven’t tried them.
I used KDE long ago with X11 and I loved it. I think I should give it another go, so that’s why I’m wondering. Is Wayland support ready yet?
I liked it so much that I switched my gaming PC (running LMDE6) from Cinnamon on X11 to KDE Plasma on Wayland, and it's incredibly good.
I built this PC with reliability in mind. X11 is the "older but most stable and compatible" option, and historically, Wayland has been the choice for those living on the edge. That should say a lot.
For the tablet people out there, there's still hope: postmarketOS!