Stackoverflow survey reveals growing interest in Linux

[Stefan Payne]

7 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Gnome is not part of Linux, and you don't need to use it if you want to use Linux.

Doesn't matter for the User.

Quote

There are so many DEs specifically because people can't agree on what "users" want. Turns out developers are users too and they have their own preferences.

Yes and all but Gnome3 are years or even decades behind the Windows UI.

Gnome is the one that comes closest to Windows. But its MacOS UI doesn't make it that great to use either.

The "classic" "Windows UI", that was also used by OS/2 Warp is far better.

And IIRC the Windows UI was stolen from old Unix GUIs or Nextstep of the time....

And it works really well. Sometimes you don't have more than 1 or 2 solutions for a problem.

 

And because of that shit with Gnome3, there were _TWO_ forks: One on the Gnome 3 Basis, called Cinnamon. One on the Gnome 2 Basis called Mate.

And both task bars are on Windows 98 (or Windows 95 with IE4) level, not the 10 years younger Windows 7 wich also is already 10 years old...

[AlTech]

2 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Doesn't matter for the User.

Yes and all but Gnome3 are years or even decades behind the Windows UI.

Gnome is the one that comes closest to Windows. But its unusable with the MacOS UI, the "classic" Windows UI, that was also used by OS/2 Warp is far better.

 

And because of that shit, there were _TWO_ forks: One on the Gnome 3 Basis, called Cinnamon. One on the Gnome 2 Basis called Mate.

And both task bars are on Windows 98 (or Windows 95 with IE4) level, not the 10 years younger Windows 7 wich also is already 10 years old...

No? Linux Mint feels like what a taskbar should be like imho. Admittedly some of their icons could be refreshed but other than that it's not bad.

[Sauron]

20 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Doesn't matter for the User.

It matters when it comes to the agency Linux developers have on it... it's like saying Microsoft should focus on improving Steam to make Windows a more appealing platform.

20 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Yes and all but Gnome3 are years or even decades behind the Windows UI.

If you say so... the Windows UI in my opinion is pure trash and vastly inferior to every major DE available for Linux.

You may disagree but that's just your opinion.

20 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Gnome is the one that comes closest to Windows.

It looks and behaves completely differently from Windows... you said yourself it looks more like MacOS (though frankly I don't think it's that close to MacOS either).

20 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

The "classic" "Windows UI", that was also used by OS/2 Warp is far better.

I hope you're kidding, it didn't even have window snapping... and if you want something that looks similar to that for whatever reason, there are SO many choices for you...

20 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

And because of that shit with Gnome3, there were _TWO_ forks: One on the Gnome 3 Basis, called Cinnamon. One on the Gnome 2 Basis called Mate.

Why would that be a problem? It's just more choice for the user.

20 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

And both task bars are on Windows 98 (or Windows 95 with IE4) level, not the 10 years younger Windows 7 wich also is already 10 years old...

That's just objectively false. You can tweak the task bars of both to behave pretty much exactly like Windows 7 if you want and they can also do much more. You can add widgets to the bar that do things Windows 7 can only dream of, not least of which a virtual desktop switcher which Windows only finally got around to adding in 10.

 

[Doobeedoo]

Hopefully with more support and improvements in time, like we've seen with gaming vid we can maybe see one distro stand out and become mainstream. 

[Chunchunmaru_]

2 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

Doesn't matter for the User.

Yes and all but Gnome3 are years or even decades behind the Windows UI.

Gnome is the one that comes closest to Windows. But its MacOS UI doesn't make it that great to use either.

The "classic" "Windows UI", that was also used by OS/2 Warp is far better.

And IIRC the Windows UI was stolen from old Unix GUIs or Nextstep of the time....

And it works really well. Sometimes you don't have more than 1 or 2 solutions for a problem.

 

And because of that shit with Gnome3, there were _TWO_ forks: One on the Gnome 3 Basis, called Cinnamon. One on the Gnome 2 Basis called Mate.

And both task bars are on Windows 98 (or Windows 95 with IE4) level, not the 10 years younger Windows 7 wich also is already 10 years old...

Not only two forks, but also gnome didn't supported shell extensions until then, you can make exactly it look the same as Windows without using some extensions like DashToPanel, which is used preinstalled in Solus for example or can be installed later in other distros

 

 

I found gnome features decently for 2019 considering how it integrates Google drive in the file manager for example (gvfs)

 

[Franck]

If we look at demographic of languages used most on the site we do not see much glimpse of windows only platform languages. With the big microsoft language called C# being third most talked languages on the platform the Linux side is very strong. To me this relate to my work experience where i have .Net devs and they do prefer Linux for daily use but they use the tool that make it easier for them to bring the client projects to term. I am not surprised by this number. It does match very good what my teams opinions are on the subject.

 

Currently the top 20 most actives language/platforms are :

Javascript : 1.79 million

Java : 1.53 million

C# : 1.30 million

PHP : 1.27 million

Android : 1.18 million

Python : 1.14 million

jQuery : 950k

html : 816k

C++ : 613k

ios : 595k

css : 581k

mysql :  556k

sql : 487k

asp.net : 344k

ruby : 305k

C : 300k

 

Javascript and Python skyrocketed in very-very short time. Except IOS, C# and asp.net they are all cross platform

(note C# do not include .net core which is cross platform yes but is far from making a top 30 as it has its own section)

 

Nice to see the top 20 is 85% cross platform. Dev can more than ever choose their favorite platform and are less and less tied to a specific one.

[DavidKalinowski]

15 hours ago, yian88 said:

I have a lenovo legion y520 and all linux distros suck really bad with it, mainly due to dual gpu + igpu problems.

If you can get a ryzen 3000 + vega8/10 go for it, shintel igpu is a disaster.

Also the lack of software is kiling it, not even a decent videoplayer with debanding and motion interpolation sucks.

No pro software for CAD sucks...  snaps suck.

I should try fedora but i hate fucking gnome shit, in fact i hate all linux;s DE's fulll of issues.

I've found the cinnamon DE on mint fairly solid. It does a good job mimicking windows. I will agree with you on gnome. I just dont like it. and KDE is to bloated now compared to what it used to be way back in the old days. I've also found debian based distros a bit nicer to work with could be just me though.

[Franck]

16 hours ago, yian88 said:

No pro software for CAD sucks... 

- NX

- FreeCAD

- DraftSight

- BRL

[ADM-Ntek]

not surprising windows getting worse all the time. and now with proton it actually become an alternative for gamers.

[suicidalfranco]

22 hours ago, yian88 said:

not even a decent videoplayer with debanding and motion interpolation sucks.

don't know what that means but i use VLC and it never gave me problems, so don't really have any issues there

 

22 hours ago, yian88 said:

No pro software for CAD sucks

BricsCAD is cross platform and has a single fee, my workplace have completely shifted to it over AutoCAD with an easy transition from every member of the office. It's functional, lacks the fluff that autoCAD has and gives us the option to pay separately for tech support which includes upgrades for the longevity of the support.

 

23 hours ago, yian88 said:

I should try fedora but i hate fucking gnome shit, in fact i hate all linux;s DE's fulll of issues

In the past 4 years i've been using a desktop that i set with Ubuntu has the main OS, I've gotten so used to Unity that i completely stopped using my Macbook Pro and only turn it on when on a mission just to watch youtube videos. Unluckely for me Canonical pulled the plug on Unity and i've got two years left on my 16.04 distro.

 

23 hours ago, yian88 said:

I have a lenovo legion y520 and all linux distros suck really bad with it, mainly due to dual gpu + igpu problems.

If you can get a ryzen 3000 + vega8/10 go for it, shintel igpu is a disaster.

The good folks here at LTT kinda make it sound like nvidia optimus drivers are a solved issue as of now.

 

Would love to see a full AMD laptop though as long as temps are as low as the intel+nvidia combo, decent performance for the price and something comparable to the i7+2060 offering, and an iGPU + dGPU actively switching based on the required load.

[Mihle]

Some people say Linux is so good because lots of choice.

 

But they don't realize that too much choice is also a problem for a a lot of people. Like there are so many distros or whatever you call them. I bet it's exist quite a bit of people that just search Linux, sees that there are so many different names, and then just say fuck it and goes back to whatever they are using.

I am actually one of those (have other reasons as well, but still)

[Sauron]

14 minutes ago, Mihle said:

Some people say Linux is so good because lots of choice.

 

But they don't realize that too much choice is also a problem for a a lot of people. Like there are so many distros or whatever you call them. I bet it's exist quite a bit of people that just search Linux, sees that there are so many different names, and then just say fuck it and goes back to whatever they are using.

I am actually one of those (have other reasons as well, but still)

If your problem is indecision, let me pick for you. Install this

[Mihle]

Just now, Sauron said:

If your problem is indecision, let me pick for you. Install this

My point being that is you are met with instant wall of different choices, that's a turn off for lots of people.

[Sauron]

17 minutes ago, Mihle said:

My point being that is you are met with instant wall of different choices, that's a turn off for lots of people.

There's nothing that can be done about that - user choice is one of the things that makes Linux great, if that really turns some people off... I guess we'll just have to deal with it. I don't think it's necessary to have everyone use Linux, people have different needs and tastes and that's fine. What matters is that there is a viable alternative to proprietary systems like Windows or MacOS and that the user base is large enough to justify developer interest.

[Beskamir]

I thought it was common knowledge that developing on Linux is better than on any other platform? These results are not surprising.

[Steven123123]

have you seen the price of microsoft's development licenses? If you are a small business, or self employed, you can quite easily be MS free in 2019.

[Mihle]

6 hours ago, Sauron said:

There's nothing that can be done about that - user choice is one of the things that makes Linux great, if that really turns some people off... I guess we'll just have to deal with it. I don't think it's necessary to have everyone use Linux, people have different needs and tastes and that's fine. What matters is that there is a viable alternative to proprietary systems like Windows or MacOS and that the user base is large enough to justify developer interest.

It's not that there is choice that does it, it is that there is literally tens on tens of different ones. If there was just 3 different ones that just had settings to change the look of things, or with a skin app, it would have been better.

[Guest]

On 4/11/2019 at 12:31 PM, Trik'Stari said:

MACOS and IOS are still higher than they should be.

You take that back. Its the best Cloud integration on the market  

[sof006]

I'm definitely interested in Linux. Now that I know game compatibility is growing very fast. I just want big developers like EA, Activision etc to publish directly for Linux. 

[Sauron]

2 hours ago, Mihle said:

It's not that there is choice that does it, it is that there is literally tens on tens of different ones. If there was just 3 different ones that just had settings to change the look of things, or with a skin app, it would have been better.

I disagree, there are people (including myself) who really like customizing stuff to their heart's content.

3 hours ago, Beskamir said:

I thought it was common knowledge that developing on Linux is better than on any other platform? These results are not surprising.

Common knowledge or not, 75% of the people in the survey don't use it as their primary system.

[Chunchunmaru_]

26 minutes ago, Sauron said:

I disagree, there are people (including myself) who really like customizing stuff to their heart's content.

Common knowledge or not, 75% of the people in the survey don't use it as their primary system.

I think as a solely developer OS is perfect, I suppose the problem comes in with the rest or even hardware/driver support (few cases for this)

 

Like I use it on my laptop 95% of the time

[Trik'Stari]

4 hours ago, floofer said:

You take that back. Its the best Cloud integration on the market  

All run on the worst designed and most overpriced hardware of all time. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Trik'Stari said:

All run on the worst designed and most overpriced hardware of all time. 

That statement just makes me think of Razer. 

[Trik'Stari]

4 minutes ago, floofer said:

That statement just makes me think of Razer. 

You should watch some of Louis Rossman's videos. Arguably junk hardware, and worse customer service.