According to the Stack Overflow survey, Linux Desktop marketshare for developer has been growing constantly over the years. 23% in 2018's "primary desktop OS" question, 26% in 2019, 27% in 2020. Prior to that the question was asked differently, allowing multiple choices, but Linux was even lower back then. WSL was released in 2016 so much of this growth has happened while it was out. There might be some delay in the effects though, and maybe it would have been a much faster trend had it not been for WSL.

https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2016#technology-de...

https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018#technology-_-...

https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#technology-_-...

https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-de...

WSL2 came out (in non-preview version) last month and is a vital improvement. Windows Terminal is still pre-1.0 as is the CUDA and DirectX on Linux stuff. Then give it a bit of time to percolate through, technically and socially.

> Windows Terminal is still pre-1.0

Windows Terminal 1.0 has been out for a bit, the current version is 1.0.1401.0 [0]

[0]: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/releases/tag/v1.0.1401...

I guess the writing’s on the wall now. The latest lines of Apple products have been all been disappointing to me: laptops and phones without ports, keyboards that break, silly gimmicks all about — and a smartwatch that I developed a skin rash from so bad I still have it now, four months after having stopped using the watch.

CUDA was always the big thing for me, I use CUDA and develop with it — AMD and Apple have missed their shot on this, in an absolutely massive way. Alienate developers with centralized app stores and huge fees, then alienate researchers by picking a fight with the biggest name in the GPU industry while providing no alternative. Silly.

I haven’t used Windows in years and it will be so so bittersweet the day I boot it up on a Dell laptop again.

Do you know when it’s supposed to become default terminal? I thought I heard it was coming eventually.

Disclaimer: Hazy memory about this, take it with a heap of salt.

I think there were being some problems with that. It is planned but still in the future, possibly only with another feature update.

I'm exactly the audience Microsoft is winning over. For the last 3-5 years, I've been an avid Mac user. The primary reason has always been the familiarity of the terminal.

Now, Apple is making a lot of hardware decisions that I don't like. Having used WSL daily for several months now, it's the game changer.

My next laptop will probably be a PC, and I can only say this because of WSL.

Your next laptop will be a personal computer?

I believe they meant PC as in PC (Windows) vs Mac. I've encountered a lot of people who use PC <-> Windows Machine interchangeably.

"Personal Computer" has long been specifically associated with Windows machines and specifically excludes Mac and Linux. It started with the "IBM Personal Computer" and its branding caused non-IBM machines (eg Macintosh) to use other branding ("a mac"). When IBM partnered with Microsoft to make home computers, this branding really solidified that "PC = Windows".

And then of course, there was the very successful advertising campaign from Apple where they specifically distinguish Macs from PCs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_a_Mac

Essentially, Macs are "personal computers" but they aren't "Personal Computers", if you know what I mean.

I have been rather miffed that the lack of corporate branding/identity for Linux at the time when Macintosh decided to "distinguish" itself now means that GNU/Linux machines are apparently not "personal computers" anymore.

But if PC = IBM PC, and those basically always came with Microsoft software, I guess history supports that interpretation.

PC as in IBM PC compatible

Does that imply Windows?

From a historical branding perspective —- yes!

Apple spent a lot of money selling the idea the Mac was totally different to the PC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eEG5LVXdKo

More like familiar experience. Most people don't care about things they have not experienced, Blub paradox.

It is amazing how Mac users stick with Apple through a lot of inconvenience - x86 transition, USB type C, adapters, no audio jack, touchbar, breaking updates, walled garden iPhone. But they also brought a lot to community - good chassis, quality touchpad, HiDPI, wide gamut, capacitive touchscreens with gorilla glass.

Microsoft users has no less inconvenience - ribbon, metro, viruses, ever changing frameworks, ever confusing names (winrt), wrecked settings, custom theme on every application. And community gains - Word, Excel, up to IE6 innovations, XBox, VS Code, language servers, maybe crossplatform .Net some day.

I do not want to wreck them, I want to be objective. Microsoft of 80s rocked, in 90s - big and everpresent. Today they excel in PR. Hell, they got package manager 20 years late.

> you don't need any of the extra stuff (a decent desktop experience ...)

I have a better experience on Linux now than I've had on Windows in the past.

> The only reason for a well paid developer to prefer linux that you don't need any of the extra stuff (a decent desktop experience, [...list of several more "linux sucks" opinions])

I think you'll find many Linux devs who have previously used or considered Windows have their own list of "windows sucks" reasons.

(By "Well paid", are you referring to people who are willing to spend money on big ticket desktop sw, or people who are in it for the money and don't have the curiosity or interest about how the system works? I think for most it's not about not being able to afford the SW.)

I simply meant that price can be another valid reason to prefer linux on the desktop, but not one that applies to most of the HN readership.

A couple of big things still missing with WSL:

Direct rendering for X. This means the maximum OpenGL version that can be supported with hardware acceleration is 1.4, so many modern X program don't work or will use software rendering.

Multi-monitor support. Under X, windows are by default positioned and sized by the window manager and it's hard for application developers to screw it up, but under Windows each application developer has to be careful to make their program work well on multiple monitors. This shows, and event some built-in Windows applications get confused by multiple monitors, usually by having an action performed on one monitor open a window on a different monitor.

I hope they stop at extend this time.

I think "extend" is a good safety buffer / canary in the coal mine, so I'd be happier if they stuck to "embrace".

Spoiler: they don't.

Google is much further ahead with ChromeOS and Android.

Just a small correction, the only "developers" that find Apple's offerings hostile are those using macOS as Linux replacement instead of paying to Linux OEMs.

Developers targeting Apple platforms are doing just fine.

There's a lot more devs in the first category - mostly web stack.

>The only reason for a well paid developer to prefer linux over windows for a desktop OS is that you don't need any of the extra stuff (a decent desktop experience, hardware support and a commercial end user software eco system) or that you have some fundamental objections concerning Microsoft's business practices. These are good reasons, but experience shows that most people don't care enough about things like privacy to give up convenience or shiny things.

Sometimes it is simply the problem of linux being utterly broken. Linux users wonder why people won't adopt linux, and it is because it is full of problems. I spent a full day this week trying to get an internet connection for my linux desktop working (sans ethernet cable) and was unable to. USB tethering was broken for unfixable reasons and wifi adapters are a nightmare with linux. So that drove me back to windows, I tried WSL, and now I probably just won't ever bother trying to run linux on desktop again. I didn't want to tinker with my software, I wanted to do my personal projects. Windows at least lets me get the job done.