Is Windows 10 really a threat to desktop Linux?

Windows 10 and desktop Linux

Microsoft’s Windows 10 is supposed to make up for the big failure of Windows 8. Some folks also seem to think that Windows 10 will have a very negative effect on desktop Linux.

Brian Fagioli at Beta News speculates that Windows 10 could be the final nail in the coffin of desktop Linux:

While the consumer hatred of Windows 8 seemed like an opportunity for Linux to grow, sadly, it did not happen. Even sadder? Windows 10 closes the door entirely. The year of the Linux desktop will never happen. Rest in peace.

I blame the Linux community for not capitalizing on Windows 8’s failure in the court of public opinion. In other words, the enemy was at its weakest point, and the community did nothing. Sadly, the failure to act can be blamed on the fragmentation of the community; too many distros and a lack of leadership.

More at Beta News

I disagreed completely with Brian’s take on Windows 10:

Seriously, enough. There will never be a “year of the Linux desktop” because we don’t need one. Desktop Linux rolls on, year after year and the people who choose to use it don’t do so based on what some people are saying about it in this or that article. They use Linux because Linux is what they want, and it provides all of what they need in a desktop operating system.

As far as Windows 10 goes, it’s a big fat nothing-burger to me. So Microsoft is bringing back the Start button or whatever. Big deal. I don’t care what they do with Windows 10, you couldn’t pay me enough to use it as my daily desktop operating system. I dumped Windows many years ago and I’m never going back.

More at Jim Lynch

Lean Linux distros

There’s a Linux distribution for everybody out there, including those who prefer leaner distributions that don’t require as much computing power to use.

CompTutor has a list of lighter-weight Linux distros:

Do you have an older computer? Maybe you just don’t need fancy animations and pretty interfaces and want to squeeze last drop of speed and performance out of your computer hardware? You’ve come to the right place. I made a list of high performance linux distros especially for this.

I love linux as it’s faster, more reliable, stable, secure, free, and open when comparing it to Windows and Mac. I didn’t like how some distros are becoming slow or sluggish due to their unnecessary fancy interface, animations and preloaded bloat. I went in search of leaner alternatives.

Xubuntu Lubuntu Linux Mint Xfce Crunchbang Linux Lite LXLE Manjaro Sparky Linux Zorin OS Elementary OS AntiX Gentoo Arch Linux ArchBang Centrych Zenwalk Slackware Salix OS Puppy Linux

More at CompTutor

Samsung Gear’s Tizen versus Android Wear

Android Wear has gotten quite a bit of coverage by the media, but there’s at least one journalist that thinks that Samsung’s Tizen provides a superior wearable experience.

Matthew Benson at Android Authority compared Tizen and Android Wear:

A few months ago our US Senior Editor Andrew Grush offered his praise of the Moto 360, having spent a month with it. Despite the quality of the writing itself, I took issue with the core of the content: that Android Wear is a suitable platform for wearables. I have to disagree, at least as things now stand. Android Wear seems fundamentally broken due to its being chained to Google Now and a smartphone, something not so true of Samsung’s Gear products, which run on Tizen.

After a discussion with Andrew however, a larger issue surfaced: the divergent opinion is largely based on the individual’s needs and expectations. To this end, I felt it an interesting experiment to delve into the functionality of both, and try and give readers a bit more insight into the very different paths that Google and Samsung are taking with their wearables.

More at Android Authority

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