.NET 4.0 runs on XP and it is still very easy to create a .NET 4.0 application on a more modern machine. A well tested .NET app will deploy and run on Windows XP with few surprises. You cannot ask for better tooling. So, I would not say that creating new software for XP is really all that hard.
If you want to be much cooler but put in more work, check this out!
You might be surprised. First, I run EndeavourOS daily on a 2008 iMac and it not only runs but is very useful. I browse the web, watch YouTube, video conference, create office docs, play older games, do basic programming, run Docker ( well, Podman ), watch movies, read ebooks, edit audio, etc. With EOS, all my software versions are up to the minute.
The reason I use that machine so much is because of where it is. I like that spot. The reason I have not put something else there is precisely because it works so well that I have no reason to. I use XFCE to keep it light and have to restart the web browser from time-to-time to free up RAM but it is fine.
The first 64 bit Intel chips were in 2007 but AMD released the K8 way back in 2003. I do not have one to try but my guess is I could install the most recent EndeavourOS on such a machine.
That gets us to 21 years ago pretty easily.
You would be amazed at the upgradability of older hardware. You can drop 16 GB of RAM and an SSD in a 2009 MacBook.
However, you can run a 100% modern Linux distro on hardware much older than that. Many distros, including Debian, have 32 bit versions that support Pentium Pro and up. Most software available in regular Debian is also available in the 32 bit versions. The package release numbers are the same. So, totally up to date and modern software. You can run Debian 12 on 32 bit processors.
That takes us all the way back to hardware from 1995! That is just 14 years after the first IBM PC!
In practice, the biggest problem is going to be RAM. Anything below 6 GB for 64 bit and 4 GB for 32 bit is going to struggle with the size of modern software ( especially web browsers! ).
I am not sure how far back you have to go before the processor is just too slow for everyday stuff. I would guess around 2003 or so, depending on what you are doing.
Gravity is not just attraction to the closest thing but also the heaviest thing.
As the galaxies “pass” each other, all stars will be attracted to the dense cores of each galaxy. That is going to change the trajectory of individual stars and, as an aggravate effect, the overall shape and distribution. Unless the galaxies are aligned on the same angle, this is going to drag stars off the primary plane.
As the galaxies approach, the arms will stretch out to each other. As they pass through each other, the planes will tug on each other, and after they “exit”, the arms will reach back.
All this new motion will disrupt the natural shape and trajectory of the galaxy as a whole. Depending on the momentum, it could get pulled back and the whole process could happen again ( and again ) with greater disorder each time.
Do you have an old PC lying around gathering dust? How about a small-capacity USB flash drive sitting, unloved in a drawer? You can reuse your old computer and a USB flash drive by installing a tiny Linux distribution....
As the title says, you probably guessed it already. For work I mainly develop on the .NET platform using a Windows device, but at home I enjoy all the benefits of a good OS....
As a small counterpoint, I am supposed to use Windows at work but I use Linux. I would say that I am a “very heavy” but intermediate Microsoft Office user. That is, while I am not expert level in Office, I have to create and consume multiple documents per day. I give ( or submit ) several PowerPoints per week. These typically use templates supplied by Marketing or others. I create and consume multiple Excel files daily which almost always have multiple worksheets. I must admit that I have gotten authoring Word files down to maybe one per week but I open 3 a day at least.
Of course, I do not actually use Microsoft Office most of the time. Most of the above is in LibreOffice. I spend a tonne of my day in Outlook which I use in a browser ( Office 365 ). If I am opening a document from an email, it will often open in Office 365 online ( in my browser in Linux ). So do I use Microsoft Office quite a bit but rarely author anything there. While I prefer Firefox, I use Microsoft Edge on Linux and most often that is where I have Outlook open. Sadly, I have at least 3 to 4 Microsoft Teams meetings a day. Teams and GoToMeeting are why I started using Edge. It is just a nicer workflow if Teams and Outlook are in the same browser.
Anyway, I have very little problem exchanging documents. I had to switch to default fonts that Windows users will have of course but that was long ago now. So, I would not say that “alternatives such as LibreOffice aren’t just good enough” is a fair assessment for everybody. If I was an expert user in any one app ( in Finance maybe ) I could see this being true but I bet most office workers could use LibreOffice just fine these days.
Outside of Office, most of what I use are web applications which work just as well on Linux. I use containers a lot and they work better on Linux. Linux is quite bit snappier on the same hardware.
I am just a datapoint though and the issues you raise are real. I would perhaps just be less absolute about it. Trying Linux can still make sense. Also, you can try LibreOffice on Windows before jumping all the way to Linux.
Please, don’t use Open Office. Dev essentially halted on it years ago when it was forked o LibreOffice. Use LibreOffice instead. The Open Office project seems to still exist to trick people into using old software.
This may be a controversial opinion but I would rather use the web version of Outlook than Evolution. I have been trying to use Evolution since the Ximian days but I was never really happy with it. I gave up on it in favour of web Outlook a couple of years ago.
I am not saying “This is the Year of the Linux Desktop”. That said, things languished below 2% for decades and now it has doubled in just over a year. With the state of Linux Gaming, I could see that happening again.
Also, if ChromeOS continues to converge, you could consider it a Linux distro at some point and it also has about 4% share.
Linux could exceed 10% share this year and be a clear second after Windows.
That leaves me wondering, what percentage do we have to hit before it really is “The Year of the Linux Desktop”. I have never had to wonder that before ( I mean, it obviously was not 3% ). Having to ask is a milestone in itself.
We have been hearing about “The Year of the Linux Desktop” for 20 years I think and Linux has less than 5% share.
In contrast, I do not remember hearing “The Year of the Wayland Desktop” until recently. I have been hearing “Wayland is the future” forever but it has been correct the whole time.
By the time we enter 2025, I am not sure there will be a major desktop environment that does not support Wayland and many distros and DEs will be Wayland by default or even Wayland only. That is already happening. Valve may have ditched X by then and it feels like that is where most new Linux users are going to come from. It seems quite unlikely that Wayland market share on the Linux Desktop will be less than 75%.
I am not saying this is “The Year of the Wayland Desktop” but I would feel foolish publicly betting against it.
In that talk he called C “the worst language” and said he chose it to troll the industry. How does that support your point?
He also said that you should choose “least privilege” whenever possible. That is precisely the value that Rust brings over C. So how does that talk support the idea that C is more secure than Rust?
I think the drama around Wayland can be explained by the sentence “it should be a drop-in replacement like pipewire but isn’t”.
Without taking a side on that issue, I will point out that this was not a goal for the Wayland designers ( in their own words - I do not have time to go find a quote but have read this sentiment many times ). Wayland detractors agree with your sentence and, given that expectation, are legitimately upset and even confused that Wayland continues to gain mind and market share against X11.
If you feel that Wayland needs to be a drop-in replacement for X11, it is not ready and may never be. By that metric, some people see Wayland as a failed technology and perceive Wayland users as shills and zealots.
If you are interested in a display server that addresses some of the core design problems in X11 and do not mind moving to something new, Wayland is starting to look ready for prime-time.
If you are non-technical and / or unopinionated the debate is probably irrelevant. Wayland will most likely become the default on whatever Linux distribution you use sometime in 2024 or 2025. You will be a Wayland user. Maybe you already are.
If you are willing to step outside the mainstream, using X11 without Wayland is going to be possible for at least another decade. That said, I am saying “outside the mainstream” because not only will popular Linux distributions and desktop environments start to become Wayland only but the innovation is all going to move to Wayland. There will be many Wayland-only compositors, apps, and features. 5 years from now, not using Wayland is going to really limit the desktop experience. I expect some toolkits ( GTK, Qt, and maybe even WINE ) to drop X11 support at some point ( maybe not soon but sooner than 10 years maybe ). 5 - 10 years may seem like a long time but it will likely come faster than X11 stalwarts expect.
As somebody that first configured X back in 1991, I agree with this message.
To be fair though, with KMS, libdrm, and libinput, setting up X is 1000 times easier than it used to be. I suspect most users never even need to open Xorg.conf or even know it exists.
Ironically, all these technologies are also used by Wayland. A lot of what Wayland does not do, Xorg basically does not do either.
I know this is a joke comment but Linux is for sure an enterprise kernel first and foremost. It did not start that way but that is how it has been developed and managed for many years now. Maybe the most incorrect thing anybody has ever said on record in the computer industry is when Linus said Linux was “not going to be anything big and professional”.
Linux distributions, which are conceived and managed totally independently from the kernel are available for every niche. Many of them are desktop and “consumer” oriented. With many Linux distributions, I would say that it is more accurate that they are hobbiest oriented more than what Microsoft would mean be “consumer”.
Manjaro - used to love it. Now the only distro I actively advise against
Garuda - just too much ( I prefer Arch / EndeavourOS )
Elementary - wanted to love it - just too limited
Gentoo - realized I just don’t want to build everything
RHEL Workstation - everything too old
Bhodi - honestly do not remember - long ago
Ubuntu - ok, let’s expand…
These days, I dislike Snaps. Ubuntu just never hit the sweet spot for me though. I was already an experienced Linux user when it appeared and preferred RPM based distros at the tome. Ubuntu always seemed slow and fragile to me. Setting things up, like Apache with Mono back in the day, was “different” on Ubuntu and that annoyed me. For most of its history, it is what I would recommend to new users but I just never liked it myself.
Debian Stable - ok, let’s expand
I really like Debian. It was also a little “alien” when I was using Fedora / Mandrake and the like but it never bothered me like Ubuntu. I ran RHEL / Centos as servers so I did not need Debian stability. As a desktop, Debian packages were always just a little too old ( especially for dev ). The lack of non-free firmware made it a pain.
These days though, Debian has been growing on me. The move to include non-free firmware has made it much more practical. With Flatpaks and Distrobox, aging packages is much less of a problem too. I could see myself using Debian. I am strongly considering moving to VanillaOS ( immutable Debian ).
I basically do not run any RHEL servers anymore. At home, I have a fair bit running Debian already ( Proxmox, PiHole, PiVPN, and a Minecraft server ).
EndeavourOS is my primary desktop these days ( and I love it ) but it is mostly for the AUR. A Debian base with an Arch Distrobox might be perfect. Void seems quite nice as well.
I have been an Open Source advocate forever ( and used to say Free Software and FLOSS ). I have used Linux daily since the 0.99 kernels and I even installed 386BSD back in the day. Despite that, the biggest “not for me” distros right now are anything too closely associated with the politics of the GNU project. It has almost made me want to leave Linux and I have considered moving to FreeBSD. I would love to use Haiku. OCI containers and the huge software ecosystem keep me on Linux though.
The distribution that intrigues me the most right now is Chimera Linux. I run it with an Arch distrobox and it may become my daily driver. The pragmatism of projects like SerenityOS really attracts me. Who knows it may be what finally pulls me away after 30+ years of Linux.
Hello, yesterday I officially released Louvre v1.0.0, a C++ library designed for building Wayland compositors with a primary focus on ease of development. It provides a default method for handling protocols, input events, and rendering, which you can selectively and progressively override as required, allowing you to see a...
Many people have predicted the death of the small, independent window manager with the coming of Wayland. I have heard multiple times that only large projects like GNOME and KDE would be able to take on the burden of making a compositor.
Now, I do think that lots of no longer actively developed window managers could get left behind. But the idea that it will be too complicated to create a window manager now is turning out to be wrong.
First, fewer desktop environments are getting left behind than feared. XFCE, Cinnamon, and MATE all seem to have Wayland plans now.
The big change is the appearance of not one but multiple compositor libraries designed to make it easier to create a window manager for Wayland. Some of them look like they might make it easier than it was under X. The approach taken by this one makes the idea of hacking around with it very inviting.
Although having to create a compositor has made things difficultly until now, I think the idea of decoupling the compositor for Wayland is going to look smart in the long run.
Being separate from Wayland, compositor devs are free to experiment and window manager authors can select the one that best maps to their goals.
I was reading up on Oasis Linux yesterday. It comes with a Wayland compositor ( SWC ) and tiling window manager ( Velox ) that are less than 20,000 lines of code combined!
It would not be practical for a light-weight distro to trim down Xorg like that. But I the compositor is separate, it can be either smaller or feature rich. SWC is XWayland compatible but obviously that is going to add more size if you need it.
Looking forward to the window manager innovation that projects like Louvre enable.
The 9 Smallest Linux Distros That Are Super Lightweight (www.makeuseof.com)
Do you have an old PC lying around gathering dust? How about a small-capacity USB flash drive sitting, unloved in a drawer? You can reuse your old computer and a USB flash drive by installing a tiny Linux distribution....
Any C# devs want to share their setup?
As the title says, you probably guessed it already. For work I mainly develop on the .NET platform using a Windows device, but at home I enjoy all the benefits of a good OS....
Fedora, Arch, or EndeavourOS?
Hi, I was here and asked about a few distros already, so here’s a quick summary of my situation:...
deleted_by_author
Linux in the corporate space
I made this post because I am really curious if Linux is used in offices and educational centres like schools....
Linux reaches new high 3.82% (gs.statcounter.com)
Happy new year of the Linux Desktop!
Linux Containers From Scratch in C (www.lucavall.in)
ELI5 the whole Wayland vs X11 going on.
Title
Why more PC gaming handhelds should ditch Windows for SteamOS (arstechnica.com)
What distros have you tried and thought, "Nope, this one's not for me"?
I’ve been using Linux Mint since forever. I’ve never felt a reason to change. But I’m interested in what persuaded others to move.
Louvre: C++ library for building Wayland compositors. (lemmy.world)
Hello, yesterday I officially released Louvre v1.0.0, a C++ library designed for building Wayland compositors with a primary focus on ease of development. It provides a default method for handling protocols, input events, and rendering, which you can selectively and progressively override as required, allowing you to see a...