In my experience, it isn't Linux server developers who decide what platform their organizations provision on their employees' devices. That's up to management and IT departments who prefer the simplicity of employees using the same systems they do, and prefer to utilize the competencies in macOS/Windows administration their IT departments have.
It makes Linux the common denominator between all platforms, which could potentially mean that it gets adopted as a base platform API like POSIX is/was.
More software gets developed for that base Linux platform API, which makes releasing Linux-native software easier/practically free, which in turn makes desktop Linux an even more viable daily driver platform because you can run the same apps you use on macOS or Windows.
As someone that was once upon a time a FOSS zealot with M$ on email signature and all, the only reason I care about Linux on the desktop is exactly Docker containers, everything else I use the native platform software.
Eventually I got practical and fed up with ways of Linux Desktop.
The thing is.. I am forced to use windows for my current job and it is so much worse than Linux desktop has ever been in the last 10-15 years, I'm honestly buffled.
Like, suspend-wake is honestly 100% reliable compared to whatever my Windows 11 laptop does, random freezes, updates are still a decade behind what something like NixOS has (I can just start an update and since the system is immutable it won't disturb me in any shape or form).
My corporate Windows laptop is awful, but it is because it being corporate. At home I have used Linux exclusively from 2019 to 2024. Then I switched to Windows 11 LTSC IoT (yes yes, piracy bad) and I don't look back.
> Eventually I got practical and fed up with ways of Linux Desktop.
I was in the same boat and used macOS for a decade since it was practical for my needs.
These days I find it easier to do my work on Linux, ironically cross-platform development & audio. At least in my experience, desktop Linux is stable, works with my commercial apps, and things like collaboration over Zoom/Meet/etc with screen sharing actually work out of the box, so it ticks all of my boxes. This certainly wasn't the case several years ago, where Linux incompatibility and instability could be an issue when it comes to collaboration and just getting work done.
Yet, just last year I ended up getting rid of a mini-PC, because I was stupid enough not to validate its UEFI firmware would talk to Linux.
I have spent several months trying to make it work, across a couple of distros and partition layouts, only managing to boot them, if placed on external storage.
Until I can get into Media Market kind of store and get a PC, of whatever shape, with something like Ubuntu pre-installed, and everything single hardware feature works without "yes but", I am not caring.
I'm not trying to convince you, I'm just sharing my experience.
IMO, just like with macOS, one should buy hardware based on whether their OS supports it. There are plenty of mini PCs with Linux pre-installed or with support if you just Google the model + Linux. There's entire sites like this where you can look up computers and components by model and check whether there is support: https://linux-hardware.org/?view=computers
The kernel already has workarounds for poorly implemented firmware, ACPI, etc. There's only so much that can be done to support bespoke platforms when manufacturers don't put in the work to be compatible, so buy from the ones that do.
> Until I can get into Media Market kind of store and get a PC, of whatever shape, with something like Ubuntu pre-installed, and everything single hardware feature works without "yes but", I am not caring.
Yes, I know those as well, my Asus Netbook (remember those?) came with Linux pre-installed, the wlan and GL ES support was never as good as on the Windows side, and once Flash was gone, never got VAAPI to work in more recent distros, it eventually died, 2009 - 2024.
Notice how quickly this has turned into the usual Linux forums kind of discussion that we have been having for the last 30 years regarding hardware support?
I'd consider revisiting this. These days you can do studio level video production, graphics and pro audio on Linux using native commercial software from a bare install on modern distributions.
I do pro audio on Linux, my commercial DAWs, VSTs, etc are all Linux-native these days. I don't have to think about anything sound-wise because Pipewire handles it all automatically. IMO, Linux has arrived when it comes to this niche recently, five years ago I'd have to fuck around with JACK, install/compile a realtime kernel and wouldn't have as many DAWs & VSTs available.
Similarly, I have a friend in video production and VFX whose studio uses Linux everywhere. Blender, DaVinci Resolve, etc make that easy.
There is a lack of options when it comes to pro illustration and raster graphics. The Adobe suite reigns supreme there.
Can you tell me more about the audio work you’re doing (sound design? instrument tracking? mixing? mastering? god help you live sound?) and the distro and applications you use?
I am more amateur/hobbyist than pro, but this is the primary reason I’m on macOS and I wouldn’t mind reasons to try Linux again (Ubuntu Studio ~8 years ago was my last foray).
> (sound design? instrument tracking? mixing? mastering? god help you live sound?)
This minus live sound, and I stick exclusively to MIDI controllers.
> and the distro and applications you use?
I'm on EndeavourOS, which is just Arch with a GUI installer + some default niceties.
I came from using Reaper on macOS, which is native on Linux, but was really impressed with Bitwig Studio[1] so I use that for most of everything.
I really like u-he & TAL's commercial offerings, Vital, and I got mileage out of pages like this[2] that list plugins that are Linux compatible. I'm insane so I also sometimes use paid Windows plugins over Yabridge, which works surprisingly well, but my needs have been suited well by what's available for Linux.
There's also some great open source plugins like Surge XT, Dexed & Vaporizer2, and unique plugins ChowMatrix.
> I wouldn’t mind reasons to try Linux again (Ubuntu Studio ~8 years ago was my last foray).
IMO the state of things is pretty nice now, assuming your hardware and software needs can be met. If you give it a try, I think a rolling release would be best, as you really want the latest Pipewire/Wireplumber support you can get.
In my experience, Linux is great for the type of user who would be well-suited with a Chromebook. Stick a browser, office suite and Zoom on it, and enable automatic updates, and they'll be good to go.
Linux is great for users on the extreme ends of the spectrum, with grandma who only needs email on one end and tiling WM terminal juggler on the other. Where it gets muddy is for everybody in the middle.
That’s not to say it can’t or doesn’t work for some people in the middle, but for this group it’s much more likely that there’s some kind of fly in the soup that’s preventing them from switching.
It’s where I’m at. I keep secondary/tertiary Linux boxes around and stay roughly apprised of the state of the Linux desktop but I don’t think I could ever use it as my “daily driver” unless I wrote my own desktop environment because nothing out there checks all of the right boxes.
> Linux is great for users on the extreme ends of the spectrum, with grandma who only needs email on one end and tiling WM terminal juggler on the other.
> That’s not to say it can’t or doesn’t work for some people in the middle, but for this group it’s much more likely that there’s some kind of fly in the soup that’s preventing them from switching.
Generally agree with these points with some caveats when it comes to "extremes".
I think for middle to power users, as long as their apps and workflows have a happy path on Linux, their needs are served. That happy path necessarily has to exist either by default or provisioned by employers/OEMs, and excludes anything that requires more than a button push like the terminal.
This is just based on my own experience, I know several people ranging from paralegals working on RHEL without even knowing they're running Linux, to people in VFX who are technically skilled in their niche, but certainly aren't sys admins or tiling window manager users.
Then there are the ~dozen casual gamers with Steam Decks who are served well by KDE on their handhelds, a couple moved over to Linux to play games seemingly without issue.
Using Linux is definitely easier when there’s just one thing you’re doing primarily, as is often the case in corporate settings. When things start to fall apart for me is with heavier multitasking (more than 2-3 windows) and doing a wide variety of things, as one might with their primary home machine.
Well-observed. I come back to check out the state of the Linux desktop every 2-3 years, and I always find that the latest layer/s of instrumentality and GUI are thin as frosting on a cake - as soon as you need anything that's not in the box, you're immediately in Sudo-land.
If it's a prescription medication in the jurisdiction you receive it, the possession itself of a prescription drug without a prescription can be illegal on its own.
You can patent specific therapies using unpatented drugs. For example, if the patent doesn't already exist and there's no prior art, you could patent methylene blue therapy for the treatment of athlete's foot.
Please be careful with this. It is a powerful MAOI. Someone I know lost their son who was trying to treat their depression with methylene blue. They had a fever, seized out and died, all symptoms of severe serotonin syndrome.
XNU similarly has a concept of "flavors" and uses FreeBSD code to provide the BSD flavor. Theoretically, either Linux code or a compatibility layer could be implemented in the kernel in a similar way. The former won't happen due to licensing.
The Tor daemon exposes DNS resolvers if you enable them in torrc.
You'd of course be trusting Tor nodes for your DNS at that point, as I believe the network pulls records from exit nodes' resolvers, but you sidestep the quandary of deciding who you trust to directly make requests to.
You can also have multiple resolvers in the same daemon that use their own circuits, reducing the chances of receiving forged DNS records from potentially malicious exit nodes.
Similarly, DoH and DoT work over Tor.
You don't have to use it at a system level, just point your DNS clients at the daemon.
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