Hacker News Reader

Comment by davidmurdoch | Hacker News Reader

Linux isn't actually a serious competitor in this space.

It should be. Everything in the world runs on Linux except people who write Word documents and emails for a living. All that's missing is a simple UI that provides LibreOffice and a browser and doesn't nag you or leave you vulnerable to malware and then educating purchasing agents to know about it and trust it.

>Everything in the world runs on Linux except people who write Word documents and emails for a living.

Many many games, SolidWorks CAD, QuickBooks Enterprise, Act! CRM, etc.... A small sample of things that don't run on Linux.

We have different opinions of "everything".

Proton DB says that 89% of the top 1000 games, 89% of the top 100 and 6 of the top 10 games on steam are rated Silver or above (a 7th is rated Bronze and 3 are broken).

AreWeAntiCheat yet says:

161 games are Supported (42%)

46 games are Running (12%)

3 are planning to support Linux (1%)

147 are currently Broken (38%)

28 (only) are explicitly Denied (7%)

So, many don't but, also, many do. Not everything, not nothing.

So most businesses.

I've seen laptops from large OEMs likr HP and Lenovo that ship with Ubuntu by default

The last two laptops I've purchased have been the same model as dell's 'developer editions' that came with linux preinstalled. Ironically I bought them with windows both times because the windows versions were on sale for like 25% off while the true 'developer editions' were still full price.

First thing I did was format them and install linux. My mom has my laptop from 2008 and it's still going strong with a lightweight mint xfce distro.

My guess is the reason for this is the lower default prize displayed, since in some regions they have to include the OS price in the total (or deduct it when you don't want it).

Sure, and I've bought those for myself. Doesn't change the fact that they're (perceived as) useless for nearly all business use cases.

> Doesn't change the fact that they're (perceived as) useless for nearly all business use cases.

That seems like the OEMs choice? Valve doesn't seem to be struggling with marketing non Windows for a usecase that was seen as "unsupported" until they came along.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com