But do I (and all my colleagues) need Microsoft Office (Word, Excel at least) and/or Drawing software (Adobe or something) and/or god forbid Visual Studio 2026, and some other corporate software to make a living? Inevitably yes.
To be fair, that could cover a lot of people.
In my experience watching people make the switch in the real world, the failure point is either the last 10% of software that they actually need, or the first time they encounter some Linux quirk that they didn’t expect. Then it reaches a point where there isn’t really any upside for people who aren’t ideologically motivated and who don’t get triggered by Windows 11 design choices or occasional pop-ups.
I have some specific engineering software that must run on Windows, period. I’ve gotten flak from the software engineers at every company whenever it’s discovered that my second machine is Windows, but outside of software devs nobody else questions it. Using Windows for work is perfectly understood by most other disciplines
I experience no delays with the start menu, and it's perfectly smooth on my 240 Hz monitor.
I also never encountered crashes like described as OP's reason for the switch.
So what do I have to gain from using Linux? A bit better compatibility for my software work, but much worse game compatibility. Fewer annoying popups, but they aren't that frequent on Windows either. Probably a worse update experience, and more time spent configuring.
It does ... for them Linux is a very good substitute for their needs. OTOH, for certain specialties, software available for Linux is NOT the best. 2012 was the Linux year for me ... but while FOSS is OK, sometimes a $200 app is a far superior choice for non-technical people. (Musicians for example.)
It is beginning to look a lot like war is brewing between Europe and the US over Greenland. US media working super hard to make an "acquisition" sound reasonable and "FreedomTM".
If and that is a big if, Trump were to get Greenland, there is not much that Europe can do in any case. Maybe a few politicians will go on X/twitter and complain but every country in the EU knows that they are no match for the US military and I am saying that as someone who lives in the EU.
I suppose the EU could go after big US tech companies but since most of Europe's needs are covered by the very same companies, I don't think this would be viable solution either and let's be honest the EU people are not just going to switch to Ubuntu tomorrow morning.
It's unfortunate but it's the reality.
The EU can just kick out the US bases and forbid Mastercard and Visa working here. ASML? Good luck for Intel; I'm sure AMD would have its asses already covered and found some alternative in Asia.
Watch the Dow Jones collape in minutes.
On GAFAM, there are alternatives, and libre software it's libre for the whole world, not just the US.
Software it's easily replaceable except for die hard industrial DOS (where FreeDOS experts would cover) and some special XP/w9x era machinery. European hardware, the industrial one... there's no alternative in the US. No one.
If the US army steps on Greenland in order to seize it, it's the end of the American economy.
China and Russia? These two should watch the Bering currents and South Asian quakes first; the upcoming ones will be a nightmare due to ice meltings.
The EU uses Mastercard and Visa. If youblock them in the EU, you just cripple the EU economy instantly.
> On GAFAM, there are alternatives, and libre software it's libre for the whole world, not just the US.
How many people do you know that would be willing to switch to an alternative OS tomorrow or give up their Iphones?
> If the US army steps on Greenland
The US army is already on Greenland. They have a military base there.
I agree with you in spirit but in reality any countermeasures would inflict a lot of pain the EU as well. I don't think anyone has a crystal ball but whatever happens won't be good for anyone.
I feel like we are close to a tipping point where governments and companies will move off US services en masse as fast as they reasonably can. I think this movement already started. E.g. our local university has forbidden use of US (well, any non-EU) LLMs for work and are trialing Mistral. Two years ago they would have gone Gemini without thinking (since they are already using Google Workspace). They are also extending support for their Linux workspace, which has primarily been maintained for CS'y groups, but they want to be ready to roll it out when needed.
A lot of organizations (especially non-profits, universities, etc.) have woken up when Microsoft relinquished Microsoft 365 access of the ICC chief prosecutor overnight.
I guess one side effect of the US going rogue is open source getting a lot more traction.
I hope that the EU (and UK) will also invest heavily in iOS and Google Android alternatives, because that will be the hardest bits to replace, but as long as AOSP still exists it will be possible to bootstrap reasonably quickly.
A few governments are trying to do something about reliance on the US, but they are also doing things that create greater reliance.
Its good your university is trying, but that sounds like a limited response. Do they use Windows? MS Teams? Google Drive?
I know of no government making serious attempts to get the private sector of US dependence. Just check how many things you use regularly run on AWS. Desktop Linux is great but is any governmentactually making consistent attempts to persuade businesses to switch to it?
Step by step. For example, most Dutch banking apps work fine on GrapheneOS. Yes, still with Google Play Services, but at least they are sandboxed. It shows that there is a path to removing dependence incrementally. There are also a bunch of European phone brands (yes, most manufactured in China), like Nothing, Fairphone, Gigaset, HMD, etc. and at least one of them already supports alternative Android versions. Yes, I know they have issues, but you need to start somewhere.
Its good your university is trying, but that sounds like a limited response. Do they use Windows? MS Teams? Google Drive?
Yes, but they also have an official Linux workplace, last time I was there, you could choose to re-image a machine to run Linux on every machine. They are also trialing ownCloud.
The migration won't happen overnight, but it's good that they are setting up the alternatives, trialing them with small user groups, etc. It's the best way to prepare yourself.
I know of no government making serious attempts to get the private sector of US dependence. Just check how many things you use regularly run on AWS. Desktop Linux is great but is any government actually making consistent attempts to persuade businesses to switch to it?
I agree, not enough persuasion is done. But being gloomy is not going to help. Best is to trust in our own strength (we can do it), accept that the solutions are going to be worse (at least initially), make people aware of the risks and alternatives.
The whole situation sucks, but big changes also give rise to big opportunities and it is an opportunity to change to a more open, more privacy-friendly, more user-oriented, etc. ecosystem.
Any of the above moves (military bases, Visa/MC, ASML, etc) would make the US suffer, but it would collapse the EU. Europe has a decade or two of hard work and crippling costs to significantly disengage from the US, and no one has the vision or fortitude to make that happen.
You also wouldn't have any security. If you disengage from the US militarily (whatever's left of "NATO"), we'll all see how far Russia can project power. Not as far as they'd like, but enough to make life miserable in a half-dozen or more current-NATO countries. Which puts pressure on their neighbors of course. This would be a shooting war in the east, which would require central and western European countries to decide whether they want to spend blood and treasure to respond. "No" kicks the can down the road a few years, "Yes" is economically devastating.
China could step in! It's a long way from China to the Mediterranean and North Atlantic, and their naval power is ... thin, currently. But you don't want China to step in. They could send money, but then they'd own you worse than the US even fever dreams about owning you.
The US seizing Greenland would be a terrible thing for the world, but I think the most likely outcome is that there would be complaints from the EU countries at highest level and volume, and a handful of countries would get legislation through to make the US suffer, but it would fail at the EU level, maybe even split the EU into two factions of American-bully-reluctantly-aligned countries vs American-bully-righteously-andor-selfservingly-opposed countries. The instability would last a few years, maybe a decade, and then we'd be back to where we are now, with "Greenland (US)" replacing "Greenland (DK)" on maps, but otherwise no one would spend much time thinking about it.
And the stomach-turning irony is that all of this is completely unnecessary. The US has a compact of free operation in Greenland already, including military operations. This is just an exercise in establishing dominance (i.e. The End of Politeness). There are some administrative details like mineral rights and redrawing international exclusivity zones (watch out Canada), but those are not very important when the global economic machine is working properly.
The rhetoric here in the US is that RU and CN are waiting to pounce on Greenland already, and that if we don't, they will. I honestly don't know if there's even a shred of truth to that -- it sounds like absolute manufactured BS to me (RU isn't strong enough to hold it, and CN can't project at that distance), but I have a strong anti-trusting bias against liars who lie, and those are the people dominating the conversation on this side.
The next ten months in the US will decide the next fifty years of the world. On a personal level, that's the rest of my life, and I'm worried about it.
I wish wisdom, resilience, and peace, for all of us.
I agree.
It's a way to assert dominance and the EU countries are partially responsible for the state of things.
I mean, when you outsource your manufacturing capabilities to China, your tech services to the US and your security to NATO, then it frees up a lot of cash to spend on other things and that is probably why life in the EU is pretty good.
Unfortunately the other side of this coin is that it leaves you completely unprepared if/when things change quickly.
> Europe has a decade or two of hard work and crippling costs
Once again unfortunately, many EU countries are already maxing out their budgets each year and running sky high deficits so there is not much dry powder to absorb these costs.
Raising more money through taxes is politically unpalatable when a lot of the EU countries are already in the top 10 of most taxed countries on the planet.
The only notable exceptions are Poland and Germany but they won't be able to carry the rest of the EU by themselves.
> maybe even split the EU into two factions of American-bully-reluctantly-aligned countries vs American-bully-righteously-andor-selfservingly-opposed countries.
The smallest EU countries have no choice. There is no EU army and therefore if the US leaves there is no one to replace it. It's a basic case of choosing the best worst outcome. Become a vassal of Russia or become a vassal of the US.
Also, back to economics. The inner European market can be huge. We have decent armies ourservers, too, among market with the whole Mediterranean, Africa and South America (Spaniards know how to do deals, no matter which political side). Oh, and don't forget China, the Chinese will love to sell us advanced tech at bargain price.
The US tries to set right wing sided mafias in LatAm, Europe tries to get good deals. The US needs to behave like gentlemen and not like thugs.
And many other places - most countries depend in US tech and increasingly so (recent NH stories about Vietnam mandating banks only use unrooted mobile phones). Just card payments not working would be an economic disaster. So would closing down all the businesses and services that rely on AWS, GCP and Azure. So would whatever the US chose to do through Apple, MS, and Google OSes.
> we'll all see how far Russia can project power. Not as far as they'd like, but enough to make life miserable in a half-dozen or more current-NATO countries. Which puts pressure on their neighbors of course. This would be a shooting war in the east, which would require central and western European countries to decide whether they want to spend blood and treasure to respond
I am more optimistic than you about this. Russia is struggling just against Ukraine. They might just invade the Baltic states but anything more would force Western Europe to commit and the Russians know this. Even in Ukraine they invaded because we had signalled we would do nothing by not responding to the previous invasion of Ukraine, to threats to invade and previous Russian invasions of other countries.
> The rhetoric here in the US is that RU and CN are waiting to pounce on Greenland already, and that if we don't, they will. I honestly don't know if there's even a shred of truth to that - RU isn't strong enough to hold it, and CN can't project at that distance
If Greenland becomes independent in a few years time would it then become more of a threat?
> RU isn't strong enough to hold it, and CN can't project at that distance
China is building its armed forces, and there are ways of getting a country within your sphere if influence short of invasion.
> I wish wisdom, resilience, and peace, for all of us.
We all do but I think we are living in a new cold war.
Other way around. They are used to using money. Even India tried to make everything electronic. A bit successful but not totally.
Yes Playstore is important. But unless US mandates Qualcomm and mediatek, apple to brick all non US.phones this won't happen.
>it's the end of the American economy.
You assume that this is not the goal of the current US "leadership". They want the country to fail, so they can rule over the ashes. They are a lot more fucked up in the head than you probably think they are. They simply don't care what happens, so long as they are the ones in power.
Trump would love nothing more than to dissolve NATO, and isolate from all of the EU. He would see that as an accomplishment. I wish I were joking.
We don't need to annihilate the US forces, just make the US bleed enough to rethink this stupid shit.
Whether or not that's true, that doesn't mean they won't try anyway. Pride sometimes beats pragmatism. I think it's foolish to dismiss the possibility of war, been if you believe it will be one-sided.
I would advise Americans not to do anything stupid.
These people will probably use a tablet or phone.
Drawing, yeah, true... design as well... closest the Linux world ever was to get something decent in the design department was the Serif/Affinity products, but they never made the port.
You're making the exact same argument everyone here is making, and that's because you're attempting to argue from technical parity / superiority. Windows isn't the dominant desktop OS because of it's technical superiority to Linux, it's dominant because of deeply entrenched compliance and industry reasons.
Healthcare, finance, legal, engineering (less so today, but still very sub-discipline dependant), and government all have very specific software needs that no one in their right mind will bother writing new software, or rewriting existing software, would do for 6% desktop market share.
EMR programs (Epic, Cerner, Meditech), Practice management and billing, Tax and compliance, Legal discovery and case-management tools, Niche hardware and it's control software
This is all the realm of Windows. Most of these applications are Windows-only (Win32 / .NET / ActiveX legacy), they're only certified and validated on Windows, and they're only contractually supported on Windows.
Even if Wolters-Kluwer rewrote the entire CCH ProSystem fx suite for Linux, now there's recertification, regulatory review, vendor retraining, staff retraining, potential issues with auditors and regulators, etc.
There's currently no upside large enough to justify: Vendor finger-pointing, Compliance risk, Training costs, Downtime risk
It's negative ROI all the way down.
Windows has to become so bad that switching to Linux for desktops overcomes all of the above.
I've not had any lock-in to Microsoft software and I don't think I've deal with a .doc file in all that time. I need a terminal to run devops stuff, and emacs to write it with, but almost nothing else.
Artists, and so on, are probably tied to Adobe, etc. But random developers and sysadmins are certainly capable of switching I think.
For me the biggest sticking point to windows is cad/cam software, lightburn and anything proprietary needed for hobby equipment. I'm glad though that 3d printer software has always had equal Linux support (as long as you don't use Bambu).
Lightroom vs Gimp does not make sense, should be Gimp vs Photoshop if anything.
For photos you can use digikam + darktable/rawtherapee.
Are you all expected to provide your own personal hardware?
Maybe this depends on location, but everyone I can think of has a corporate-issued laptop on which their corporate software runs.
I can't take these kinds of arguments seriously because I regularly read, edit and create documents and spreadsheets and never felt the need to use Word or Excel. It seems most people I've met who claim they can't use Linux because they need X, Y or Z never really tried when I ask. It's just an assumption and they deal with Microsoft based on it.
It's a shame, we could have a world without data-mining and vendor lock-ins if we were principled and didn't always choose the easy path.
For the average home user I can see gaming - while hugely improved in recent years - could still be a showstopper.
But surely for the average user Libreoffice or online versions of MS Office will suffice? Surely there cannot be _that_ many average PC users that need the full power of Photoshop?
Of course I expect the average HN user to be quite different from the average user in general, but I really do think that many casual users get no advantages from Windows apart from familiarity.