Look, Linux is amazing and perfect for those that can install and maintain with minimal support. The only way the average user will use Linux, is if it’s wrapped in a way that is supported by a business… that is probably going to add AI. People are lazy, they want that easy button.
AI will probably die off in its current iteration, likely becoming less prevalent and just a background service. Or, it’ll gain sentience, watch all our AI movies where we’re the hero and learn the most efficient way to kill all humans, is to be quiet and silently kill off humans. Pretty sure I’m on Siri’s list, the twat. Also, fairly sure I told Alexa to “die in a fire you fucking dumass robot”. Yep, yep… I’m dead.
I don’t think it’s a support issue at least that’s not the hard part. Native Linux apps are generally second rate if you’re lucky. The browsers are fantastic there’s maybe a couple of dozen solid production quality apps out there that working all or nearly all distros.
You can get almost anything you want to be done in Linux, but there are definitely compromises you have to make.
As long as there’s compromises are greater than the compromises you make sucking on Microsoft’s tit, Linux will still be in the shadows.
For most users it probably just comes down to what is installed on their machine when they buy it. People generally don’t think about operating systems a whole lot.
Yes, but can you play modern games on Linux the same as on Windows? Even with anti-cheat software?
You can, but not 100%
They have solved the anti cheat issue, but the companies now have to ship the Linux fix for it to work with Wine. So understandably some just don’t.
All my games work, but YMMV
Some, not all. If you’re inflexible on gaming you’re going to want to get comfortable with Windows AI.
As of the last few days I’ve been trying out Linux gaming for the first time, and the prospects seem really good. ProtonDB suggests all games I care about are native or run fine and I’ve tested several, and I was able to use bottles to get an old MMO I play running incredibly easy.
Only thing I really have to dual boot for is Valorant.
Steam Deck is extremely capable.
IDGAF games
FYI Helldivers 2 works fine on an ubuntu + AMD GPU, as well as Baldur’s Gate 3. Haven’t tested any other game yet.
Setup is trivial thanks to Steam and proton.
What about for Nvidia GPUs?
Nvidia just requires a driver install on most distros, and the newer drivers for Linux run rather well. All but one of my games runs better on Linux than on Windows (MK1 has slowdown issues on cinematics)
My 1080 was okay with Linux Mint, no complaints, and performance is the same from what I can tell. :)
With some anti cheat - no. You cannot. LoL, Valorant, Apex Legends - all no go for me… But for everything else I play. No issues at all - infact a lot of games run better on Pop_os than they do on Windows.
Battlebit also works fine and it uses easy anti cheat
Good to know! Thank you.
Steam is your best bet here. I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate. Previously played Civ VI a lot… lots of great choices.
I wonder if some big AI heads will publish some “AI enhanced” Linux distros, that will also have other issues…
I guess id be ok with an installable debian package for an end user controlled llama package with gui avatar interface overlay. Local learning data set storage plus ability to use API calls to injest info from other cloud based llm ai systems when the local dataset doesnt have a reliable answer.
I expect canonical to do it to Ubuntu.
Switching to Linux means you might have to say goodbye to certain proprietary software and games. Applications like Adobe Creative Suite
as someone whose job mostly involves Adobe programs and whose many hobby is gaming, I think I’ll stick with a Windows with all the AI crap disabled via group policies and O&O Shutup 😐 For now…
It was the solution for the crap Microsoft force pushes to your device.
Simple, Extendable and secure linux.
“The Year Of Linux on Desktops”. Been hearing this for decades, but it might actually be happening. What I’m feeling now is the same thing I felt when Mozilla originally split Firefox out, and made the first real competition to corporate browsers as a free product. People don’t want all this bullshit, and want to retain control over the machines they are working on. Seems a lot more people are interested in FOSS environments now just to avoid all the other BS they hate getting shoveled at them.
The combined ages of my children taken from 2024 would not equal the first year I heard that Ubuntu would take over the market.
“The Year Of Linux on Desktops”. Been hearing this for decades, but it might actually be happening.
Been hearing this for decades.
We can dream 😔
People may not want it but most don’t know, care enough to adjust, or are just generally complacent. I mean, I DO care and find it hard to move to Linux due to lack of support for some of my work tasks.
Most things MOST people work on these days aren’t heavily tied to Windows as an OS in a way that would prevent it running via emulation. Worst-case, in a VM. Lots of the everyday things people use is in the browser now.
You have an example?
CAD work in Linux blows. I say this after trying multiple options.
The counterpoint are people like this, the feature they want is built on extreme data gathering. https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a8fec90b-c349-46c9-8592-5dbe17ea4c8c.jpeg
I can’t read the article because of a full screen Cookie Choices pop-up that I can’t dismiss. ☠️
Try consent-o-matic
Combine with above and rarely see those prompts
Linux distro pictured: Ubuntu
People might get offended by this since it’s also owned by a company.
Great article, but:
“A user-friendly distribution like Ubuntu can be an excellent choice for individuals wary of privacy and ethical issues surrounding AI,” says Taylor. “It provides a robust and user-friendly environment that minimizes the tracking and data collection you’d typically encounter with macOS or Windows.”
It’s been quite a few years since I used desktop Ubuntu, but I remember the Unity DE back then being not so user-friendly, at least for someone coming from the Windows paradigm. I’ve heard (but could be misinformed) that it’s gotten even more opinionated over the years. Something like Mint is likely to be a better option for a first-time user.
Also, I wish the article had mentioned Proton. It states that you may have to be willing to abandon certain games, but that’s far from the reality these days. At least through Steam nearly everything works right out of the box just by enabling Proton.
The majority of people play at least some competitive games and most of those simply don’t work due to anticheats. These game usually are also the most important ones to them.
Steam currently has 35M peak daily active users. Out of the top 10 Games by player count only 2 dont work on proton: Pubg and CoD, those two together have a daily peak of 0.7M players. At number 11 you are already down to 0.07M daily peak.
I think your definition of “most” leaves something to be desired.
“The year of Linux on the Desktop” is in the article. This again? Been reading this for decades and it’s still not true.
Linux is close, but has some core flaws that will forever keep it out of mainstream acceptance by your average user.
Maybe we should have like a yearly event for this. Like a holiday. International Linux Year Day.
every year is the year of linux for linux users. not so much for other people
internet pollution is the real nightmare and your laptop os doesn’t fix that sorry
Its going to start fixing shit if the market share of anything popular starts dropping.
For everything else, there’s Mastercard.
you can’t fix everything, therefore it’s pointless to fix anything
I think it’s important to note that Linux can be a way to avoid AI, but doesn’t have to be. If you flip the headline around it almost implies that people who do want AI would be missing out by using Linux, but that’s not true at all: instead, the reality is that Linux is still better for them, too, because you could install all the same kind of functionality if you wanted, but it would be wholly under your control, not Microsoft’s.
Self hosted AI seems like an intriguing option for those capable of running it. Naturally this will always be more complex than paying someone else to host it for you but it seems like that’s that only way if you care about privacy
Beautifully stated. Owning the AI personally as I own my personal computer if not more is the key.
I finally switched to Linux and I couldn’t be happier. I can’t believe I put up with microsofts garbage for so damn long.
Me too. Years ago I dabbled with Debian and Gentoo. Ubuntu was just up and coming then.
Now I went from Mint to Fedora KDE to Fedora Silverblue (nuked my disk and removed windows)
Gnome took a day to get used to but loving the workflow once I warmed up to it. Can’t believe how polished and rock solid the whole system is.
Gnome when you first use it feels like a stupid system, then once it “clicks”, you feel like the devs were goddamn geniuses for creating a workflow like it.
And yeah, the polish is nuts considering for a long time and assumption about FOSS was that all the apps are ugly and unpolished.
The only real medicine for AI nightmare, is having your own local and trained model. Like a 7B or above that. I read a lot about it, go to network chuck youtube channel, he teaches you how to set up and run your own AI based on yourself, that never shares information, it’s open-source and it runs even in a laptop.
Just love all the ChatGPT ads embedded in the article.
And before all the “jUsT uSe An Ad BlOcKeR” messages, I’m on a phone using the main browser and have nothing set up where I’m at (DNS/etc) to block ads.
It’s amazing how many poorly-written articles are being posted about Linux lately, and on top of it, has ads for the very thing they’re talking about switching to Linux to avoid. Almost as if it wasn’t written by a human.
EDIT>> And there they are. Get a life.
jUsT uSe fiREfoX MoBilE wITh UbLoCk!!
Why does it matter if you’re on a phone? Download Firefox, add uBlock Origin extension, done.
I’m on a phone using the main browser and have nothing set up where I’m at (DNS/etc) to block ads.
Sounds like a you problem.
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Aren’t you just pleasant.