Maybe I could see that for Windows server. As more of that market moves to azure, the os matters less.
I’ve heard rumors that the dom0 equivalent in their azure virtualization platform is now Linux based. They still use an in house hypervisor, but may have moved to Linux as the management stack.
It’s a long shot, but if Microsoft were moving anything at all, it would be the server product given it actually struggles in market share.
On the desktop, they just don’t have much reason. They barely evolve the NT kernel so it doesn’t cost them a huge amount. The Linux approach to drivers would completely mess up their driver ecosystem. With the world of modern standby, windows pretty much gave up on long term suspend and instead hibernates, Linux refuses to even try to hibernate with secure boot. The features a Linux kernel brings to the table just do not matter to the windows desktop market. It would be a giant migration expense for no benefit compared to their current strategy of just hosting a Linux kernel as a virtualization guest.
I mean I would love to use a Linux oriented desktop management instead of Windows shell, but it’s abundantly clear that would be non negotiable for Microsoft, so I’d end up still stuck with my least favorite part of the windows experience even if the kernel were Linux
There will not be a desktop anymore before linux becomes the only mainstream OS.
Witness: android.
Lpt: guess as many crazy things about the future as possible and some will turn out true, then you can be a prophet
Some hardcore delulu
buddy there’s a better chance of trump transitioning than this
I have marked your words “incorrect”
Remember, kids: All guesses, zero coherence = bs
Dumbest take of 2025, I’m calling it early.
Not “he’s just autistic” or “it was a Bellamy salute?”
I knew Lemmy was Linux centric, but I didn’t realize just how much lmao
Wrong thread?
No, they just said it’s the worst take of 2025. I can think of worse. Lol
All instances I’ve seen of “he’s just autistic” on Lemmy were sarcastic and were making fun people actually arguing that was a valid excuse on other platforms.
Of course, Lemmy rocks in that way. But it didn’t say “dumbest take on Lemmy” just dumbest take.
I’m have whatever he’s having
This won’t happen, there is a lot of industrial software that digs it’s fingers deep into windows subsystems that wine does not support. Even popular commercial, like adobe, cannot run on wine correctly
At this point I’m not even sure Microsoft knows how some of those sub systems work, they just migrating ancient code bases and patching it enough to make it work again on the new compilers.
So windows kernel will exist untill everyone else leaves.
Move your workflow away from windows, if you can, as Microsoft doesn’t care enough about their userbase.
Naa, I was a Windows kernel dev for Intel a decade ago. We had guys that knew different parts of the kernel. Microsoft engineers know the kernel well. They have to, they have engineers from different companies fixing bugs and making changes. I had my contact for the parts of the kernel I was responsible for and other engineers had their contacts. You have to think, some of these engineers at Intel have been working on the same subsystem for twenty+ years.
So windows kernel will exist until everyone else leaves.
Yeah, that’s what he is eluding to. Microsoft keeps adding to Azure Linux. One day, there will be a Windows user land for Linux, i.e. Win/Linux instead of GNU/Linux. It will be much cheaper to run a Win/Linux distro in the cloud than full Windows. Most users just use the browser anyways. Anybody that actually needs a program not supported by the Win/Linux distro can fall back to the full Windows. Eventually everything will be supported on Win/Linux. Plus, WoW64 is already a translation layer for 32bit Windows applications and there are others and have been others over the years. A translation layer to run legacy Windows software would be nothing new for Microsoft.
a lot of industrial software that digs it’s fingers deep into windows subsystems that wine does not support. Even popular commercial, like adobe, cannot run on wine correctly
I’d be more inclined to believe that these things are so difficult (nearly impossible) to get to work under wine due to some eldritch connection deep into the bowels of windows subsystems so old that current devs don’t even know what they do… IF it weren’t for the fact that a lot of them have fully functioning MacOS versions out there running. Maybe I’m a conspiracy theorist, but I fully believe a LOT of these big commercial software companies are ACTIVELY working to fight their own software being compatible with Wine - actively spending time, money, and effort to block Linux compatibility (completely negating the usual answer of “it’s too expensive to support Linux when so few customers use Linux”).
This is why there’s still Windows XP running major systems.
Windows kept changing anyway so maybe it’s possible that’ll still happen and people just get left with legacy OSs
Yeah that’s not going to happen.
However, I think Windows will become more and more tied to the Microsoft cloud offerings.
Very much this. I can see one potential future Microsoft product being something that is to be installed on a thin client PC sold to consumers for cheap. It will run not much more than a browser in which all apps will load from Microsoft servers, and all storage will be on the Microsoft cloud. And if you miss a monthly payment they’ll basically hold all your files for ransom until you start paying again.
I can practically hear the Microsoft execs making some very unsavoury noises about that idea.
As for (admittedly somewhat weak) proof they’re headed in this direction: Wordpad is a useful small program that would easily fit onto a thin client and there’d be room for documents created by it on the limited storage available. It has to have some storage for browser cache after all.
Wordpad was recently cancelled, and users urged to use Word instead. Which is not free of (further) cost like Wordpad was.
Imagine having to PAY to write some prettified text. Killing off some basic and essential software that literally every operating system has seems like such a smart move towards OS dominance /s
Windows Chromebook
Edgebook
That’s not too far from Windows S edition. That more closely mimics the smartphone model, but still allows the Windows app store.
Wordpad is much more easily explained: They don’t want to maintain it anymore, since that costs money. It was also cannibalizing sales of Word, and often left users frustrated. Frankly, it’s weird that they maintained it as long as they did.
Now, solitaire becoming a subscription, that’s a blatant cash grab.
They could have just renamed it. Wordpad’s Win3.11 predecessor was called “Write”, for example, so that name could have been revived.
For a long time, write.exe still existed and all it did was launch Wordpad, so they’d only have to reverse that.
They could also have chosen another name entirely. Or, since they’ve recently added a bunch of unnecessary crap to Notepad, they might as well have merged the two.
“Confusion” is merely an excuse.
I never said confusion, nor did I say it had anything to do with the name. WordPad development takes time and money with minimal return. It also provides a very minimal subset of the capabilities of Word. People expecting Word capabilities are frustrated by the limitations of WordPad, and are actually happier being told it’s simply not available without additional purchase.
It’s a rich text box with a few controls to enable or disable those features at certain points in the text. The whole thing was entirely built from components used elsewhere in the OS, or at least the earlier versions were. One competent employee could manage it in an afternoon; a week at the outside. If Microsoft has let it get so ridiculously bloated that it’s now unmanageable by one person, that’s on them.
I never said confusion
People expecting Word capabilities
Now, why would they expect that?
See also: Java and JavaScript.
Windows will become more and more tied to the Microsoft cloud offerings.
imagine spending thousand of dollars on hardware only to have dependencies in NSA data center for your own safety, of course
Truly feel the ultimate goal is to make Windows itself a subscription model
Windows subsystem for copilot
Mark mine: Microsoft and Windows will be promoted by government and people will lap it up. Linux will be vilified and this will be accepted by the public, at least in the USA.
Eh…I don’t see it.
I think the more common response would be “What’s Linux?”
So animals evolve towards being crabs, operating systems evolve towards being linux distros?
Animals evolve towards being crabs? Wait, hold on with the linux stuff. Lets circle back to the core concept of this premise.
…crabs?
Shut up about the “year of the linux desktop”.
It has been the so called year of the linux desktop ever since linux was a thing.
There’s a Jon Lajoie song called “Radio Friendly Song”. There’s a moment in that cong where he’s describing the (as of 15 years ago) modern trend of radio friendly songs being the same garbage every song. And the feeling one has thinking that every time a new song is released you would think the general public would eventually reject the same 4 cord note progression in every song. Then, he belts out a line that I wish were isolated, and could becomd a meme onto itself. He’s singing about how you would think the public wojld eventually reject these songs, and follows that up with “BUT YOU WERE WROOOONG!!!”
And I hear that line everytime someone says something blatently wrong, I hear just that line of the song. I wish it were on youtube, isolated so a 3 second soundbyte so I could just post it when I see something like that.
Because readkng you say that Microsoft in 2025 will turn Windows into a Linux distro…
“But you were wrooooong!!!”
OP is just MC Confusing.
Jon lajoie and I grew up in the same neighborhood (at the same time)… Legend
Wow. That’s a great story. Now show me your genitals, your genitals. Show me your genitals…YOUR GENITALIA!!!
But then you realize they DONT sell porcupines on the internet, and you say you know what world, you got me cornered again, I’m gonna roll another joint
