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Comment by hrjd | Hacker News Reader

We already have a better alternative to Windows Server. It's Linux.

As much as I want to believe it, Linux is still quite lagging in the personal computing area, where hardware support, graphics support, creativity application support, and enterprise support are still far behind Windows/Mac. Linux still has a long way to go.

Its a chicken and egg problem. We need people using it and the software will catchup.

I a recent convert to Linux desktop, and it's not as far behind as I thought it would be.

> Its a chicken and egg problem. We need people using it and the software will catchup.

I doubt it. There's a lot of reasons developers don't target Linux and "it doesn't have users" is only one. Look at the several game devs who decided to stop supporting Linux after trying it. Linux Desktop's software distribution mechanism of choice is to insert community repo maintainers between developers and users, there are some 300 distributions all of which potentially have completely different base libraries, drivers are generally worse and no one takes responsibility for fixing them, etc.

For server, definitely. For desktops, no: you have a thousand Linux variations that are a nightmare to support on large scale. It is hard enough to support 2-3 Windows versions in the same time, it is impossible to have an entire country on the same Linux distro and version unless you make it mandatory as in "North Korea mandatory".

>a thousand Linux variations that are a nightmare to support on large scale.

So, why not pick -one- major distro (Debian family, Ubuntu say) and support it? win-win. (In everyday use,'thousand' doesn't mean much. 'Handful' is closer to the ground.)

This can be done only if the government enforces the choice, but that is almost impossible: everybody will believe they are special and need something else as an exception. Some will even be justified.

Why is the government mandating one or two versions of Windows for government computers fine, but requiring one or two selected versions of Linux distros "North Korea"?

TLDR: there are only 2 Windows versions with large market share, Linux on desktop is much more fragmented.

No, the government is mandating nothing, users can pick from the most popular OS and that are now Windows 10 and Windows 7. If you let users pick a Linux, any Linux, they will pick them all, unless the government really forces everyone to pick a single version - probably that is the point of the the version in the spotlight.

Government workers pick the OS on their work PCs, really? I'm quite sure "this is your PC, IT has installed Windows X on it" is the common case. It doesn't become suddenly bad if that instead is "... has installed Ubuntu 18.04 on it".

There are many reasons corporations choose Windows Desktop and Windows Server, many of which are not limited to backwards compatibility with existing infrastructure. It would take a large amount of money and resources to change over that infrastructure, and while it is doable, an intermediary has t he potential to save governments and corporations a lot of money and time.

Something like a server version of ReactOS[1] would allow existing infrastructure to continue to work as governments and corporations phase out their reliance on a foreign company's product.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS

For server that's a good argument - for end users client systems not so much

Perhaps. But far from practical for mass consumption.

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