'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

[Posted June 9, 2020 by coogle]

TechRepublic interviewed Lenovo's general manager and executive director of the Workstation & Client AI Group Rob Herman about the company's plans to begin optionally pre-loading enterprise versions of the Red Hat and Ubuntu Linux distributions across its P Series ThinkPad and ThinkStation products, putting Linux on parity with Microsoft Windows for those product lines. "'Around the workstation and what I would call the performance computing world, the world is really changing [...] We're starting to see a lot more use of data science and AI workloads on performance client products like workstations, [and] we're seeing software development need the ability for more customization and flexibility.' This is where Linux and the power of open source come into the picture, says Herman. This is particularly crucial in artificial intelligence data science and content creation applications, areas Lenovo is eager to tap. 'Overall, we see content creators looking for an edge, looking for a new way, a new platform to develop on,' says Herman. 'The number of Linux users is increasing year on year, so from a market standpoint, we see it's the right time to do it.'"

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 9, 2020 19:22 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (9 responses)

A lot of work to make Linux stable and predictable is finally paying off: systemd, DRM/KMS, Wayland, libxcb, and so on. It's nice to see this kind of progress.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 9, 2020 19:52 UTC (Tue) by tau (subscriber, #79651) [Link] (8 responses)

Credit is also due to Richard Hughes et al for the Linux Vendor Firmware Service, both for the technical work in building it and for the political work of bringing hardware vendors on board. I have a recent Lenovo laptop that receives regular system firmware and Embedded Controller firmware updates through this service, all of which is smoothly integrated into Fedora's regular software update GUI.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 9, 2020 20:42 UTC (Tue) by Rudd-O (guest, #61155) [Link]

hughsient really did the world an immense favor with his work.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 9, 2020 21:50 UTC (Tue) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link]

Ditto here: I have a Dell Mobile Precision running Ubuntu and firmware updates are automatically provided, integrated into the normal Ubuntu update facilities, and Just Work. Love it!

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 10, 2020 3:24 UTC (Wed) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link] (2 responses)

I'd prefer for an alternate world where hardware vendors suddenly decided to make their firmware open source instead.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 11, 2020 13:03 UTC (Thu) by shiftee (subscriber, #110711) [Link] (1 responses)

We'd all prefer that. We need to vote with our wallets

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 13, 2020 13:25 UTC (Sat) by mfuzzey (subscriber, #57966) [Link]

That only really works if at least one vendor is already providing open firmware and we all vote with our wallets for that.

Unfortunately I am not aware of much hardware that has open source firmware , except for bios firmware where some devices use core boot.

When all firmware is closed there's not much a purchaser can do other than not buy at all. And, unless you somehow communicate that the reason you didn't buy was lack of open firmware, that doesn't improve the situation.

Of course there are technical things that can be done like developing new hardware that comes with open firmware or reverse engineering existing hardware to build open firmware but neither are for the faint of heart and require fairly rare skill sets so progress tends to be very slow.

Of course once one vendor has open stuff things get easier. There was a time for instance when it was impossible to buy test equipment like USB analyzers or oscilloscopes that could be used under Linux. But once one becomes available you can buy that and then when anyone tries to sell you something like that your first question is "can I use it under Linux?" If the answer is no you say "ok company X's stuff does so no thank you" and show them the door. After seeing a few customers like that they tend to get the message.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 10, 2020 7:20 UTC (Wed) by ebirdie (guest, #512) [Link] (2 responses)

Reminded from the supportive comment I checked, if my Debian Buster system had the firmware update system and service already installed. Yes, it has, although forgotten, but a disappointment:

>$ fwupdmgr get-releases
>Not compatible with org.freedesktop.fwupd version 1.2.5, requires >= 1.2.7

Stable release has non-compatible version with the service and a higher version from testing release suggests dependency problems. A quick web-search revealed an Ubuntu user suggesting to another to use a snap package for fwupd upgrade.

At this time I'll pass and wish I could do more than this. Getting more service users should make it more attractive to OEMs, I think.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 10, 2020 8:40 UTC (Wed) by amacater (subscriber, #790) [Link]

Firmware update - interesting :) In front of me is a relatively recent Thinkpad T470 still under warranty which dual boots. When under Windows, it flashed BIOS, when I next booted into Debian, it added firmware. I think it's now working with fwupdate with no problem on a Buster system.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 10, 2020 20:53 UTC (Wed) by geuder (subscriber, #62854) [Link]

Ubuntu 20.04 had a broken shim in the repos for a while. They have removed it, but if someone has happened to install it a manual downgrade is required. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/shim/+bug/1864223

Symptom: fwupdatemgr says a reboot is required, but after rebooting you end up in the regular Linux instead of the fw updater.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 10, 2020 5:14 UTC (Wed) by ILMostro (guest, #105083) [Link]

The cynical side of me might attribute this new stance also to the use of technology in (geo)political grand-standing and policy adoptions that aim to shape the future of economies in the 21st century. FWIW, this is not intended as some kind of trolling or conspiracy nonsense. Ultimately, though, as a long-time Linux user, I don't really care much either way; just as long as the trend stays positive.

It should make life easier for linux users on personal computers as well as on workstations. Hopefully, there will come a time when a business doesn't have to compromise their choice of workstations to Macbooks, because some component driver or firmware is not stable enough to be used company-wide.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 10, 2020 7:12 UTC (Wed) by bangert (subscriber, #28342) [Link] (22 responses)

This is why WSL exists - pretty darn good of MS to realize this ahead of time.
But execution seems lacking - it almost looks like WSL is too little too late.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 10, 2020 12:16 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (21 responses)

I disagree; WSL is succeeding wildly, convincing corporate "descision-makers" that there is no need to deploy native Linux workstations because "Linux" is now just another Windows feature.

And, since anything developed under WSL will inevitably have subtle (if not direct) dependencies on the underlying Windows platform, it will also lead to an uptick of Windows server deployments since testing for and fixing those issues will be more expensive than opting for Windows licensing on the server. (In other words, using the same platform for deployment as was used for development)

(Don't get me wrong, WSL1 is brilliant, from both the technical and business perspectives. But make no mistake, it only exists as a way to directly undermine Linux!)

Against WSL

Posted Jun 10, 2020 12:40 UTC (Wed) by Herve5 (subscriber, #115399) [Link] (1 responses)

+1.
I perfectly remember (I'm this old) the eighties when Microsoft's single argument was 'Excel and Word are the only applications that run on both Apple and Windows'.
As silly as it may have been, this totally convinced the guys in charge in my factory -resulting in Microsoft eliminating Apple in the industry -and in juste a couple years, mind you.
The present move is, very exactly, the same.

Against WSL

Posted Jun 10, 2020 14:02 UTC (Wed) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

Luckily WSL1 has been deemed a dead end and WSL2 is actually Linux, so now bugs that come in as "doesn't work on WSL1" can be closed as "obsoleted by Microsoft" rather than "the Linux emulation layer is the problem, talk to Microsoft" confusing submitters. Sure, not the best for convincing these "decision makers", but far better than the fork in behavior with a "we can't break compat" wedge forever driving them apart.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 10, 2020 14:43 UTC (Wed) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link]

On the other hand, I will not continue to port tty-only program to the Windows ABI when running the debian/ubuntu binaries on WSL provides a much better experience at zero cost to me. So it cuts both way.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 10, 2020 21:01 UTC (Wed) by ibukanov (subscriber, #3942) [Link] (12 responses)

WSL2 is VM running a full Linux kernel. As such it is not different from how, for example, Docker is implemented on Windows. And I has never heard that this caused an uptake in Windows Server installations.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 11, 2020 7:15 UTC (Thu) by zdzichu (subscriber, #17118) [Link] (11 responses)

Existence of WSL1 was already used to shot down any efforts for Linux workstation in the company I work at currently. Coincidentally, when we presented shortcomings, Microsoft come out with WSL2. Then WSL2 was used as an excuse to deny Linux on developers laptops, even though WSL2 was not available yet.
The management's idea of development is using 8core/32GB RAM laptops as a terminal to run embedded putty to "develop" on remote linux servers.
(and WSL2 still provides command-line only, right?)

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 11, 2020 7:44 UTC (Thu) by ibukanov (subscriber, #3942) [Link]

For me it sounds like the management just want to stick with Window, period. The existence of WSL gave them a simple and smart-sounding way to dismiss the question from developers about Linux. If not for WSL, I suppose they could just as well point to Cygwin or VirtualBox (which is not much different from WSL2).

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 11, 2020 19:38 UTC (Thu) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link] (2 responses)

Microsoft is working on GUI support for WSL 2.
https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2020-May...

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 12, 2020 16:47 UTC (Fri) by zdzichu (subscriber, #17118) [Link]

They are working on their own Wayland compositor. I've already have one, namely gnome-shell.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 13, 2020 12:47 UTC (Sat) by swilmet (subscriber, #98424) [Link]

There is also some info in this recent LWN article:
Free user space for non-graphics drivers.

With a link to this blog post:
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/directx-heart-linux/
"support for Linux GUI applications is coming to WSL"

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 12, 2020 6:32 UTC (Fri) by gfernandes (subscriber, #119910) [Link]

In this day and age (of COVID19 mandated work-from-home), and with BYoD now more or less "normal", what with Zoom on your iPad or Android tablet, there's no reason to _not_ use Linux on your own laptop to connect to whatever your organisation insists on using (we are still on Windows-7, from the Science Museum, for instance, at work).

A lot depends on the connection infrastructure, for working from home. And most corporates insist on paying Citrix mega bucks for something that can be cobbled together for free in a few hours time (HTML5 SSH client, SSH tunnel, RDP from whatever OS you love, to whatever ancient version of Windows your organisation insists on using.

But c'est la vie!

Even WSL1 is compatible with VcXsrv

Posted Jun 12, 2020 15:41 UTC (Fri) by gmatht (guest, #58961) [Link]

There isn't an X-Server in WSL1, but since there already Windows X servers like VcXsrv it isn't a dealbreaker.

Windows X servers seem to require a bit more configuration that just being there as on Linux, but I miss low level stuff like mount more than built-in X.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 14, 2020 12:45 UTC (Sun) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (4 responses)

You can install one of several X servers (I can confirm X410 works well) and run GUI programs, either in their own windows or in a single overall "desktop" window. You can even run a complete XFCE desktop inside a window, perhaps other desktops too.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 14, 2020 13:44 UTC (Sun) by zdzichu (subscriber, #17118) [Link] (3 responses)

Sorry, but after so many years with Wayland I don't see how it is reasonable to step back into X11 world.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 14, 2020 13:58 UTC (Sun) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

I've spent more years with X11 than anyone has spent with Wayland. Wayland has nothing to offer me and plenty to take away.

Point is -- if you want to run a GUI app under WSL2, use X11; it works great. If you don't want X11, find another solution.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 14, 2020 14:15 UTC (Sun) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] (1 responses)

Plenty of the Linux world are still using xorg, not wayland.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 14, 2020 15:52 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Don't forget, even the guy in charge of xorg views Wayland as xorg v2

Cheers,
Wol

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 13, 2020 13:36 UTC (Sat) by milesrout (subscriber, #126894) [Link] (4 responses)

WSL is Embrace/Extend/Extinguish 2.0.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 13, 2020 19:14 UTC (Sat) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (3 responses)

WSL 1 could have been. I don't think they took any behavior differences and said "too bad" but instead fixed their emulation layer to behave properly (as emulation layer trying to be accurate should do, no matter how "dumb" or "hard" that may be). For sure, whenever I told someone reporting a bug against WSL 1 that couldn't be reproduced on Ubuntu itself, I told them to go file an issue to Microsoft instead. I think the ABI compat hole got too deep once they started digging and now WSL 2 is a thing which is just a full-blown Linux kernel. How patched that is? Not sure exactly, but there are kernel sources on GitHub[1] at least.

Sure, don't be complacent now, but there are some things at Microsoft that have changed in the past 20 years. That said, the past two weeks at work had a decent amount of time spent fighting the shitshow actually *using* their products entails, so I'm certainly not in love with their stuff if that's what you got from the previous paragraph.

[1]https://github.com/microsoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 13, 2020 19:15 UTC (Sat) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

Ugh, the things you notice one button click too late.

> For sure, whenever I told someone reporting a bug against WSL 1 that couldn't be reproduced on Ubuntu itself, I told them to go file an issue to Microsoft instead

For sure, whenever I had someone reporting a bug against some software I work on in WSL 1 that couldn't be reproduced on Ubuntu itself, I told them to go file an issue to Microsoft instead.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 13, 2020 19:53 UTC (Sat) by zdzichu (subscriber, #17118) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't want to go too deep into this branch of discussion, but the sources you linked were last touched in November last year. So practically abandoned.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 13, 2020 20:19 UTC (Sat) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

That looks to be their last syncup with master. They have a 5.4 branch touched in January and 4.19 updated April 29th.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 10, 2020 13:56 UTC (Wed) by BirAdam (guest, #132170) [Link]

Personally, I think Linux was always the most stable option around. If you're old enough to remember, think back to the early and mid 90s. Windows was garbage, and rebooting randomly was considered "normal". Think about Mac of the time and the spinning wheel of death. In comparison to anything else, Linux was always the most stable thing around. Weeks or months or years of uptime. Linux was always an industrial grade operating system.

What has really changed is that tech has become the most visible industry, and the number of people programming and doing data science and doing AI research has increased to a point where there is more demand for Linux. Windows has become an even bigger pile of flaming garbage. Catalina completely ruined the progress OS X had made and phones home constantly. It also killed all backward compatibility. macOS had really taken a lot of the developer world, and now it sucks. No one cares about Safari or IE. Office is in the cloud. Valve and Lutris have made gaming on Linux a thing. At the same time, Linux is free and there are 40 million unemployed people in the USA alone.

Most of the time, technologies emerge and become dominant when surrounding technologies are up to it. So, you couldn't have cheap computers until the materials science and theory were present. You couldn't have Linux until both hacker culture and the internet were present. You couldn't have Linux become dominant until people cared about operating systems in some way and Linux had to have the hardware and software support people are looking for. It's a confluence of events. Personally, I am happy to see Lenovo ship Linux, but I don't think that any increase in the use of Linux has anything to do with vendor offerings.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 10, 2020 14:08 UTC (Wed) by willy (subscriber, #9762) [Link] (1 responses)

Is ... Is this the year of Linux on the Desktop?

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 10, 2020 14:17 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

Yes, This is the year of Linux on the Microsoft Desktop!

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 11, 2020 1:14 UTC (Thu) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (1 responses)

The reason I still have a Windows partition (almost never used) on my laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga) is that the service people want it. All their diagnostic tools run on Windows. Will Lenovo sell a Linux-only laptop and support it the same way they support Windows?

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 11, 2020 8:25 UTC (Thu) by amacater (subscriber, #790) [Link]

Apparently, yes. I've noticed when looking at specs for Lenovo workstation that they've already started adding the fact that Ubuntu / RHEL are there but haven't yet started adding them as the OS opetion.

'The world is really changing': Why Linux on desktop is taking a sudden leap forward (TechRepublic)

Posted Jun 12, 2020 9:37 UTC (Fri) by robbe (guest, #16131) [Link]

I am glad Linux support by desktop vendors is becoming better.

I see this in a similar vein as renewed interest for processor archs outside Intel or ARM: preparedness by a Chinese corporation for another four years of a trade warrior^W^Wgreat dealmaker in the White House.