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> is NixOS's problem. [...] And this is still not the distro's problem.

It seems like the author is talking to people who might consider using NixOS for desktops, not towards NixOS itself. Unless I missed something in the article, the author is not saying this is a NixOS problem, but a "I made the wrong choice for me" problem, and now they're sharing the experience of reaching that conclusion.

Don't get me wrong, I (like many) have a love-hate relationship with NixOS, where I use it for all my servers both remote and at home, but my desktop/laptops remain on Arch Linux because I too don't fit it fitting for desktop usage. But I wouldn't argue against people who want to/not want to use it for desktop use, cool that it works or not for them.

> What an average person wants in their desktop is Windows

I think based on the context, the author is talking about the average developer really, not the typical end-user. They do say "someone who wants to use a computer like a regular person to do regular work" which might confuse people, but they really are talking about developers, as you can tell by the rest of the article.



> talking about the average developer really, not the typical end-user

Average developer wants Windows (with WSL) or Mac. Still not Linux. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Highly dependent on your local bubble, obviously.

According to the latest Stack Overflow Developer Survey (https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology#most-popular..., which also is biased admittedly), it seems like for professional use, ~48% use Windows, ~32% macOS and 28% Ubuntu. ~17% also use WSL, which is basically Linux in Windows, so I guess you could say ~45% wants to (or at least, does) use Linux for work.

Seems not so clear cut as you seem to think it is.


I use WSL without really using Linux, although technically I do use it.

With that I mean, the only reason I use WSL is for running containers locally.

All the regular software, outside projects that require container based deployments, is straight Windows software.


> With that I mean, the only reason I use WSL is for running containers locally.

Yeah, you're probably not alone in using Linux specifically for containers since Windows cannot run them. Just like I'm probably not alone in using Windows solely for the purpose of running Ableton, as Linux cannot run it :)


You can run Ableton as a non Steam game on NixOS. It was a bit of a pain to install in Steam and then update path to correct proton version but it definitely works. There are probably are easier ways to run it without steam but that’s how I got it working.


Windows has native support for containers.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/windowscont...

Just because GNU/Linux has the biggest mindshare in containers, doesn't mean it is special in any regard.

In fact, my first experience with a container like deployment model was with HP-UX Vaults in 1999.


Yeah, of course I wasn't specific enough to say "Docker Containers" so here we go :) Thanks for the laugh at least.

Ps, also did "containers" before it was cool with Jails :) Not as early as 1999 though so I guess you win this round pjmlp.


I would expect that survey to be biased towards more Windows users, if anything.


I'm surprised how small Fedora is relative to Ubuntu


And before WSL, it was all about VMWare Workstation, or Virtual Box, since hardware virtualization became a commodity.

I don't dual boot since around 2010.




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