this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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Other than gamers, there's a huge share of enterprise Windows users. And they're not likely to shift OS, because of IT admin issues. Others in this thread have commented on how Apple is struggling to get devs to build native games compared to Windows.
Sure the number of home PC users might decline, one can always hope.
I can actually imagine a scenario where MS actually wants that to happen. They don't really make money on windows sales anymore (comparatively to their other products). So this could free up quite a lot of resources and reallocate them elsewhere.
The majority of home consumers basically just use browser services anyways.
There are also Windows users who rely on niche business applications. Wine isn't great for that sort of software yet. Another big one is the creative industry. While the VFX industry is very Linux-focused, and 3D is very viable, other parts of video production are not. And GIMP needs non-destructive editing before it can even think of competing with Photoshop or Affinity Photo. Inkscape is a viable vector image tool. The many other Adobe programs don't have great alternatives, and if you need to collaborate, that means you all need to switch to a new program. Then there are the retraining costs to consider.
Gamers have the easiest time in switching to Linux. The amount of compromises and sacrifices you need to make in other industries are much greater right now.
However, Adobe is trying to bring some of their programs, like Photoshop, to the web. It's unlikely we'll see stuff like After Effects on the web, but Photoshop, Illustrator, maybe even inDesign could possibly, maybe be there in a few years. Photoshop web is already in beta (though it's garbage). The web continues to be the great equalizer.
I think Krita is a more viable competitor to Photoshop than Gimp at this point... It's also great for pen tablet drawing and arguably superior in that category.
But yeah, video editors are lacking. Kden live is ok (and awesome for the price)
Audio editors are behind too. Audacity is pretty good for 2 track. Bitwig is a great multitrack alternative to Ableton... But Ardour isn't developed enough for a pro studio and I've never seen one that uses Linux. Part of this is poor support for vst plugins developed for Windows, mostly due to their copy protection.
Absolutely agree it's there for artists. Krita is a very successful project and I hear mainstream artists talk about it often, while not being an artist myself. Well, technically I own a Cintiq...
I haven't been able to get it to work well with PSDs, though, and I find the interface clunky for the sort of image editing I'm doing. I find GIMP easy enough to use, but it unfortunately lacks some crucial features. 3.0 is right around the corner (for real this time), so I'm hopeful. Unfortunately, PSD is a must because of collaboration. GIMP's ingest of PSD is better. But Krita does have non-destructive effects.
What I'm really hoping for is Affinity Photo to work well in Wine. Most people can get it running now but I think it's a little buggy or lacking in performance. I'll have to give that a shot soon.
As it so happens, I've thought about this a lot.
Kdenlive is definitely the best free software option but the lack of hardware accelerated playback really kills it dead in the water for me. I'm hoping it will improve soon, given the success of the fundraiser. DaVinci Resolve is fantastic but needing to transcode footage if you have H.264/AAC source footage (geh, I know, but some of us do) and being stuck with H.264 hardware encode in the best-case scenario is not great. I found Lightworks was the best option in terms of professional features + workflow. Proprietary, but hey, at least it works really well on Linux.
That's a shame to hear! I don't work with audio on a very professional level, so Audacity is fine for my use cases. It's improved in a significant way since the Muse Group acquisition (mainly non-destructive editing, but plenty of other stuff). I'm also annoyed but unsurprised to hear that DRM has thwarted compatibility yet again.
Reaper can go toe-to-toe with any DAW, including Pro Tools.
I work in audio for film and television, and we would all drop Pro Tools and switch to Logic/Nuendo/Studio One/Reaper if Avid didn't have a legacy stranglehold on the Audio Post industry.