Used to do DevOps before they even called it that way: Linux. Python. Perl. Java. Docker. For fun and profit. CTO level generalist working for a mid-sized tech-centric company.
Dresden, Germany
(1) Well yes - but in 2018 (compared to the late 1990s), most of the means of getting to work with GNU/Linux desktops are by magnitudes easier. Hardware support seems less an issue now, most of the distribution installers are self-explanatory, and at least some of the desktops provide a good experience out of the box. Actually I've been into quite a load of Linux Install Parties in the late 1990s and early 2000s helping users to do just that - but at the very least with Knoppix and Ubuntu appearing, this virtually came to an end. Getting into a GNU/Linux desktop is not that much of an issue anymore.
(2) That's again personal experience. Two examples here: I have a community of people among my friends who are into sustainability and ecology, and they use Windows laptops. They might as well use GNU/Linux and they actually and really much would like to do so, but they have a very special software for managing their activities which is Windows-only - a small specialized tool built by a small dev team somewhere in Germany. We tried getting this to work with Wine and Crossover a while ago but it didn't really work. Other thing: Internally, part of our company started adopting an arcane tool for managing document templates in office environments, which (of course ...) is built as a Word addin and doesn't work at all with Word running on any other platform. So far, it was pretty easy to work with internal documents on my GNU/Linux host using LibreOffice, but with such a tool in my tool chain, this gets a bit more difficult and requires a VM locally or remote.
The problem I see here: Right that "unless you need software..." is not an edge case but the actual problem in keeping a lot of people from really having a choice. If you want or need work to be done that eventually is tied to a particular application and this application is Windows-only, there's not much you really can do. And I'd really like to see some change in that. ;)
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.
(1) Well yes - but in 2018 (compared to the late 1990s), most of the means of getting to work with GNU/Linux desktops are by magnitudes easier. Hardware support seems less an issue now, most of the distribution installers are self-explanatory, and at least some of the desktops provide a good experience out of the box. Actually I've been into quite a load of Linux Install Parties in the late 1990s and early 2000s helping users to do just that - but at the very least with Knoppix and Ubuntu appearing, this virtually came to an end. Getting into a GNU/Linux desktop is not that much of an issue anymore.
(2) That's again personal experience. Two examples here: I have a community of people among my friends who are into sustainability and ecology, and they use Windows laptops. They might as well use GNU/Linux and they actually and really much would like to do so, but they have a very special software for managing their activities which is Windows-only - a small specialized tool built by a small dev team somewhere in Germany. We tried getting this to work with Wine and Crossover a while ago but it didn't really work. Other thing: Internally, part of our company started adopting an arcane tool for managing document templates in office environments, which (of course ...) is built as a Word addin and doesn't work at all with Word running on any other platform. So far, it was pretty easy to work with internal documents on my GNU/Linux host using LibreOffice, but with such a tool in my tool chain, this gets a bit more difficult and requires a VM locally or remote.
The problem I see here: Right that "unless you need software..." is not an edge case but the actual problem in keeping a lot of people from really having a choice. If you want or need work to be done that eventually is tied to a particular application and this application is Windows-only, there's not much you really can do. And I'd really like to see some change in that. ;)