What can desktop Linux learn from Windows 11?

As you might have noticed, Microsoft announced Windows 11. It comes with a new interface style, some redesigned apps, and a few features that I think we could make use of on our Linux desktops. There are also a few things that we've been doing for years and that Microsoft is catching up to, and I think it's going to be interesting to compare both implementations.

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00:00 Intro
01:24 Android App Support
03:56 Tiling
06:15 Gaming
07:49 The bad stuff
09:30 Parting Thoughts

Ok, now let's start with the feature that caught my eye the most: Windows 11 will be able to run Android apps, out of the box.
Now wether you have a use for that or not will determine how interested you are in this, but it still opens up a TON of possibilities, especially for mobile hardware.

Of course, Microsoft chose a debatable course of action by using the Amazon App Store as its Android app library, and you will have to create an amazon account, but Android apps will run through a similar subsystem to WSL, which means that performance shouldn't be horrible at all.

This is a feature I wish our Linux desktops did, or at least did better. You can use Anbox on Linux, to try and run Android apps, but it's a clunky solution, based on an old Android version. It doesn't come with an appstore, so you have to sideload apps, and it's not integrated with the system at all.

I think we could do something similar than what microsoft is doing, but better.
First, of course, you use F Droid.

Second, Integrate android apps in the menu, docks, panels, whatever our desktops use

Third, integrate android apps in our various app stores, to let users download and run them in one click.

Fourth, we can use the Android Open Source Projet, and de-google it, to use as a base: all the advantages of Android, without the spyware.

The second feature I found interesting is the tiling.
Yeah, sure Microsoft has conveniently forgotten than we've been doing this and more for ages.
Tiling WMs have been a thing for ages on Linux, PopOS has its auto tiling feature, and most desktops allow users to snap windows to any side or corner of the screen easily.

BUT

Microsoft has, in my opinion, done it in a more clever, user friendly way than any of these solutions.

First, their solution is discoverable. You just need to hover over the maximize button, which is something you're going to do a lot, as soon as you want to maximize a window.

Second, they offer pre-made layouts, so you can get a feel of what you can do with this feature: just by looking at the popup, you can see that windows could be arranged in various configurations, and that can give you ideas if you've never thought about organizing your windows.

Third, they remember application pairings through this tiling. If you move to another app, another virtual desktop, or just disconnect your laptop from your external monitor, your application pairings and tiling will be kept, and you can return to them just by using the task bar.

I think this implementation makes sense for regular users. The average computer user doesn't use the keyboard to interact with their windows, they use the mouse.

Now in terms of Gaming, Windows still has the advantage over Linux. Proton is a game changer, pun totally intended, but it still can't run everything, especially anything that uses anti cheat software.

Microsoft is widening the gap with Windows 11, with 2 main features.
The first one is DirectStorage. It's an API that lets games transfer the assets they need to load in, like textures, or complex 3D models, directly to the GPU, instead of using the CPU.

The second nice feature is the Auto HDR. This basically takes older games that haven't got any HDR support, and applies a few transformations to the color space so that they look a bit better than they used to and make use of a greater dynamic range. it's not going to be as nice as real-baked in HDR, but it still improves visual quality quite a bit on older titles.

[williamsmith]

In my opinion it looks like Windows has been learning a lot from Linux and Apple.

[hftymouse]

Finally, someone who's not all 'hurr durr michaelsoft bad' and knows that every OS has something to learn from the other

[ALBKESTRELYTofficial]

That '' Raid shadow legends'' ad was epic.

[absolutelyproprietary]

It will be great if we had a wine level android integration. I mean its not that hard compared to wine because as I know android is mostly open source

[TheGhostandTheFlame]

You basically set the gold standard for Linux youtubers! Thanks for putting out so much quality content! Cheers from Austria

[birchtree]

I like the premade tiling layouts. Sometimes reorganizing windows in pop-shell is a pain and it would be nice to have a decent layout just premade and there for you.

[cardboardturtle]

wait, it won't install on older than ryzen 2000?
holy shit the used market is gonna get FLOODED with ryzen 1000 and pre-8th gen intel

[lukedunlop]

Android will work so well on Linux because they have the same base. The integration of WINE in some OSes is amazing, but creating an Android subsystem would be even better

[Cuperino]

It was a podcast like this that inspired me to become a programmer. Do it! Learn to code even if it's just the basics. I'm certain you will inspire more people to become free and multi-platform software developers.

[marcello]

and Anbox requires you to manually install and load kernel modules - I do not like that approach at all

[nitrohite]

"They also chose to showcase TikTok... which is.... *yikes noises*" exactly my reaction although mine was a little bit more... colorful 😂

[oldasdirtwayne]

Great presentation! And you have given the Linux community positive encouragement to sharpen their products in several areas. Way to go!

[aminfaiz]

Linux and Windows are not for the same market and therefore will never ever replace another. One is based on GUI and the other on CLI. One expects you to do most of the things in GUI and the other expects you to do the same with CLI. One makes products catering to the market and the other expects the market to adapt to its product. One is designed for ease of use and the other is designed for ease of tinkering. One is designed with ever changing hardware and and apps in mind and the other is designed with fixed or infrequent changes in hardware and apps in mind (One requires more knowledge in change and has a proper standard of distribution than the other).
They will never learn these from on another and therefore caters to different market.

[royboivin]

having fully supported integrated android apps in Linux would be amazing.

[xKB]

Did you not know? Linux has been renamed to Nobody Else OS. I forget who made that joke when going over the Microsoft Announcement, but for some reason when they said it, it made me lol for a few minutes.

[SupaKoopaTroopa]

The auto HDR feature is actually impossible to implement at the moment. X11 is incapable of handling HDR content, and Wayland support for HDR is still likely YEARS away. Even when Wayland gets HDR support, it will take even longer for desktop environments to actually implement it. Even then, application developers would have to make patches to output HDR content. If I had to guess, it will probably take until 2025 or so for proper HDR support to arrive on Linux.

[deepkhamaru]

Linux can learn how to steal amazing properties of other OSs!! Bravo!

[spinviking]

the opposite is likely true as well, that Windows devs learn from Linux devs, admitted it or not

[xhamedz]

i always wonder why linux doesn't support android apps, i am agree too. linux really need take support of android apps natively, first Chrome os, now Windows, Hope we see that in Some linux distros in futures

[hamidabbasi]

It is 2021 and Windows never had simple things like network settings multi profile and so on. and horribly Win11 needs TPM chips to do what??? seriously WTF are they thinking?