I could never go back to Windows, after having tasted the freedom of Linux.
Linux has its flaws, but so does Windows. And for me, the flaws in Windows became much more annoying than the ones in Linux. Game compatibility was the main factor that kept me backt from using it on a desktop, and that's a non issue nowadays.
Game compatibility
Steam+Proton is pretty impressive. I can play Baldur's Gate 3 on my Thelio. Does get a little toasty, though ....
I'm still dualbooting Windows to play games with a controller until I can get off my ass and buy a USB hub. Reason being that the Xbox Series controllers has issues with my mobo's Bluetooth chipset, even when updating the firmware. Bluetooth support is particularly inconsistent with these.
But outside of the odd app that needs Windows (and I can just boot a VM for that), Linux has been really good on the desktop.
For me it's the basic things that drive me crazy in Windows: the Start menu doesn't work half of the time, and it shows web results above the program you want to run. File operations are slow and the File Explorer crashes a lot. Application windows constantly steal focus from the one I'm typing in, leading to passwords being typed into code, documents, web browsers or other unsafe places. Background indexing is constant and eats up CPU, and the file search still takes forever despite all this indexing.
These are all basic things that Microsoft has had decades to get working, and they're all still broken. Microsoft always seem to be paying attention to anything but the quality of the user's experience.
By contrast, Linux is just relaxing.
Mine is VST’s and games. Never had much luck using a vst bridge/wine, so i just went back to windows.
I always see people say this but does no one here use professional apps like solidworks or revit? Are there good Linux alternatives? I’d switch to Linux but I need solidworks for work I do.
Windows is the defacto standard for desktop PCs for a reason. In a corporate setting it's kind of the ideal.
Because of the sheer number of users, most software is built with Windows in mind and therefore has the most support. It's pretty rare that you find an application that doesn't have a Windows build available.
On top of that tools like Active Directory, and group policy makes managing thousands of machines at scale a reasonably simple affair.
Microsoft is a corporation rather than a community so you can always expect their main goals to be profit-driven and that comes with some nasty baggage, but it's not enough that it's easy for professionals to make the switch.
Linux has made lightspeed progress over the last decade, especially with Proton making games mostly work cross platform, but outside of specialist use cases, the vast majority of business PCs and by extension home PCs will be running Windows for the foreseeable future.
I work in software and I haven’t touched windows in a very long time. Even back whenever I worked on FPGA development all of that software ram on Linux, so I think you’ll find that this is very field dependent.
Closest thing I use to a professional app is DaVinci Resolve Studio on a distribution that is not officially supported by Blackmagic. Not only does Resolve Studio work perfectly, I am able to use Blackmagic hardware (Intensity Pro 4k, Speed Editor) without having to mess around with settings, config files, permissions, packages, etc.
The caveat here is the initial setup: I use an AMD GPU, and it’s a bit of a pain to get the free and licensed versions of Resolve working with those under Linux. However, once that’s out of the way, it’s completely seamless.
As for CAD…yeah that’s where everything falls over. There are tons of FOSS alternatives out there but I have yet to see any of them in a professional setting. Even Fusion360 is hit or miss under Wine, I spun up a Windows VM just to use that for my 3D printer tinkering.
Onshape web based CAD from former SW employees. or if work is paying licenses you can run Siemens NX12 on linux (REL, SUSE, or OpenSUSE)
Idk is it CAD software? I know there are webapps for that now
Windows with WSL became a lot better to what Windows used to be but with the TPM requirement Win11 became factually less compatible that modern Linux (at least without fiddling to override that requirement).
And even WSL is essentially just a Linux VM.
Enough with the fan wars. Let's be perfectly honest for once. Windows, Linux, MacOS - they all suck. Sometimes in similar ways, sometimes in different ways. But they all suck.
Windows users - I get you, you use it because it sorta works 40%, of the time and sucks in the way you understand.
Linux users - I get you, you know all of the arcane incantations you need to quickly install, update, and troubleshoot your os in a terminal window. It works - once you apply your custom bash script that applies every change you need to get everything exactly how you like it. But again, it sucks in the way you understand.
MacOS users - well I don't really get you. You know what you've done.
We deserve better than this, guys. We deserve an os that just works, is easy to use, easy to configure, doesn't require an IT degree to use, and that we can recommend to our grandma without a second thought.
just works, is easy to use, easy to configure, doesn't require an IT degree to use, and that we can recommend to our grandma
TempleOS satisfies all of these conditions
Okay, this quote from the Wikipedia page made me laugh.
TempleOS received mostly "sympathetic" reviews. Tech journalist David Cassel opined that "programming websites tried to find the necessary patience and understanding to accommodate Davis".
Probably an unpopular opinion on here, but the OS I recommend for grandparents and parents is ChromeOS. It's so locked down that it's almost indestructible, and they almost never need any specialized software that you'd use Windows/MacOS for. If you're savvy enough you can also use Linux on it in a container, which is how I prefer to use it for day to day stuff (in my case, data related workflows).
No that's fair. It just assumes that everything you'll ever need is on a browser, which in the case of grandparents, is probably true.
I would just um....never tell them about the Android app store because that can get real messy real quick.
Yep. I'm in IT, so every time my parents' computer "does something weird," I get a call. Bought them Chromebooks a few Christmases ago and the calls have all but stopped.
As much as i dislike google, chromebooks are perfect for anyone tech illiterate that just need a simple web browser that works. Every family member I've recommended a chromebook to has not needed additional tech support for it, which IMO, is a truly impressive accomplishment on google's behalf.
Macbooks just make really nice ssh terminals for accessing your Linux dev environment. Though these days there are decent options for Linux terminals with a similar form factor, they just don't tend to be much cheaper.
I think that something like 20% of what's keeping me using Mac is iTerm2's integration with ‘tmux -CC‘
When I worked as a IT Tech at a University years ago we had a lot of MacOS users who believed they could just pick it up and use it like their iPhone. It was absurd how well their marketing worked because those users either forced themselves to learn it or dropped it and went back to Windows.
I know a lot of iOS users who have iPads and iPhones but still have windows PCs because they don't have to worry about compatibility issues.
I'm one of those guys, IOS phone with windows PC. There really isn't much out there that is as convenient as IOS, but theres no way I would use a Mac, as compatibility issues and more expensive hardware will ultimately hurt functionality.
This is a pointless argument even saying that everyone sucks, linux runs worse on the desktop because it doesn't get even 1/10th the investment from consumer hardware manufacturers compared to windows or mac to make it compatible. nevertheless linux is undoubtedly less difficult and more efficient to integrate than windows, for example the steam deck is done very well but it could be done better since KDE, wayland and arch do not have the same number of employees as microsoft.
It depends. It could also be a better idea to introduce a sort of "IT driver's license" for everyone to have basic understanding/skills to use their devices. Sure, modern software stacks are ridiculously complex and no one understands every detail down to each machine code/assembly instruction, so there's always a big amount of abstraction or simplification needed, but I don't think it's a good idea to request that someone with literal zero knowledge whatsoever should be able to perfectly use an OS or device. That's also not even possible. I see it with my mother, she started from zero knowledge but she had to learn some basics to be able to do the few things she needs to do. Of course she uses Linux. No prior Windows knowledge means a much easier start with Linux of course. She wouldn't have been able to use Windows either with zero knowledge. So this is a point that some forget: even Windows users need knowledge to be able to use Windows, and they probably already earned that knowledge in much earlier years. This Windows knowledge also works against you building up Linux (or even OS X) knowledge because Windows works quite differently from a Unix-like OS. This is not irrelevant: a Windows user who spent like 30 years in Windows has a much harder time learning Linux, than someone who didn't have that. But, again, not really the fault of Linux that you indoctrinated yourself with Windows-only MS product specific knowledge over the last decades. This is probably the biggest problem there is, because almost everyone on the planet has already acquired some amount of Windows knowledge in the past. This works against you when trying to switch. Windows knowledge is mostly Windows-specific. When learning about IT, you should make sure that you learn things in a preferably OS agnostic way. Which is also the reason why schools etc. should never teach "using MS products". They should always teach fundamentals, irrelevant of what you use afterwards. And those fundamentals should of course not be taught using commercial products, but rather open source software.
Then there are some fantasies which MS and Apple could establish in the broader population which aren't true, for example that CLI/terminal usage is archaic and has no place on modern desktops anymore. CLI usage will always remain as a fast alternative to a lot of tasks which are hard or even impossible to do via GUI. Even MS has realized this and introduced Powershell, a new terminal, and winget, for example. As well as WSL (which was originally and still mostly is being used to have access to powerful Linux-based CLI utilities). Yet still a lot of people seem to think that CLI is obsolete or that it's "hard". Sure, if you do some scripting or complex one-liners, it can be too hard for someone without strong IT knowledge. But most commands are really basic and easy to understand. Even my mother is able to use basic commandline utilities, and she even prefers it sometimes over clicking around in the GUI. To claim that this is impossible or too hard to learn for a Windows user is, I don't know. At least untrue. Probably even an insult to your own intelligence. And the main reason why most Linux users suggest doing things via commandline is that this is an almost distro- and desktop-independent way of doing things.
Also, not a big fan of the "fan" label here. Regardless of whether or not you like Linux (I like Linux as an OS more than Windows, because I think the Unix-way is better, but it's also about so much more), I see a neutral, free/libre open source (FLOSS) operating system as the base for our digital lives as a necessity, and so I see Windows or OS X as intrinsically worse. I don't see it as a kind of war between different products on equal footing. One product denies you any rights and control (and in more recent times, also extracts even more value and data from you than just the price you paid for the license to use it), and one that gives you full rights and control (and pretty much never extracts any more from you). It's not OK that we use our devices for so many things in life nowadays, that all aspects of your life are being done via digital means nowadays, and yet the most popular operating systems are still 100% proprietary black boxes fully controlled by big US companies. This needs to change, and it should have happened a long time ago already. And Linux is simply the most mature and most well supported FLOSS operating system out of all of them. I actually wouldn't care if it would be FreeBSD or OpenBSD or whatever instead, but I see Linux as being the most mature, well-supported and mainstream-viable option here. I only care that it's not a damn black box I don't have any real control over.
We need (almost) everyone on such open technologies like Linux, because the future (or even present) for Windows users looks like this: no control, no privacy (plus AI being trained on your work/data as well), big vulnerability when (not if) MS gets hacked (and they're a huge, juicy target, and we already saw them being compromised twice in the last couple of years), pricey subscription to MS' services which continues to get pricier once you're successfully vendor-locked-in (once all your servers, desktops and data is in MS' cloud, you won't be able to easily leave their services anymore, so they are free to increase prices until it hurts you). Even if you happen to like the offering MS gives you, does that really seem like "the future" of computing to you? To me, that's backwards. Or mainframe history repeating itself. Moving into proprietary clouds with vendor-lock-in only really benefits the cloud provider, which is why they want all users to join the "party".
I'm not a big fan of Stallman in general, but his fundamental propositions e.g. that FLOSS software is intrinsically better than proprietary black boxes, is true. I wonder how long we still need as a society, to arrive at that realization. I assumed that the Snowden revelations as well as the desaster that Windows 10 was for privacy, would have already started a change in thinking about such things. But that probably wasn't enough (strangely). I'm not sure what else would need to happen, but I guess something like first MS shoving all their users into their cloud, and then MS being hacked (again) but this time with malicious auto-updates being pushed to all MS software users as well, impacting tons of businesses. Then, maybe, people will start thinking whether this was such a great idea to begin with to play along with what MS envisioned as the "grand future". Unfortunately I see parallels with the human behavior concerning climate change here as well. It's like we have to first destroy our climate and suffer the consequences, before we realize it's a bad idea and we should do it differently RIGHT NOW. We are just incredibly short-sighted and we only learn AFTER disasters, which were even announced long before. It's tragic.
And for those people who know or think they could start using Linux but still use Windows because it's more "aesthetically pleasing" or whatever else irrelevant aspect they make up to "justify" still staying on that sinking MS ship in 2023, please reconsider your priorities.
But do they have a varying degrees of suck?
The OS I direct the technologically-illiterate to when I don't plan on supporting it myself is invariably iOS. Boomers don't need anything more anyway.
ReactOS is promising.
Havent had issues with my Windows PC in years. I dont have time to deal with linux stuff at this ppint in my life but used to play with it as a teen.
My Linux review: 10/10, would recommend, but would not install for someone and let them use it for the next 5 years.
@eochaid @OsrsNeedsF2P yeah… I’m sorry but that’s like saying all screwdrivers suck. If you don’t take the time to learn how to use a tool you will always have a negative experience using said tool. You are never going to find an advanced technology that’s been dumbed down to the point where you can’t break it.
Except that there's a ton of actual competition in the screwdriver market that has forced innovation and improved screwdriver functionality that it is essentially "solved".
Even cheap screwdrivers are easy to use and will do the job, they just might break after a few years. Expensive screwdrivers add extra features and are built to a higher quality. You can absolutely look up reviews and find "the best" screwdriver.
You also don't need to learn to use a screwdriver. They're all built to be self explanatory. If they have advanced features that need explaining, they'll include a manual that explains each feature at a high school reading level because that's their target market.
Also, there is no locked in loyalty to screwdriver brands. If a brand releases a shit driver, they'll get roasted. If a new contender puts out a screwdriver that's better than the rest, tradespeople will flock to it.
I would love it for OSes to be treated like screwdrivers are.
Lol Linux is easier than Windows, you don’t need to know any troubleshooting secrets or bash. Even the installation is easier
How many people do you know with Android phones that know bash?
Terminal isn’t any more necessary on Linux than Windows but the commands are simpler
The downside of Linux is that it’s free, that means they can’t afford to pay manufacturers to include their OS at the same scale as Microsoft. Thus Windows will have more users and be a more profitable ecosystem to target software for
Equating Android and desktop linux isnt very accurate. Terminal on android is very limited compared to linux. Many common softwares are still installed with commands and occasionally need maintenance and most are done via commands.
Recently helped a few setup ubuntu as dual boot. Installation isnt always smooth and most accompanying software stores are buggy or dont have many commonly used softwares.
Been using Ubuntu on my desktop for a couple of years, following a couple years use of WSL (so I'm very comfortable using the terminal etc)
Off the top of my head, some of the stuff I ran into almost immediately:
-
the package manager has been essentially unusable - the home page will work okay, but trying to view or install any applications through it, it just hangs forever. So I just go and use apt-get, but that's not what I'd call 'easier' or 'just works'
-
Firefox windows regularly break - the contents of the page still work fine but I can't resize or move the window, have to close it and open a new one. This happens multiple times a day
-
only way I could get the discord app installed was with a .deb (since the package manager didn't work), so as soon as it's out of date I just get a message saying "you need to update". So I have to use it in the browser
-
speaking of discord - I like to use push to talk. Guess what, push to talk is impossible with Wayland. Supposedly this is a feature, not a bug
-
also couldn't get vnc working to remote home while travelling, due to Wayland. Maybe if I persisted with troubleshooting I could have got it to work, but it took me 30s on windows.
-
installed zoom - it won't launch from the gui, I have to launch it from the terminal. Also, 'join this meeting' web links don't work, I have to copy paste them into the app
There's plenty more quirks I run into all the time but thats just shit I run into with a clean install and very typical hardware.
I love interacting with Linux through the terminal - I hate interacting with it through a gui. That's not my definition of easier lol
-
Windows: "We dropped support for that thing you bought brand new 5 years ago"
Linux: "We are considering dropping support for something that has existed for longer than you had"
Hell, I can get a 30 year old HP LaserJet 4 printer working just fine on almost any version of Linux with the official HPLIP CLI software provided by (shockingly) HP, which was updated 2 months ago with support for over 50 new printers and the following OSes:
- LinuxMint 21.1
- MxLinux 21.3
- Elementary OS 7
- Ubuntu 22.10
- RHEL 8.6
- RHEL 8.7
- RHEL 9.1
- Fedora 37
I HATE HP and their printers (PC LOAD LETTER WTF FOR LIFE) but I will admit that this is impressive support.
Gentoo: yeah I'll run on a potato if you tell me how to do it.
NetBSD: we already run on the potato, oh and that yam over there.
It's not even a matter of when. I was recently given an i7 6700K, and no game, old or new, comes close to fully using it, and it's not even overclocked. If anyone is in doubt about the requirement being artificial, try this CPU.
The windows 11 cpu requirement isn’t a requirement per se but a "it’s validated to work on this or newer". 6th gen Intel is no problem. Even 4th gen or older aren’t a problem, performance wise. The problem is the mandatory TPM 2.0 support. Intel CPUs only massively support that from 6th gen on and AMD CPUs even later (I think Zen 2). On some older boards you might have luck, especially if you buy a hardware TPM but my PC for example, running a i7 3770, only has a TPM 1.2 and no way to upgrade to 2.0. Now, there are ways to circumvent the need for a TPM all together on Win 11 but tbh, Win 10 installs perfectly well still on Hardware as old as Athlon 64 and in my experience even better than 11 anyways.
Stellaris my man... Stellaris... Joke aside this is my CPU and it's indeed rock solid.
True, but getting that thing that's older than you to actually work is going to require recompiling your kernel with some specific options, downloading a driver from an obscure git repo, running a tool to generate a config file, manually editing that config, and then running another tool to install the driver and then troubleshooting what went wrong.
Oh, wait, that was me trying to use my relatively new Sound Blaster sound card when experimenting with Linux 20 years ago. Linux had terrible support for ISA Plug and Play cards for some reason.
By comparison my solution to windows dropping support for a thing was to grab the cheapest PC I could find that might hypothetically work and stick an old version of windows on it that still had support and just not connect it to the Internet.
20 years ago? Try installing Linux on that same hardware now. Now try installing Windows?
Try the same experiment with any hardware 5 years old or older. Linux wins every time.
People will say that on newer hardware, Windows is better. Partially true. New hardware that was designed to ship with Windows will work better. A fair comparison would be hardware that ships with Linux.
Proprietary firmware has always been an issue ( like Broadcom and like NVIDIA ), especially on distros like Debian that could not ship non-free firmware. The situation has improved though. Even NVIDIA will ship out of the box soon. And Debian will shop non-free firmware now so those old Broadcom cards should work.
One of my favourite things about Linux is how much easier it is to get it running on random hardware, especially “out of the box” without having to track down drivers or install stuff after. With older Apple hardware, it is not just easier but it may be the only way to use modern software at all. I confess though that I am mostly speaking about older hardware.
I've worked exclusively with Linux servers since 2002 and exclusively Linux desktop since 2004 and I've come to the point where I prettyuch refuse to touch windows for fear it will infect me somehow.
I know most people don't know any better but it's insanity to me that anyone still pays money for windows. It's a scam, no other words for it.
Don't even get me started on Windows servers. It's just sad to see how much money is spent on a company that has so litte focus on quality.
Even the online services suck. Dear God Microsoft, would it kill you to understand that people might have gasp TWO tabs open with your teams "app"?
Even azure runs Linux
To think that even daedric prince would do that.
I guess I pay for the convenience that I get when I buy a new game, simply press Install and start playing. I spend most of my free time playing games on PC, I have no other reasons to stick to Windows. I'll happily switch to Linux on the day when every new release works with no extra problems, tinkering, waiting or searching caused by my choice of OS.
This is going to sound selfish, but I don't have the "energy" of fighting against whatever the current meta is - I just have to appreciate the more invested people that drive Linux forward. I'll just follow and use the OS where I get the smoothest overall experience for gaming (including thing like mouse/kb driver support). Windows is the current answer for this, one day it'll be something else - hopefully Linux.
Shit's been progressing really fast recently - I guess Steam Deck is doing some heavy lifting when it comes to motivating developers to keep Linux in mind. Direct support will always give the best results for everyone.
I'll happily switch to Linux on the day when every new release works with no extra problems, tinkering, waiting or searching caused by my choice of OS.
Let me give you an honest answer that no Linux users is willing to give you (certainly because they fear to scare people off of Linux): you will never see the day where Linux will be equal if not better than Windows for gaming (which it can be sometimes, but it's not always the case) if not a certain amount of people get out of their comfort zone and are willing to try something new. In fact, nobody can improve anything in their life if they're not willing to get out of their comfort zone.
You're already using a PC to play video games, I did this choice too, so trust me, you definitely have the energy to change for a better OS, something ever you recognize as having qualities outside of games. Otherwise, you would've played exclusively on console where you actually have a plug and play experience... unfortunately at the cost of your freedom to use the machine you bought however you want, besides all the other considerable disadvantages.
For me, Linux made as much progress as it can do, meaning now, for Linux to be viable for gaming, either companies start to move their asses and make Linux native games (which they can easily do, if they're willing to use the right tools for their game like Vulkan) but I hardly see that coming any time soon, or new users have to come to Linux so that companies would finally care. Personally, I made my choice by making the first step.
Games don't always run perfectly under Windows on release either.
I specifically remember one of the CoD games running just long enough to use up all my vram, whereby it would promotly crash. Took about about two weeks to sort that one out.
My tinkering under Linux consists of downloading a game under Steam, ticking a compatibility checkbox, and playing the game. For other launchers, I simply open Bottles and install the launcher of my choosing. Been playing Diablo 4 under Battle.net just fine since launch.
It blows my mind just how bad file system performance is under Windows compared to Linux. I mean, you literally have to have an SSD in order for the OS to be responsive. Granted, most have SSD's these days, but performance on spinning rust shouldn't be that bad.
It's less effort to install and configure Linux than install and unfuck and then configure Windows.
It's faster, runs better, and proton makes gaming even easier than Windows.
If you're actually lazy, the answer is Linux. If you're pretend lazy and don't mind constantly having to un-fuck Windows, go ahead and spin that wheel.
I stopped gaming a long time ago but what I'm reading is that gaming in Linux has improved immensely and these days is in the same level as Microsoft Windows. I'd give that a try
Linux people will never admit that it’s like that though. I have a few friends on Linux and when we all boot a game to play, the windows users like me sit in the lobby waiting for my friends to trouble shoot why battlefield 1 isn’t launching on Linux, then they give up and just boot into windows and magically the game starts.
I've used Linux since about 2004 for personal use. On my homer server(s) and desktop. 95% of them Gentoo (stable). For my relatives I've installed some EL workstation distro. Especially my father needs a install-and-forget system, which Windows isn't.
But I do install and fix Windows PCs at my work. It's because how Windows works (or rather not work) I get paid. That said, the more I use Windows the more I get frustrated with it.
One of the worst things lately was the accidental activation of BitLocker. It got activated even when the user didn't have Microsoft account (from where he/she would retrieve the encryption key to decrypt the data if Windows decides to lock the drive). "Oh I'm sorry, but because M$ fuckup your data is gone. Do you have backups? 😇" To avoid any BitLocker issues the secure boot should be disabled. BitLocker shouldn't then be available for activation.
Some of the frustrating sides of Windows can be avoided by using Pro version of Windows. But that's simply not enough.
IMO the only reason to use (suffer from) Windows is if you play some games that require it.
Homie what are you doing Windows Support when you know Linux?! We cannot hire competent admins fast enough! I write bash, python, build systems with terraform, and play on agile development platforms all day! It's amazing and I cannot imagine doing anything else and it started all with knowing a little bit of linux and applying for every position with linux in the description.
It's the professional software that's lacking in Linux, and that's the only reason I keep a Windows machine around. For music production, video production, design work, photography and so on, Windows has good commercial software that is well established in these professions.
But for most people, including gamers, Linux is a very good option right now.
I recently setup a Windows vm for my mum because she also needs photo and video editing sw and isn't happy with the Linux alternatives. This works astonishingly well. Virtualbox even has a mode now to fully integrate the vm into the existing desktop, so basically she just gets the windows status bar in addition to the Linux one when she starts the vm. Windows programs open as if they were running natively. Might be worth a try for you.
I love windows.... I appreciate Linux but as a standard user, I have no need for Linux. I'm careful and I'd say an advanced user. I avoid dodgy websites and idk... I have a dual boot with fedora but I really don't use fedora because no need?
Let's assume you're not a power user who would be confined to Microsoft's "can't do" or "too complicated" rules; why do you pay for windows?
And if you pirate, why? Then just use Linux, it's tree and does all you need
And if iou "got it for free with your computer", you didn't, you paid Microsoft ab obligatory tax, like ot or not. Why?
The KDE UI looks and feels the same like windows but is superior, you don't always have to reboot after any minor issue or change, it's free, it doesn't spy on you, and you don't have the virus bullshit for a variety of reasons
If you don't know better, I can understand, but you do. You know Linux is out there, why windows?
Windows requirements: sprawling list of unsupported hardware based on an arbitrary requirment for a security chip that doesn't actually improve security at all
Linux: CPU (optional)
As a person who has used linux i can confirm that my daughter runs linux
I don't think microcontrollers count as CPU, right? Do they have an ALU?
Yes they do. Microcontrollers contain a microprocessor that is optimized for branching instructions and already include memory and peripheral interfaces which are connected directly to the processor bus (opposed to general purpose CPUs).
I like Linux a lot, but saying you can't understand why someone would run Windows on a server just shows a lack of knowledge. Linux is great in a lot of server applications in the application realm. However, it doesn't get close to the power of Active Directory and Group Policy for Windows device management. Besides that, a lot of people are more comfortable with a UI for managing DHCP, DNA, etc in a SMB environment. Even if they prefer a command line for those tools PowerShell allows those people to coexist with those that prefer a GUI. Under certain circumstances, (mainly ones where a business is forgoing AD for AAD), Linux can be the right choice. Pretending that there's no place for Windows Server, though, is asinine.
This community is very much a "Windows bad" community. I personally find that annoying as I use Windows and Linux. Both have their pros and cons. Windows though is seen here as the shitest OS out there which far from the truth.
PowerShell is amazing and I install it on my Linux desktop.
The main problem are companies forcing windows servers and technologies when they are not the good ones for the task.
If one needs to set up desktops for accounting, windows is fine. But I saw companies setting shared NFS drives used by Linux severs on windows machines! Not joking!
I know companies that even deploy kubernetes clusters on windows servers!
Just because finding cheap windows engineers is easy, everyone has had an experience on windows to put on a cv. Than some of that cheap labor go up the hierarchy as head of a random infrastructure team because all good sys engineers moved to manage linux servers after some time, he recruits people like-minded, and in few years you ends up with a team refusing to do the right thing because "we know windows and windows can do the same as Linux and Microsoft is good for governance and Linux bad". Execs don't understand the difference and force architecture to go along because they don't believe it's worthy to rebuild a team, we are anyway using windows for accounting and execs laptops, it can't be that bad! Even accenture and mckinsey consultants us it! And they told us that wls2 is the holy grail
Corporate IT is the peak of suboptimal tools for the job because politics and money
We use both. Its not my department but i know the server guys are using windows for some servers and linux for others and the decision is normally made based on which is going to be best for the specific needs of the function of that server.
Pretending one is outright better than the other is childish. Just use whats best at the time.
Have you used windows before? It's flaming garbage. Been using various oses for decades and I still rediscover how shitty windows is on the regular.
Yeah, and Linux still doesn't have a good answer to AD for managing suites of end user machines. Linux has a lot going for it - but windows isn't strictly inferior or anything.
Honestly, the entire AD suite with auth and everything else built in is genuinely a good product. And if what you want is supported by Microsoft, their other services are decent as well.
I upgraded my Intel system to AMD today. And I didn't have to reinstall a damn thing, because my existing Linux installation Just Worked™. It really is to the point that I could never imagine going back to Windows.
CPU vendors are usually pretty seamless to swap on Winblows, other than the fact that Windows will possibly whine that you've modified your system too much and need a new license 🤓
Windows will possibly whine that you've modified your system too much and need a new license
If the MAC address changes, Windows activation will always fail. I just don't see any of that as worth the trouble anymore since The Windows Difference™ is just telemetry overhead and updates that need to happen while I'm trying to get something done.
I was flirting with Linux for 20 years. There was always something that put me off an I went back to Windows. Recently I installed ubuntu with Kde plasma and I'm not going back. It just works and is heaps faster on older hardware. The old driver issues are gone, compatibility is awesome. The only issue is getting used to new software names.
Same. I started with Ubuntu like a decade ago. I hated it and didn't really see the fuss, kind of gave up.
But then I started putting in tons of time in rasbian, and windows kept getting more and more.. Well, windows. I eventually realized how much more I liked working on stuff on the pi, and just needed proper hardware. That's also when I started to understand the differences between distros. I'm not flaming Ubuntu (I'm not really smart enough to have an opinion), it was just a lot of hastle for something I didn't understand the upside of yet.
Been wrestling with my first all Linux (Debian) box. It's a bit of a learning curve but there's this weird headspace it frees up. It does what I tell it. There's no random software that shows up. There's nothing I can't nuke. No surveys on my favorite BBQ dish in my Taskbar (true story). It's so godamn nice. It's the opposite of a black box.
Im getting another (3rd) box specifically to slowly replace my current desktop. Ill be fooling around with WINE and whatnot for the software I need for work, probably setting up a small windows partition for when I absolutely need it. But all in all I'll be 90% penguin by years end.
I dual boot fedora with plasma (it has all my laptop drivers without me having to install anything) with Windows and it's pretty great, but I was out of Linux for a long time and there's things I don't remember. So I'm missing stuff and don't have the time to relearn what I knew 20 years ago.
It works well enough for day to day tasks and dev work. Windows works well enough to run some games.
It gets better when she shows you a secret room she has, "Baremetal". That is where we started kissing and we bang for the whole night long.
How's gaming support?
Decent, with proton I can play most games with no issues
For single player, the majority of games should work just fine. Most gaming issues nowadays are either because of invase DRM or anticheat, but more and more games are getting support. A large part of it is thanks to the steam deck.
Surprisingly good. It's no longer that depressing list of the same handful of open source games. These days you can be fairly confident most games will run OK, especially if you're running Steam.
Everyone acts like nvidia support on linux is completely broken. I game with nvidia on mine regularly and have never had a driver bug.
It's not that it's broken, it's that the open source driver stack and AMD cards are a superior experience. The Nvidia Linux driver is just like the Windows driver.
My wife and I play Grim Dawn and other ARPGs on a regular basis. I run Ubuntu 23.04 (Snap-less, of course); she runs Windows 10. I ALWAYS host, and that should tell you something...
I game … regularly and have never had a driver bug
Presses X to doubt…
Way to prove my point.
Linux will run on anything
Ps3. Raspberry pi. Phones. All computers ive ever tried to install it on.. and even M-chip macs.
Even the gotdam Leapfrog runs Linux
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/hZM2zpRA95E
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Add PS4 to that
Add PS2 to that https://youtu.be/DjGG-5343AY
I had a pile of old parts of all sorts of machines sitting in some boxes. Was poking through and thought "hang on"... Bing bang boom threw some bits together and built a new PC to run a jellyfin media server on Mint. Don't even know what most of the parts are...
You know, I've been using Linux on desktops and laptops for like 20 years now. I can count on one hand then number of times I've had hardware support issues. Outside of a fingerprint scanner, I've been able to solve all of those issues.
Meanwhile, my adventures across the years dealing with Windows drivers led me to finally say "fuck it" earlier this year and nuke the Windows install on my gaming rig in favor of Nobara.
I'll take Linux hardware support over Microsoft any day of the week.
I have the opposite experience. For 15 years I've been installing windows on laptops and desktops. Never did I had to 'solve' driver issues. They were either easy to find, by clicking 'search in windows update' or were supported directly through windows itself. No need to solve anything...
The opposite was true for my few Linux (Ubuntu and Linux mint) adventures. Every time something would just not work. The most frustrating for me was the broken sleep function. There was no way to get my laptop to sleep properly. It would wake up at random times or just not boot anymore thereafter.
Just saying that these kind of things really depend on what you work with and what you want to get out of a system
I totally get that. The world is a funny place, and no two people will habe the same lived experience.
And FTR, as weird as this may sound to you, the big deal to me was that on Linux (usually Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, or a derivative of those three) there were significantly fewer problems in the first place, never mind whether or not they got solved. I may just have gotten a lucky spin on the Great Hardware Roulette Wheel.
I switched to arch using qtile wm a few months ago. Couldn't be happier. If a game doesn't run on my rig either though stream or lutris well I just don't play it, there's way more games to discover and play.
This! I literally give Windows a chance every version. I even kind of liked Windows 11 this go around.
But something always breaks and no matter how much I trouble shoot the fix is to reinstall windows. To which I say screw that and start distro hoping.
11 with 2022 gaming laptop just stopped updating. The only non native app I had on the thing was STEAM! I have been using Linux for 18 years because it's the only way I know how to fix Windows.
That reminds me of a Microsoft-branded USB WiFi adapter that I was making heavy use of back in mid-2000s. The MN-510. You could buy it brand-new circa 2006. It had a $75 launch MSRP, about $114 adjusted for inflation. Come 2009, we find out that Windows 7 wasn't going to support it. And given what we know about OS development cycles, they presumably made that call in '08 or even '07. Looking back on it, I think this was one of the major catalysts for me to reconsider Linux as a drop-in replacement. Because, wouldn't you know, the adapter kept working just fine when I tried it out in Ubuntu. Support was simply there in the kernel. Plug-and-play. I suddenly had this whole other operating system providing an it-just-works network connection, for free. It was amazing. So I used that adapter for several more years until I could afford a network upgrade. And I'm still using Linux the majority of the time today.
I'd rather stick my head in the rotating blades of a combine harvester than deal with HP printer drivers...
Well, you've got me on that one.
It's just when you have peripherals, you might just not find a driver for Linux at all
Wha? Even a bleeping potato can run Linux nowadays, with zero issues at day 1.
t. Got a Orange pi zero 3, and the lil' bastard is rocking solid -- even with (near zero) support.
I think the main trouble makers for consumers are the odd network or bluetooth controllers, especially in laptops, which often come with some exotic bullshit.
I have a lot of trouble with Bluetooth on laptops so I tend to run 2.4GHz wireless peripherals instead of Bluetooth. That’s my only complaint these days.
Imagine being in the orange forum and thinking everybody's using Mac...
Some builds can get really tetchy about laptop hardware, but that's almost always older hardware.
Though I will say it took entirely too long for most builds to have a "change what closing the lid" does menu option rather than making you modify a .conf file.
And don't get me started on resolution switching when hot swapping display inputs.
Linux does support more CPU architecture (x86 Arm PowerPC RISC) while Windows only support x86 and some Arm CPU so technically Linux support more CPU but Windows does support more GPU and Plug and Play devices (controller, external sound card...)
I would probably rephrase it as "external plug 'n' play devices supporting Windows". You can be fairly certain Microsoft wasn't the one doing the work.
I've had zero issues with any of my plug and play usb devices. Elgato key light, stream deck, fiio DAC, scarlet solo audio interface, Logitech Webcam, steel series arctis usb headset, etc. All work great without any faffing about.
For stream desk and keylight you aren't using elgato's software but there are pretty good open source options I installed from the graphical package manager in my OS. The audio stuff just all worked when plugged in. I'm missing zero functionality from windows and spent a lot less time "setting up" everything compared to windows.
I've had way more plug-and-play success with USB-serial devices under Linux than Windows. Maybe just me though...
They have a point. I'm in the market for a new laptop and I have, so far, returned two of them.
First, I tried a Huawei Matebook 16. I was foolish, but I thought it was "easy". No NVidia, no dGPU at all - just part that looked very standard. It was based on the info I had gathered from a few years of Linux usage: "Basically avoid NVidia and you're good". It was anything but. Broken suspend, WiFi was horrible, random deadlocks, extreme slowness at times (as if the RYZEN 7 wasn't Ryzen 7-ing) to become less smooth than my 5 year old Intel laptop, and broken audio codec (Senary Audio) that didn't work at all on the live, and worked erratically on the installed system using generic hd-audio drivers.
I had a ~€1500 budget, but I raised it to buy a €1700 ThinkPad P16s AMD. No dGPU to speak of, sold with pre loaded Linux, boasting Canonical and Red Hat hardware certifications.
I had:
- Broken standby on Linux
- GPU bugs and screen flickering on Linux
- Various hangs and crashed
- Malfunctioning wifi and non working 6e mode. I dug, and apparently the soldered Wi-Fi adapter does not have any kind of Linux support at all, but the kernel uses a quirk to load the firmware of an older Qualcomm card that's kinda similar on it and get it to work in Wi-Fi 6 compatibility mode.
Boggles my mind that the 2 biggest enterprise Linux vendors took this laptop, ran a "thorough hardware certification process" on it and let it pass. Is this a pass? How long have they tried it? Have they even tried suspending?
Of course, that was a return. But when I think about new laptops and Windows 11, basically anything works. You don't have to pay attention to anything: suspend will work, WiFi will work, audio and speakers as well, if you need fractional scaling you aren't in for a world of pain, and if you want an NVidia dGPU, it does work.
Furthermore, the Windows 11 compatible CPU list is completely
unofficialarbitrary, since you can still sideload Windows 11 on "unsupported" hardware and it will run with a far higher success rate than Linux on a random laptop you buy in store now. Like, it has been confirmed to run well on ancient Intel CPUs with screens below the minimum resolution. It's basically a skin over 10 and there are no significant kernel modifications.To be clear: I don't like Windows, but I hate this post as a consumer of bleeding edge hardware because it hides the problem under the rug - most new hardware is Windows-centric, and Linux supported options are few and far between. Nowdays not even the manufacturer declaring Linux support is enough. This friend of mine got a Dell XPS 13 Plus Developer Edition, and if he uses ANY ISO except the default Dell-customized Ubuntu 20.04 audio doesn't work at all! And my other friend with a Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition has various GPU artifacts on the screen on anything except the relative Dell-customized Ubuntu 20.04 image. It's such a minefield.
I have effectively added €500 to my budget, to now reach an outrageous €2000 for a premium Linux laptop with no significant trade-offs (mostly, I want a good screen and good performance). I am considering taking a shot in the dark and pre ordering the Framework 16, effectively swaying from traditional laptop makers entirely and hoping a fully customized laptop by a company that has been long committed to Linux support will be different.
More important IMO is the fact that Linux re-detects hardware on every boot! Try moving a Windows hard drive to completely new hardware and getting it to boot. Not a chance...
I've done that multiple times without issue.
That actually works fine since like XP
Well, more like 7 onwards. XP was quite hit and miss unless you did a load of prep first.
It must have stopped with Win11. Tried to upgrade one of my family members Laptop. Took the ssd from the old one, put it in the new Laptop and only got to the Windows rescue Window. With Linux. I can setup an ssd with my laptop and when setup, plug it into my headless server and everything works fine.
Active directory and it's integration with services such as DNS and DHCP is pretty great though. I wish Microsoft started focusing less on cloud and improved the user (or rather admin) experience of their server tools, they are quite awful is some cases.
I swear to god most of Windows Server’s tools have barely changed since NT 4.0
And sometimes they make a new tool that's better, kinda. And then they never bother updating it to make it good. Looking at you AD admin center.
GPedit is the most annoying tool ever. Why the hell can't I just edit GPO settings values from the active settings menu, without having to open the entire GPO and navigate the huge mess of settings.
AD is the easiest in Windows. We can argue about DNS, but DHCP? You can't even change the subnet size after the fact without destroying and remaking the scope.
It has a feature with integration with AD. Personally I would just put DHCP on a router or something, but it's an option.
Or Hod forbit managing IPv6 local space on Windows.
I know hardware compatibility has massively improved, but back when I was messing with Linux in high school compatibility was a huge issue. I managed to end up with two laptops and some desktop hardware that were truly difficult to get running. It's like I somehow found a list of incompatible hardware and chose the worst options.
The most frustrating were an evil Broadcom (I think) wireless card and an AMD switchable card (they did actually make a few). That graphics card wasn't supported for very long and was a bother even in Windows.
Edit to add: I was just saying that to point out why some people might have that opinion, even if it isn't valid anymore. I'm actually thinking of jumping back on the Linux bandwagon.
Linux will be my next OS. Win11 is a nightmare, and now with the huge progress Linux has made in the gaming space, is just a no brainer.
I'm not very experienced with it yet, but I did dial not it for a while back in college, back when Ubuntu's Feisty Fawn was the newest shit, and Edgy Eft was the more established version. I didn't do a whole lot with it, because I mainly used the PC to write papers for classes and gaming. And Linux gaming back then was mostly non existent.
But I did ok with using it for browsing and research and using LibreOffice to write the document. Actually had to manually write a cfg file to get the extra buttons on my mouse to work like they were supposed to.
Long story short, I don't have much knowledge of it these days, that was back in 04-06ish. But I know enough to know how to look for what I need. And I have a friend who's already made the switch for the same reason. I'm just paranoid to switch to it completely, as I've never done that, but I think I'll be building a new rig soon anyway, so I might just start fresh with Linux for that.
Either way I'll switch by the time Win10 ends support. I will not be installing 11 on anything of mine. I'll probably still have family that will need it, but I'm not doing it.
To be fair... Mac works 90% with Mac hardware. It's third party things that can screw you up... Like that pesky "USB" everyone is talking about. Who knew reading the official documentation and creating a USB driver for your own chipset would break all the USB devices not made by Mac? Who would have thought? At least there is an Intel emulation layer you can run in...
Those Broadcom wireless cards gave me PTSD. The only way I got one of them working was compiling the raw firmware blobs into my kernel on a Gentoo stage 3 install... I shutter imagining administering that system as my daily driver. It was a good learning experience but I'm not cut out for that level of effort just to surf the web, open some documents, and play DOOM.
It's definitely worthwhile for me, although I keep windows around if I need it for work (rarely) or play (occasionally).
I use Lenovo laptops a lot anyways, so it's pretty straightforward to chose one that supports Linux.
I want to use Linux at the desktop, but I want HDR and Freesync support. Not sure if Linux supports either in a big way.
Freesync yes, HDR soon™
Freesync and any vrr for that matter is supported on Wayland and X.org. HDR is supported on sway and some other compositors, but I don't think there is too much adoption from apps yet
VRR only works on Xorg if you only have 1 screen. And XWayland is broken on Nvidia.
Valve is working on HDR support for the steam deck's steamOS, which I assume will lead to other distroS following
Blows my mind that anyone would use windows.
People who don't want to / can't tinker, usually.
Linux has better support for the long tail of hardware. Windows has better support for bleeding-edge hardware. The main reason for this is money.
You get to choose between hardware dependency hell and software dependency hell these days.
My shoe can practically run Linux as a desktop OS.
Though to be fair, there's no real reason anything that runs 10 can't run windows 11 besides Microsoft's artificial compatibility list.
https://www.abyssapexzine.com/2021/04/dead-badger/
It was published well before 2021, but that's what Google turned up.
My shoe can practically run Linux as a desktop OS.
Okay, I'm stealing this one! Awesome...
I was having no end of troubles when installing Linux on my machine recently.
The hardware was too new. I’d gone with the latest LTS of Ubuntu, and it didn’t really jive with my stuff. 23:04 works like a charm though.
Installing windows on an nvme drive was a pain in the ass for me fairly recently.
Not as uncommon as you would think. What normally do then is use the 6 month releases until the next LTS
Isn't the CPU support reason solely specific to a new feature Windows 11 was going to use, and you can just use Windows 10 while it's still in support? Plus Windows 10 knows this and won't even try to update your PC to windows 11?
It's not a really strong argument when most hardware drivers are made with Windows in mind first, and maybe someone is going to write up a Linux driver if they're interested. I mean Linux went for years having to do some hack&slash solution to broadcom drivers until they were finally added in. That affected at least 2 laptops in my lifetime.
I will stop to say that currently, I think Linux is in a good spot. But you can't just pretend the issue absolutely doesn't exist because your specific setup works.
I don't think people are pretending Linux is perfect. More people than expected though, are simping for windows despite the fact that the money and energy spent on it truly ought to have led to a better product than what we got.
In the last five years, I've run Linux across a vast range of differing hardware, and I've encountered no more issues regarding driver support than I have under Windows.
I simply attach the hardware, and it works. At most I installed NVIDIA drivers via my package manager, which was simple and painless; or I downloaded the drivers as .Deb's for my Brother printer and installed them quickly and easily using the supplied script.
I'm sure I'm not the only one with such experience.
I just put Arch Linux on a tiny laptop that was struggling to run Windows 11 after an upgrade, and it runs smooth like butter now. Feels good.
What DE?
Asking the real questions here.
SwayWM.
The DE used has little to do with it, Windows file system performance is simply terrible.
I've used Linux on my private laptop for the past few years, never had any major issues. Work desktop is running Ubuntu, no major problems except for the odd bit of poorly maintained software (niche science things, so that's not really a Linux issue). Laptop breaks, I get a Windows 11 laptop from work...and I've had so many problems. Updates keep breaking everything, and I've had to do a factory reset more than once since the recovery after those updates also always failed. Wish I had my good old Linux laptop back :(
I have found Linux to have excellent HW support for all older hardware. Only notable exception is fingerprint readers. Granted, it's been years since I tried gaming.
Funny anecdote about FP readers: got an XPS 13 for work. At first I tried to make do with Windows, and everytime I tried to register my fingerprints, the laptop rebooted instantly. Then I got fed up jumping through hoops to set up my workflow, installed Ubuntu, installed the FP reader driver, and it worked like a charm.
As for gaming, I finally got rid on Windows on my gaming PC (AMD GPU), and all my games work very nicely (I don't play multiplayer games). Most problems were fixed by selecting another proton version through Steam, biggest issue I had was manually updating the fucking Ubisoft launcher thing for AC Syndicate.
I don't think the fingerprint reader is the problem it is how the OS supports it. I tried with my framework laptop and it just stopped logging me in after a misread or something like that.
I don’t look up Linux compatibility for hardware, everything just works
If a game doesn’t support Linux then I don’t support the game
It’s like people trying to run Linux or Mac software on Windows - they just don’t do it.
I'd love to switch to Linux. I've used Linux off and on for almost two decades now. At one point I was triple booting Windows XP, Windows 7, and Fedora. The one thing holding me back is, strangely enough, game compatibility. I know Proton has made huge strides as I've seen it first hand on the Steam Deck, a lovely little machine. The problem is, I have a huge library, and while I'm okay with slightly less than ideal performance here and there on the Deck (40hz mode anyone?), I absolutely refuse to lose any performance due to running Linux. Benchmarks still show some titles losing 5-15% performance when running through Proton.
Don't get me wrong. I love FOSS. I donate and try to spread the word as much as I can when I find a passion project, and find it particularly useful. Even though this may seem to go against what I previously said, I'm debating on switching to Linux when Windows 10 loses support. I do not want to enable fTPM on my motherboard or update my BIOS if I don't have to. My PC is stable, no thank you. I feel like I'll have to troubleshoot whether I choose Linux or Windows 11. Ugh.
God forbids you ever have to run a game with two or three frames per second less than on Windows. The horror! /s
Joking aside, DRM is the actual roadblock. And it's not even Linux's fault. Just stubbornness and lack of will from developers. Even then, it's just a handful of AAA online games. For some, like me, it has zero effect in my enjoyment of games as I don't play online competitive games. Every other piece in my library actually runs better on Linux no matter how old it is. As Wine/Proton holds a better backwards compatibility than windows 10. Games that no longer run on windows still run on a modern fully specced Linux. No hassle involved. And some modern games actually run as fast or better than on windows nowadays.
You haven't tried it recently. Every game I play works flawlessly and is just as good or you can't tell vs windows. I've been back and forth for 20 years and now I'm 100% and have been since February. I love it, and I'm happy to have my OS be my OS and do what I want it to do.
Now, to be somewhat fair, I built my new PC with the plan to go Linux. I went team red and a single ultra wide monitor. I wasn't sure about the single monitor at all at first but now, man I love it. I have it setup so when I hit the windows key I can pick a new desktop. The only thing I can't do is watch video's while I play games and it doesn't bother me at all.
Benchmarks also highlight a number of titles actually performing better under Linux than native Windows, especially where Vulkan is concerned. My gaming performance under Linux is fantastic, the advancements in the last five years alone have been astounding.
I am also dual booting because of game compability and Virtual Reality support.
I think once wine-wayland gets fully merged we will see a clear uplift in performance, at least on wayland.
For about the fourth time in my lifetime, VR is floundering under all platforms and in it's death throws.
The first time I experienced VR was on Amiga hardware, back then is was praised as the next big thing...Needless to say, it wasn't.
Very interesting perspective. It's almost arguable that you may be better off keeping a legacy Windows 10 machine and adding a new Linux-based machine for new titles. At this point, most games pretty much just work from my experience...
Can confirm, Mint was easier to set up and have everything working than Windows. Couldn't believe Linux had better driver support. What a world.
Windows 11 on a Pentium 4 - barely usable, though
A good linux distro(32 bit if needed) will run a lot faster!
I try using Linux on my desktop PC from time to time. Whenever I buy a new rig, I try Linux, as I want to reinstall the system anyway. It never worked. I always tried with brand new hardware -> something is not properly supported -> install current windows. Rinse and repeat every 4 or 5 years whenever I get my hand on a new desktop or laptop. That never changed for the last 20 years.
You are doning it wrong. Whenever I buy new hardware, I read up on linux support before. Formated my last windows partition at home 5 years ago.
This. No one would buy an arbitrary computer and expect MacOS to run on it, for example. Buy a computer with known Linux support. Ask the vendor.
Nah. The OS is not important enough to me. I buy according to specs and price/performance-ratio. If Linux won't easily run, I will just run windows on it. It's only the OS after all.
Linux is open source and often only donation financed. They can't always support brand new hardware. If you want support for your hardware you have to pay a company to do it for you (or do it your self if possible)
One thing to note is that there are different distributions some of wich use older software an focus on stability (debian for example) and some use bleeding edge software (arch for example)
I actually switched my desktop from Windows 3.11 to Linux. It's always worked fine to me (even if it was a bit hand on at the start) on vast numbers of hardware configurations. I've never used Windows for actual data since, only for games (not really an issue nowadays).
There's not a lot of things that stupid people can say, that would genuinely frustrate me, but when you make uneducated, factless statements, and then decide to fanboy about something in the same sentence, that genuinely frustrates me
Just so we are clear, are you hating on Linux or windows fan boys?
Why not both?
All fanboys are annoying, no matter what they're fans of
To whom are you responding to?
I officially switched my desktop and server to Linux. If I could switch my work computer I would. I bought a MacBook Air recently because I didn’t know Linux laptops were getting so popular. But I like the Mac and can still do some Linux like stuff in the terminal.
Just wish I could stop windows use at work.
As long as you dont use nvidia linux works really well.
Even that is a myth nowadays. Wayland is still hit and miss, but with x11, it's as good as Intel or AMD.
And, if the guys at System76 keep their promises (and historically, they have), with the release of COSMIC, even that will be fixed for good :)
Oh, another Linux circlejerk. Man I like my Debian but this stuff is so obnoxious…
I guess I don't see it as a circle jerk. It seems more that there are a bunch of windows fans that haven't tried Linux in the last 5 or 10 years (or ever) trying to convince the Linux community that Linux has a bunch of pitfalls and shortcomings that we don't seem to run into.
Reminds me of the idiot software devs at my work who break their Ubuntu install every third day and claim they know everything
One word: printers. Linux isnt event plug and pray, it just detects it.
I'll probably transition my AMD 8350 build over to Linux when Win10 stops being supported. As opposed to my mom's FX-8370 build, which I'll probably just have to replace with a new Windows 11 system, as there's no way I'm expecting her (an elderly woman) to learn anything other than Windows. Especially since she's reliant on Windows-only apps.
The actual hardware she's using will probably be converted to a Linux Desktop, but I'll have to migrate her data to a new mini Windows 11 PC or something.
I know someone (86 yeard old) that never had a computer before her mid-70s. I built her several Xubuntu machines over the years, and she manages getting online, social media, e-mail and solitaire games just fine. She didn't need much teaching from me at all. And it goes without saying that support requests are very rare and I've never had to reinstall her system because of some malware ate her files.
Don't underestimate older people.
Waypipe can be a godsend here...
You can just install windows 11 on the 8370 build, if you make the install drive with Rufus you can disable the compatibility checks.
Those mini machines are pretty decent now. The kind you can bolt right to the back of a monitor.
Absolutely! I got a little Ryzen 5 box with 64GB RAM and 1.5TB of SSD for, like, $500 ($300 base 16GB+500GB, IIRC?). I've been used to XPS laptops as my daily drivers for several years, my most recent being less than 2 y/o. It is absolutely shocking to me how much better that little Ryzen is, for how little money.
I haven't checked power consumption on it, but at this point I'm seriously considering just packing one up with a small LCD, a BT keyboard/mouse, and a honking 20k amp battery when I travel, instead of taking the laptop.
Yall miss the point. Im guessing willfully. No average desktop user wants to be forced to use command line to do anything.
Linux will never see mainstream desktop usage.
I've been using various distros for the past 6 months trying to find the right fit for my work. I do remote desktop support of many windows based enterprises.
I use Linux desktop every single day for 8 hours. I also play games of all sorts.
KDE neon was what I had when I started out and it was great. Zero problems. There's no reason you'd ever need CLI in plasma desktop that I can see. Fedora/plasma is a no go. Too complex with selinux and you really do need to know what you're doing. Still quite usable for 90% of day to day
For the past month I've been on mint 21 and have had zero issues and zero CLI time. Been enjoying baldurs gate 3 out of the box, using outlook, teams, various browsers and whatnot. Not going to give a comprehensive list here, but everything works perfectly and almost everything has been installed straight from the software manager.
I think you're right. For the average desktop user, it's more about being able to use the software they need, without a terminal.
I think that desktop in linux has advanced a lot in the last few years, and now I'm running my games on a KDE desktop, too! But I keep having to go to the terminal to do stuff I took for granted on other systems, like OS security updates.
The linux developers have done an awesome job and linux has come so far it's amazing. But for the vast majority of computer users they don't even know what a terminal is, period, and linux is useless to them unless a Linux user sets it up for them for a very specific use case and that's all they ever do with it.
If all they want is an email and web appliance, a typical computer ignorant user can use linux if it is given to them by someone else.
Yet an ignorant computer user can go and buy a Mac or a windows machine from a retailer and get the job done without having to know anything at all other than they want a computer for x y or z.
Its like the linux developers can't fathom a PC experience without the terminal as a vital participant.
GUI alternatives are constantly improving and becoming more visually pleasing throughout distros, and besides, there's real scenarios where normal people HAVE to use Powershell or CMD to get stuff done on Windows. This is becoming less and less of a hurdle.
I've installed ZorinOS on a non tech savvy friends computer so she could get more life out of her old laptop and she was fine without using any terminal
It wasn't always the case. Windows 3x gui had to be started from a dos prompt. But this anti cli sentiment swings both ways for all OS's.
The bigger issue I have though is a general unwillingness to learn how to do things beyond click icons for apps. Devices now are engineered to be as simple as possible. Which ya, for most people is fine. But these devices in turn are generally way more challenging to fix. So it encourages just buying a new one instead. Creating more ewaste for something that should be easier to fix, all because of software, or physical assembly.
a general unwillingness to learn how to do things beyond click icons for apps
I'd say "a general unwillingness to learn how to do things", period.
I think an issue is that people tend to think of Linux as meaning "all distributions." So if something is compatible with X distro version yy.zz, the general idea is "it's compatible with Linux." This, in my experience, is one of the things that leads to mandatory command-line usage --- it definitely is possible to get it to work under a different flavor of Linux, but it's not necessarily easy if you're uncomfortable with a command line.
Another is drivers --- if it's mainlined, it will Just Work, but if it's not...well, it may work, but you might have to jump through hoops and get busy with the command line.
In short: if you view your distro the same way you view a particular Windows release, then I really don't think you need the command line for desktop Linux. But you need to accept that some software isn't "compatible," in the above, user-friendly sense of the word.
There is no such operating system as Linux, but there are operating systems built on top of the kernel called Linux. In other words, Linux (a kernel) is not an alternative to Windows (an operating system), but a specific Linux-based OS could be.
IMO it would help if we stopped pretending that Linux is an operating system unto itself and started promoting the actual operating systems that are built on Linux. I see people in this thread arguing over whether "Linux" is user-friendly or not and it's meaningless because they aren't actually talking about Linux, but rather some unspecified thing that runs on top of Linux, and may not even be talking about the same thing.
Linux doesn't force you to use the command line for anything. It's optional.
As soon as a distro has a control panel equivalent that has stuff like a driver manager and event log it's all over
They do
You might be surprised to learn that multiple distros have control panel equivalent of driver managers and event logs.
People without much OS knowledge use windows because that's what's installed on the PC when they buy it. If best buy sold a PC with a just works distro installed they'd use it and not really know or care
I know Ubuntu has had that for a while, which means that others probably have as well.
Agreed. Also from a Tech support POV, there is no "standard" OS and troubleshooting the vast different environments would be a pain. With Windows, you have a standard layout, with couple different versions - Home / Pro / Enterprise. With linux, you have different syntax, differnt DE's, etc. Still use Linux at home / work but i am interested in it. Got to have that motivation to do so.
Same thing with moving to Lemmy, gotta have that motivation to make the change.
Imagine having to do family tech support on the phone while driving with Linux. Especially if everyone in the family decided to use their freedom and now everyone runs a totally different distro.
I don't know... Debian 12 or latest Fedora (ugh) are pretty darn idiot proof. CLI doesn't really enter into the picture on those if you don't want it to. And, your computer won't have to be tossed out for another 10 years.
I'm personally just getting back into Linux after a 20-year hiatus, and configuring/compiling Gentoo from the ground up has definitely given me a different perspective on computers.
In general, almost all Linux distros stem from 3 primary distributions: Debian, Arch and Fedora. (The outliers would be things like Void, Gentoo and Slackware.) All of these other distros that "just work" are, for the most part, skins of those primary 3 with different apps pre-installed.
Kali? It's Debian. Ubuntu? It's Debian. Mint? It's either Ubuntu (which itself is Debian) or now Linux Mint Debian Edition. The "look and feel" of a distro has nothing inherently to do with that distro.
What they all have in common is that the eye-candy Desktop Environment is there to provide a "friendlier" interface than a CLI - but there is nothing a DE can do that the native terminal can't.
I've also found it's just faster/easier to install things via terminal than browse through an artificial "app store."
Maybe I'm moving away from the idea of a desktop environment in general, in favor of a Window Manager that just handles putting programs in floating windows in a black space.
I could see ChromeOS killing off Windows somehow. It's already huge.
wrong.
m$ pc will vanish. the kids that do socialmedia where i work do it all on iphone. record, cut, make audio. or some other apple device. while there are enough boomers to explain active directory to them, they aint listening as they are sure to never touch windows unless they are into hardcore gaming and casemodding. other than that windows is dead.
Windows will more than survive on corporate and enterprise licenses purchased by the thousands daily. The integration of their cloud services like SharePoint into mass subscriptions of office 365 is enough for Microsoft to not care about some niche influencer market. Besides multimedia editing software was always dominated by Apple which Microsoft specifically brought back from bankruptcy specifically to avoid an anti-trust case. They don't want that corner of the market and never have.
Linux desktops will never be able to take over unless corporations start installing it for all of their employees. Which again is unlikely considering large corporations don't like change especially in their revenue.
Well, I did have the issue of horrible range on my Qualcomm WiFI Drivers under linux leading to shitty WiFi range overall. Eg. Laptop just below WiFi router and it shows 90% range.
I tried to daily Linux on my laptop but gave up because it didn't support the fingerprint reader or the speakers. Windows 11 drains the battery faster and feels sluggish more often.
I'd suggest Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC if you're sticking with M$. It's the least bloated and least intrusive modern OS. You should see improvement in battery life and your devices can use the same drivers. The official MSDN ISOs aren't hard to find. Then find "massgravel" on GitHub and you can pretty easily figure out permanent activation via HWID.
I'll give up fingerprint before I give up battery!
I use Windows for work and gaming, MacOS for app development (mostly because I can code for iOS and Android in one environment), and ChromeOS for my daily browsing.
I just enjoy how chrome always works when I need to just browse the internet or buy something online without issue.
Linux desktop is garbage. Devs should focus their efforts elsewhere.
ITT: Linux users in denial.
Linux will never be anywhere close to plug and play for anything in the way Windows is, whether we're talking games, applications, AD, etc... At least not for a very, very long time. Windows has about 40 years of development and is tried and true by the masses worldwide. You don't have to be a master level 1337 h4xor to do anything in Windows, while you can't do about 70% of what you can do on Windows with Linux without being an advanced power user.
Linux is great for some stuff, but unless there's massive upgrades to where you can just hit "install" and something installs and works without fucking around in terminal, it will never see widespread adoption. Hell, half of my users can't even figure out how to use a goddamn Mac, and that's much more user friendly than any Linux kernel. You guys are delusional if you think otherwise.
Also, I've yet to see a single Linux kernel that is aesthetically pleasing on anywhere near the level of OSX or Windows 11... Or Windows 10... Or hell, 7, 8, and Vista lmao. Looks like a potato OS that was mocked up for some shitty low budget SyFy channel movie. Every single kernel I've ever seen. Even the ones that supposedly are "so nice looking bro I swear it looks better than 11 bro please why isn't anyone switching to Linux don't you guys want to learn a programming language to play games seriously bro it's so easy it just works bro broooo."
Also, I've yet to see a single Linux kernel that is aesthetically pleasing
Hmm...
Does lemmy have copypasta community?
I’ve yet to see a single Linux kernel that is aesthetically pleasing on anywhere near the level of OSX or Windows 11… Or Windows 10… Or hell, 7, 8, and Vista lmao.
The fact that you're using the terms "kernel" and "aesthetically pleasing" in the same sentence (and equating that to GNU/Linux "Proper") leads me to believe that you don't understand what a kernel is. Or really know what you're talking about, for that matter...
Dude I fucking hate those Linux ubernerds, and think that "looks shitty" is almost a Hallmark of your classic Linux application, but... you have no idea what you're talking about. (...Also I don't think you know what a "kernel" is.)
"40 year head start" is one hell of a fallacy. As if MS and Apple from 1983 are meaningfully related (in this sense) to what they are and do now.
The fundamental difference, anyway, is cross-platform compatibility. What percent of Linux users even use desktop office suites and shit like that? The desktop world has been moving to the browser for 15+ years and both Chrome and Firefox are practically identical on every OS.
Linux has a long way to go, but the stuff you were listing is madness.
Sometimes I think you're right, but at least once a year I have to use/install/repair Windows and my mind is absolutely blown by how bad it is
Also you're literally wrong about aesthetics to the point it's objective so I won't bother on that
while you can’t do about 70% of what you can do on Windows with Linux without being an advanced power user.
You clearly have no idea of what you're talking about.
Also, I’ve yet to see a single Linux kernel that is aesthetically pleasing on anywhere near the level of OSX or Windows 11… Or Windows 10… Or hell, 7, 8, and Vista lmao.
You also clearly have no idea what the fuck a kernel is.
I want one of these asthetically pleasing kernels. I feel robbed.
You don't even know what a kernel is, and I doubt you've seen any modern desktop environments. There's nothing wrong with linux, there's not development that needs to be done to fix it, the vast majority of issues I experienced were just a few windows apps or games not having good linux support. This isn't a fault of linux, it's the fault of the developers behind those apps and games. Also when I want to install something on Linux, I simply open discover and search for it then install. Anything not easily found in discover is most likely for more tech savvy power users anyways
What?? Are you criticizing the kernel (which you can but with actual arguments) or the esthetics of the UI which has absolutely nothing to do with the kernel? You don't seem to understand what is a kernel
Linux is great for some stuff, but unless there's massive upgrades to where you can just hit "install" and something installs and works without fucking around in terminal
https://i.imgur.com/JFbxr3a.mp4
Wait what!? I just mark file as executable, run as program, and click nex then install.
Also on a more serious note, how easy is it to find apps on the software store too (yes, because most linux distros offer a software store now)
Agreed completely. After a fresh Windows 10 installation, and installing most recent drivers, I was able to download and play my Itch.io games after about an hour, hour and a half maybe. In Linux I have to make sure I get a properly performing or game optimized version of Arch, install Nvidia drivers, hope Optimus or whatever the internal/dedicated video card switcher is called now, install Lutris, hope the Lutris install script functions, install Steam, install Proton Glorious Eggroll version, enable Linux Proton beta and move GE to it, install Borderlands 2 and research why I'm getting 13-15 frames per second, do that for about a week, and then reinstall Windows. The above also is true for getting Pipewire and Wayland working for sound with my audio input device and lament that I didn't get hardware that was tested beforehand to work with in-kernel drivers. Then find someone's Github to install an interface because Pipewire broke itself or isn't picking up my mic or broke itself with Discord.
Just use nobara. Arch isn't really for casual users who haven't used Linux. Download steam and enable steam play for all titles in your settings. Proton ge isn't necessarily always needed, but if you want it just download protonup-qt to easily install it. Use lutris for non-steam games, and optionally heroic games launcher instead of lutris for epic games. You make Linux sound complicated by separating every little step, as if multiple of those aren't windows things too...
After a fresh nobara installation, and installing most recent drivers, I was able to download and play my steam games in an hour, hour and a half maybe. On windows I have to run a debloat script to optimize performance, make sure drivers are up to date, download the steam installer, click through the installer, download my game, then look up why random windows background services are randomly taking up CPU space. On Linux I just open discover, download steam, enable steam play for all titles, then download and play my games without any preinstalled apps and unnecessarily resource hogging background services.
I don't use a game optimised version of arch, I also use NVIDIA hardware, and I have no problems. I run a single monitor and have no need for Wayland at this point in time. X11 just works.
However, I game on desktops. My laptop is for work and that runs an Intel iGPU. It also runs Linux, without problems.
