Laughs in rolling release
laughs in kernel panics
I’m running nixos unstable. I did get some panics while hibernating with one kernel version, but otherwise it’s been super stable.
Enabling threadedirqs (real-time feature) on the kernel command line does make the kernel panic on boot though.
I have to make the switch…
Still very happy with Mint after a month and a half. Highly recommended!
When I get back to my personal computer, I’m going to finally move to Linux. I’m a developer primarily on Microsoft technologies, but I’m willing to see if there is a way for me to work on Linux and branch out to other tech.
Vscode and dotnet core (5+) work well on linux
You can also run SQL Server via docker
Do you even need docker for MS-SQL?
I run Arch, so docker was the easiest method of installation.
Rather than try and figure out how to install a .deb manually (and lose package manager perks)
My CPU and motherboard are from 2016. I don’t mind updating harware to reach windows 11 compability, it’s about time anyway.
I would be angry if updating to 11 from 10 would also cost money directly.
I’d switch in a heartbeat if Linux can play all my games including non-steam ones
Check here: protondb.com
There are a few multiplayer games that don’t work, but most do. Basically every singleplayer game does. It doesn’t matter where you download it. Steam makes it slightly more convenient, but Heroic Games Launcher, or others, make it pretty easy to add any executable from anywhere to it and runs it.
Honestly, dont install Linux. There is absolutely no reason for you to do so. The fact is Linux will NEVER run all Windows games, it is simply impossible. Furthermore Linux will never run exactly like Windows or look exactly like Windows. So as a Linux user, just install Windows 11.
Voice of reason right here
That’s probably true. Windows cannot run all Windows games either.
I know just enough about Linux to know I should have been getting into it when I graduated over a decade ago.
I also know just enough to know it can do pretty much everything I need, as long as I’m willing to switch to a Linux alternative with similar capabilities.
However, I am Linux-dumb and deeply set into my windows, to the point where I’m not sure I have the technical savvy to switch.
From my understanding, Linux works very well, as long as you know what you’re doing.
I’m sure I’m overestimating the learning curve but it’s still intimidating.
I felt the exact same way, still do, but I bought a new drive and installed Linux Mint on it (it’s the most Windows like experience I’ve found). I kept my old windows drive just in case, but I haven’t needed it so far.
The only time I ever used something that wasn’t Windows was DOS when I was very little.
It’s definitely overwhelming when trying to get certain things working that aren’t natively supported, but thankfully those are few and far between. There’s also a lot of people in the Linux community that are passionate about it, and tend to be very helpful.
You can always download what I think is called a live distro, and run it off a thumb drive just to test the waters. Nothing you change will be kept though, and it will be sluggish comparatively.
The os itself doesn’t require a whole lot of learning, if you stick to something user friendly like mint cinnamon. Key differences are how you install programs and drivers. File structure is very different. After two years of daily driving mint cinnamon, I find it more difficult to do basic stuff in windows, especially 10. If it feels intimidating, the recommended approach is to try it out on another pc, dualboot, or use it in a virtual machine.
What’s wrong with Windows?
The better question is why Linux over something you know how to use. Both systems have there own issues.
Go for it. You don’t need to install Linux in order to start getting your feet wet. Get a USB 3.0+ flash drive and put a “live” (CD/USB, whatever the distro wants to call it) distro on there. There are plenty of directions out there on how to make one from Windows. Most live distros nowadays are persistent, so any programs you install will be there next time you load it up. It will definitely be slower than a normal install, but it’ll let you get a feel for how things work.
Go ham wild on there, break stuff, see if you can fix it, don’t, then remake it again. Try different desktop environments (DEs) and see what you like. Your distro of choice is less important if you’re just starting, but any of the big ones will be fine. I’d recommend trying a few different DEs from the same distro, see what you like the feel of, then try a different distro with what you liked best. They’ll usually all have gnome, kde, and a third lightweight option, but in my experience if Wayland (the other choice is X11) works well, kde and gnome will feel pretty light. I use kde Wayland on this guy and trust me, this review is giving it a lot of grace. Windows 10 was completely unacceptable on it, so if your specs are any better then this, you’ll be fine with whatever you choose. Beware that Nvidia cards have driver issues, they’re fixable but if you do have an Nvidia card, I’d just use the built in graphics chip for trying out Linux at first.
Don’t start with arch, btw.
Beware that Nvidia cards have driver issues, they’re fixable but if you do have an Nvidia card, I’d just use the built in graphics chip for trying out Linux at first.
Well, shit. Extra work for me. I knew I should have waited for the AMD series to be in stock…
You can. Now it’s mostly games with kernel anti-cheat that don’t work.
For epic and gog you can use the heroic launcher. For ther stuff with an installer, you can use wine to install it and manually add the exe to steam.
Ugh I have ONE game that’s 20 years old and does not work on Linux whatsoever. It’s an extremely important game to me because my best friends and I play together. We’re the only people who play it anymore. I can’t live without it, so I’m stuck on Windows for my main game machines.
My other machines? Linux lawl
Why won’t you share which game it is? :)
I did in another comment~ it’s a Half Life 1 mod called “The Specialists”. It’s amazing.
Kung fu only or see who clicks faster with 5-7?
Hahaha a person of culture.
I’m huge on the Contender. I’m terrible at naked kung fu.
I have the least experience amogus my friend group but sometimes I do a bit of blow while playing… Every time I do, I top the leaderboards. It’s wild. PED.
I played this a lot back in the day online, and it was the absolute jam at LAN parties. Happy to hear people still keep the magic going
I have the same issue. I have a 10 year old laptop that I use as well. My solution was to dual boot Linux mint & Win10. Most of the time I use Mint on that computer and load the windows only when playing that game.
Which is it?
It’s a Half Life 1 mod called “The Specialists”.
I’m shocked that doesn’t work. Have you tried using Xash3D? What versions of WINE/Proton have you tried?
Holy shit! You just brought on sooooo much nostalgia! Did you know that for turned into a full fledged game? I saw a year out two back, but I know they made it into something more.
This and Synergy Co-Op were my shit growing up
Even with wine profile and setting Windows version to “emulate”?
Unfortunately yes D:
Conversely, I’m coming to the conclusion that I could probably live with just a steam deck, instead of a laptop etc. A portable screen, or my projector, my nice Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, and I reckon it’ll do everything I really need day-to-day.
I ditched my laptop for a steam deck. I use a desktop at home and whenever I need to go to the office I just bring the deck and some peripherals.
It’s like they are not even trying. I have a laptop with 7th gen CPU that works perfectly fine. I don’t have any choice than install Linux, lol.
try mas for activiating ESU
Yeah, but the system requirements for Windows 11 are a good way above those for 10. Many people would need new machines; whereas Linux still runs decently on hardware from 2003.
Rolling releases go brrrrrr.
Here’s a list of End-of-Life dates for CentOS Stream which is a rolling release.
So it’s a semi-rolling release then.
CentOS is sadly dead anyways.
Games and especially modding. I’m holding on to 10 until I can’t. Then i’ll figure out Linux.
Coming from windows 10, last year I tested installing linux mint which is one of the most accessible distros. I found that around a third of the stuff I had running perfectly under Win10 didn’t work. I didn’t find alternatives that were good enough either…
So I said fuck it and did a clean windows 11 install, It’s been a month now and I can really say that it’s way easier to upgrade to windows 11 and turn off all the shit, than to deal with all the stuff that won’t run under linux.
Hopefully this changes in a few more years…
I jumped ship from windows 10 to Linux on August and it’s been smooth I have found alternatives for everything, but to be fair I used a lot of foss already on Windows 10.
Started with Debian but although I love it for my homelab I didn’t like it being behind on KDE release so I switched to endeavourOS and I just love it.
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people have claimed over the years this happens, but I’ve never had this happen with windows 10
there are no settings for all the shit, just some of it, that Microsoft is permitting to switch off. you therefore just have a half-still-shit-on system. that’s totally fine, i don’t expect anyone to invest time into anything. we ain’t got much to start with. but no one using windows is really in control
tip: Windows 10 21h2 IoT Enterprise LTSC is supported until 2032
Honestly Windows 11 isn’t terrible. It is mostly the same as Windows 10 except more demanding for seemingly no reason.
I’ve tried it a couple times and I hate it. The UI sucks, I can’t find shit, and they’ve stripped back control panel even further. Tried to help my mother with virtual disc’s and you can’t simply mount them anymore, instead there was some strange 3rd-party tool I’d never heard of and it didn’t even export files that were too deep in the folder tree. Fucking useless.
All the bloatware sucks, search defaulting to AI and Bing instead of your own computer sucks. Removing administrative controls sucks.
But I’m a visual designer and the market needs powerful industry-ready software like Adobe and Affinity. I can’t design publishing in fucking GIMP. The Linux alternatives aren’t enough. I’m considering using a Linux home machine with Mac for work but the apps I own already are Microsoft so it would be very expensive to switch. So I’ll probably end up using W11 and just complain the whole time.
Id run Linux if it could run the apps I need efficiently
use alternatives if possible
It’s not possible
This is very realistic and fair, I don’t subscribe to the ideologist out of touch bs personally even though I first compiled Gentoo 20 years ago.
I run Mac as my daily driver for convenience and stability but use the terminal for a ton of things and SSH into various Linux servers for my work. I run a VM in Parallels for the handful of apps which only work on windows, and generally avoid them unless they’re the only option.
Basically, what I’m saying is even if you’re dependent on some Windows only apps, you might find you have a better quality of life by making those the exception (running them in a VM) but using a more stable OS as the underlying OS.
What apps?
Ableton, FL Studio plus all the vsts I use. Plus all the adobe I use plus all the games I play that are windows only
All the games that I play are Windows-only too and they run just fine via Proton.
Yeah I don’t feel like running an emulation or a script to just play a game though. If I want to use Linux. I’ll use it on a laptop for web browsing. It’s a useless OS for me personally for every day life that has very little support from other companies.
Yeah I don’t feel like running an emulation or a script to just play a game though.
You open Steam, click Play, and the game launches.
The same as it does on Windows.
Linux has great DAWs, bridges for vsts, alternatives for Adobe software and tons of games. The issue is your unwillingness to try something new, which is fine, but that’s not a knock to Linux.
I’ve used gimp. I pay for Adobe. I paid for FL and Ableton and used them for over 10 years. Why would I switch?
I tried Linux Mint, and enjoyed my experience and even setup everything and then when I booted up Factorio Steam didn’t use my 3080 somehow. Pop OS worked but I didn’t like the experience. I’ll have to give Linux Mint a shot again.
That is almost certainly because Factorio has a native Linux version and Steam installed that instead of the Windows version. It was trying to use OpenGL and defaulting to CPU rendering because you likely haven’t altered the default configuration.
If you force Steam to use steam play, it will download the Windows version and run it through Proton which will use the right hardware.
I’m confused. Shouldn’t me downloading the native Linux factorio and native Linux Steam be enough? Why would it default to something else?
I’ve not played Factorio but I’ve seen a vidjeo about it. How is the Windows version on Proton better than a Linux native version?
Wouldn’t the correct answer be to fix the graphics driver or configuration? And why doesn’t OpenGL just work? Or better yet, Vulkan?
It’s this nonsense that keeps people locked in to Windows.
Running the native version requires the user to configure their system correctly and then it would work. Most people who are coming to Linux from Windows are not interested in editing config files or using the terminal and, in any case, the vast majority of Linux gaming is done by running Windows games via WINE.
Proton is WINE packaged with the software and configuration scripts so that it ‘just works’ without user intervention. If you’re on Linux, you can install Steam and Go to Settings -> Compatibility and check ‘Allow Steam Play for all other titles’ and, from that point on, it will install the Windows version of the game and run it with Proton with no user interaction (other than clicking ‘Play’).
It’s this nonsense that keeps people locked in to Windows.
It isn’t nonsense, it makes perfect sense.
You can follow the error messages (which it prints to stdout when the game launches) and determine what the problem is so that you can fix it. The problem is completely understandable, the game logs would show exactly what device it was using and you could see what piece of software is responsible and go and look at the online documentation for that project to determine the exact configuration change that you need to make.
That’s how you should be troubleshooting problems, but you can’t do that on Windows because everything is a black box and provides little to no logs. If you’re lucky you’ll get an error message.
If you have a problem on Windows you first reboot and pray. Or, if that doesn’t fix it, you search random social media or forum posts, apply arbitrary registry changes recommended by Reddit comments, upgrade drivers, downgrade drivers, install motherboard firmware and dig through the various Windows GUI menus, which are change completely between Windows 8, 10 and 11 (but not 9, which doesn’t exist for some arbitrary reason), to locate a switch or checkbox that you can flip (and reboot again) until finally the problem resolves itself seemingly on its own. To me, this is the nonsense.
I swapped from Windows 10 specifically because I didn’t want to be in the Windows 11 and forward environment. (I use Arch btw)
I really don’t regret it, the set up was really painful but once that was done, the KDE had so many good features that I immediately felt at home. I’m floored by how good Proton/Steam is at handling games, I don’t think I’ve had to skip on any game due to my OS (so far).
CachyOS?
I’m on good ol’ Arch Linux with plasma KDE
You’re a better man than I. I just dipped my toes in Arch by going with CachyOS.
Hey chad, I hadn’t heard of CachyOS until you brought it up, good on you for finding an OS that matches your needs and going for it
This is gonna be an unpopular opinion here but telling people who have used Windows their entire lives to just switch to Linux as if it’s that easy is entirely unhelpful and makes the Linux community look elitist and out of touch.
It’s easier to use than Windows
Just give GUI troubleshooting instead of CLI
It’s easier to use than Windows
LOL, good one!
I especially loved the user friendliness of my distro randomly disconnecting my BT mouse and refusing to reconnect. Had to edit grub to get it back to working order.
Or how I changed the lock screen image through settings. Now I can see it - in Settings. Only. Because if I lock my device, I still see the old one.
Or how on Kubuntu, my previous distro, the applications’ menu (the one with “File”, “View”, “Help”, etc.) just disappeared from all apps. Spent two days trying to sort it out and ended up switching to Tuxedo OS.
Such an easy to use OS, especially for those who’ve never done one bit of troubleshooting themselves!
Windows never has issues, does it?
Not like that, it doesn’t.
I’ve never heard of someone using bcdedit to change a boot flag, so a Bluetooth adapter will behave.
The lock screen problem I’ve seen myself a while back. At least in my case, I did not have permissions to the session manager config file, and the gui tool did not account for that. But I think I had to install the tool from the repo. It wasn’t part of the base install.
The menu problem could be a Kubuntu or early plasma issue. Either way, not something I’ve ever seen in Windows.
Spoken like someone who hasn’t had to troubleshoot Windows
Could that be because he’s had fewer issues with Windows and hasn’t had a need to troubleshoot it?
Windows 11 is a shitty version of Windows, but it’s not Windows ME or Vista. It sucks because of the arbitrary CPU and TPM requirements, plus having AI forced into a user’s desktop. Not to mention Microsoft is dragging its feet fixing performance issues in Explorer.
It’s still very stable on good hardware with stable drivers. Point out the actual shit parts of Windows, not lazy callbacks to the days of Windows 98.
2080 ti and 128gb of ram - it is definitely not stable and unlike Linux isn’t ready out of the box
You seem to be confused. We’re talking about an “OS for the masses”. What you’re talking about is so far beyond the “high end for the top tier enthusiasts” that it’s not even funny.
If Windows doesn’t work on that, then it’s not for the masses
It seems like a weird middle-ground that might be used in a weird 5 year old server. Probably not great for gaming. But I too had stability issues with all of my windows installations. (1.5 laptops, a prebuilt and later the machine I use now which I started using with windows) All of them had regular BSODs (though the laptops were a little older and might not always have been that way) and one pc even broke the Windows Bootloader so that I couldn’t boot it anymore.
So you can afford 128GB of ram, a motherboard that can support that, a processor that can address that… and you’re running a 2080ti?
It’s such an odd configuration I wouldn’t be surprised if the Nvidia driver were causing the issue. Contrary to the concept of a “unified driver,” the code for your GPU probably hasn’t been touched by nvidia in a while. Either that, or maybe you’ve got all that hardware, but you’re running Windows 8 or something else odd.
W10/11
And yes the gpu needs an upgrade, but I don’t have a server in need of it yet so it stays in my personal computer
And on Linux it handles everything I need
Could that be because he’s had fewer issues with Windows and hasn’t had a need to troubleshoot it?
It’s actually the opposite. Worked in IT for 20 years, had to troubleshoot every conceivable issue with Windows.
Here’s the difference: 90% of the time, once you’ve installed the OS, it’s smooth sailing*. If it’s not, reboot, and it will be fine. For the fringe cases, just search online to find help.
This last bit is what kills Linux as “user-friendly OS” - you have one distro, but solutions you find are for five different distros and each one looks and feels slightly differently, so things are in different places.
EDIT:
* I should’ve added: TODAY. It used to be VERY different, but these days? It’s mostly “fire and forget”.
I’ve also spent my fair share of time in IT. I can’t recall any common issue with the reliability of Windows in the enterprise. Single user issues that originally appeared to be an OS problem later turned out to be caused by hardware. Usually hard disks, though I did find a bad stick of RAM once.
The vast majority of issues I typically saw were application related, usually industry specific software. What I did come to hate was industry applications written to run on the Java Runtime environment. Especially when a user needed several different apps which were not all compatible with a common JRE version. There’s DLL hell, dependency hell, and then there’s JRE hell.
Steps to troubleshoot Windows:
- Reboot, pray
- Google the error, if any
- Randomly change registry settings, delete files, install software on the advice of random Internet people/LLMs until the software works or the randomware kicks in.
- Thank god you’ve never had to touch a Linux terminal, clearly a fate worse than death.
- Reboot again, just in case
Looks fairly similar to what you would do on Linux. Change registry to config file (unless you’re using Gnome, then it’s both). You’re right though, on Windows, people don’t usually have paragraph long commands to paste into the terminal to fix some issue. Instead, on Windows you have Microsoft support posts where a “Microsoft Community Support” non-employee pastes non-helpful boilerplate tech support copypasta which are somewhat adjacent to the user’s issue.
Linux at least gives us useful logging and the software packages have documentation that is accessible without paying for a Microsoft Support contract.
The Linux community support can actually fix your problems without boilerplate copypasta and doesn’t cost anything but you’ll get the customer service that you pay for.
Linux at least gives us useful logging
Mate, don’t take it the wrong way, but you’re living in a fantasy world if you think an average user has any semblance of idea as to where logs are or how to read them.
The Linux community support can actually fix your problems without boilerplate copypasta
LOL, nice one! :D
I’ve read “just recompile the kernel” together with “just switch to [distro_x]” more times than I can count to… :D
Randomly change registry settings, delete files, install software on the advice of random Internet people/LLMs until the software works or the randomware kicks in.
See? Here’s your problem. You’re doing random stuff without understanding what it does or even without a guide. Try that on Linux and tell me how well your OS works. :)
In general, seems like you’ve been sheltered from Windows for the past, I don’t know, 15 years? In terms of reliability and stability, 10 and 11 are on par with MacOS.
Here’s the problem with sweeping statements on the Internet like the one you just did - you never know who you’re talking to.
You have no clue how hilarious your comment reads from the perspective of someone who’s worked in IT for the past 20 years. :D
Here’s the difference between Linux and Windows TODAY (that’s a CRITICAL point) - the average user gets the OS installed, fires it up and just uses it. If there’s a problem, a reboot will fix it 99% of the time. For that 1% there’s a bajillion different forums where they’ll find help.
Now, Linux? You install it, fire it up, and it runs without issues. Or it doesn’t! You use an app, and it works - or it doesn’t! You start searching for solutions online and find that the issue you’ve had has been resolved but on a different distro, things look different on yours and you have no clue how to proceed.
Windows is not a perfect OS, but it’s as good as it gets (next to MacOS) in terms of “I’m John, this is my first computer, I just learned how to log in and now I want to have some fun”. Linux is FAR from that, still.
Empirically, you are getting Windows and Linux mixed up
Also more end user devices are Linux than Windows
Linux is ideal for people who don’t want to spend all day troubleshooting and not getting anywhere. It’s for people who want things to just work without extra effort
Can’t compare to Mac personally
Empirically, you are getting Windows and Linux mixed up
I’m honestly not sure you understand what “empirically” means… But I might be wrong! Please elaborate!
Also more end user devices are Linux than Windows
Yes, nowadays especially, when people are trying to “stick it to the US”. Which doesn’t change the fact that most of these will return to Windows within 6 months, and even with them it’s still an insignificant minority compared to the hegemony of Windows and MacOS.
Linux is ideal for people who don’t want to spend all day troubleshooting and not getting anywhere
I’m sorry, WHAT?
It’s for people who want things to just work without extra effort
You have GOT TO be joking right now…
Please elaborate!
Through my own experiences not just what I’ve read. Constantly being asked to fix “Windows not working” and there never being any fixes found
stick it to the US”
Google and Valve are US companies so I don’t think people are sticking it to the US when they use their products
I’m sorry, WHAT?
Install and forget, the only issue I’ve had that isn’t a 5 minute fix is a broken pipe error on updates that doesn’t interfere with anything.
You have GOT TO be joking right now…
Have you tried either? Windows is always blue screening, black screening, or having apps freeze
I mean… they are out of touch. I’m sure its possible to have a pain free switch over but when I had trouble the advice was interspersed with quite a few caveats. In essence Linux is ‘easy to setup but…’ Still gonna try again though, also guys that laptop you all said was dying because linux made it crash is still working fine on windows with no sign of trouble.
I think I understand your broader point as saying that a switch to Linux being as simple as switching from Coors to Miller is underselling the fact that Linux is a fairly different environment/ecosystem. You’re right on that. But as someone who’s made a switch to Linux (Ubuntu) after a lifetime of other OS use, I have to say that I think it’s worth it, even with the learning curve.
I have been exclusively a Mac user and Apple cultist for at least twenty years now and only knew Windows (3.0-ME) prior to that. I have a few 2011 Intel Macs that I use for work and home exclusively (two of which were hand-me-downs) and have not been receiving updates for awhile now. I’m not in the financial position to buy a new computer and I randomly read that Ubuntu runs great on these old Macs. So I decided to give it a try. It was a bit of work that was bolstered by the fact that I do have a bit more computer know-how than the average person (but nowhere near most of the people I see on the Fediverse). But I’ve come to love it and am now working my way over to this being a permanent change.
I’m only sharing this as an example that even deeply entrenched people can learn to use this stuff. And I was a Mac guy! Apple holds your hands and does so much thinking for you! I’d think with Windows, the switch over to something like Mint would be fairly easy, given the GUI (I specifically chose Ubuntu over Mint because Mint’s GUI is described as “Windows-like” and I personally hate all things Microsoft—which is definitely a “me problem” lol—but I’m probably going to load it onto an older ThinkPad of my wife’s that we want to set up for our son).
Life is a long learning experience. Installing (or asking that nerdy relative to install) a Linux distro is no biggie anymore and when picking a good all-around distro like Mint, for example, pretty much anyone who has some basic experience on computers can do it.
I do agree that life is a learning experience, but I might say that you’re overestimating what “basic experience on computers” means, and I tend to find that this is fairly typical of people who have more advanced skills because this stuff is basic to us. But we can sometimes lack perspective in that regard.
Basic experience on computers for most people means “can use Office apps, can send emails, can more or less use the internet”. Essentially, they can use the computer for their work or for some light entertainment. It certainly doesn’t mean that they know how to or that they even can configure the BIOS to boot from a USB, or for that matter what the BIOS is or that it exists. It doesn’t mean that they can use the terminal, or use WINE to run their favourite Windows applications or troubleshoot an operating system that is entirely alien to them. I’d even go as far as to say that most people don’t even know what an operating system is - to them, Windows is the computer and they don’t know or care about anything different. This is the kind of person I’m talking about. Everything you said might as well be Ancient Greek to that person.
I get it. That’s why I included the part about “the family tech guy”. And I think some sparkle of interest must be had in order to learn about that stuff. Or any stuff, like learning Ancient Greek. One has to be able to use a web search (or write a prompt to an LLM) for “beginner install linux” or some such. If the spark isn’t there, maybe buying a new Windows/Mac is the correct way to go.
To a newbie, Windows is just as alien as Linux. If someone has no computer experience, they have to learn Linux, Windows or Mac anyway. May as well get them started with the software that isn’t actively trying to invade their privacy and paste ads in their face.
A friend of mine was a console gamer and we convinced him to game on a PC.
We walked him through an Arch install, via the terminal and the wiki for his first build. I think it took 6 hours to get him to the point where he could reboot into a GUI. He broke something within a few days (an incompletely typed chmod -r command). Then we showed him EndevourOS’s installer and he was back up and running in about 2 hours.
He knows how to use the Arch wiki, he can enable Steam debugging in order to Google any errors that occur, he isn’t scared of the terminal (though he prefers a GUI if possible.
Previously he’d only ever used Windows to run Microsoft Office in a corporate environment. Now he has, on his own, installed a NAS with an ZFS array running Docker, Jellyfin, Sonarr, Radarr, etc. He doesn’t even have Windows installed (and would probably have a hard time learning it now)
Most people who are really against Linux are Windows users who have spent years learning Windows and don’t want to spend the time to learn something different. Sure, it takes some time, but the skill is well worth the time that it takes to develop.
Relevant XKCD
I’m really curious what things people can’t get running or didn’t have good enough alternatives for in Linux? Obviously, if you are a professional in X field and you need a specific program that will not work on Linux for your job, then Linux is not for you at that job. You didn’t choose MS Win or MacOSX, the company that makes the software that you need to do your job made that choice for you.
If you are not a professional, and you pirate Adobe XYZ (or whatever), and feel like you must have it on Linux, and that GIMP or Krita (or whatever) are not good enough, I don’t know what to tell you. Ask yourself, if MS and Adobe found a way to require you to pay full price for that software, or you could not use it at all, would you pay? Or would GIMP or Krita (or whatever) suddenly be good enough? Is having that software (when you are not a professional) really a good reason to stay on an operating system with so many other drawbacks?
In my experience:
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MS Windows Explorer is crap. I ended up buying Directory Opus to get a decent file manager. Too many good ones to mention in Linux (though I admit, most are not as powerful as DO; maybe Dired in emacs comes closest?). (DO is awesome - if you are stuck on MS Windows, I highly recommend it.)
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KWallet (and similar security apps such as KeePassXC), the various clipboard apps, the various text editors, the media players, etc. are excellent in Linux and don’t have alternatives in MS Windows that are as good or as easy to install. Actually, I guess it comes down to the repositories having everything, and much of it being installed by default. (Of course, if you are just streaming stuff through your browser, media players matter much less.)
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The choice of window managers and desktop environments is a killer feature for Linux. MS Windows barely even has virtual desktops.
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I am not a graphics professional, so for me, GIMP and Krita are fine. And Inkscape. And Scribus. (And, for many people who are not me, LibreOffice Draw.)
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I do do a lot of writing. LaTeX (several types) and all supporting software is super helpful, but must be found and installed separately in MS Windows. Will pandoc run natively in MS Windows - you have to install python first, right? It is python, right? I’m not sure, because I didn’t need to worry about it when I installed it on Linux, from the repository. On MS Windows, you’ll probably have to worry about it.
Sure, as mentioned above, you can install many of those on MS Windows. Are they in the MS Windows store? Do you have to update them all individually each time there is an update? I don’t - they get updated when I update my system, along with the rest of my system.
One little observation sort of sums up the Linux / MS Windows debate for me: in LibreOffice, no matter which program I am using, I can open or create a new office file of any sort. Last time I used MS Office, you couldn’t create or open an MS Word file while in MS PowerPoint, nor the opposite. Instead, you had to open MS Word separately. MS Office is a ‘suite’ in name only. LibreOffice is a suite, designed to go together. Linux distros sort of feel like that too. MS Windows (last I used it), not so much.
(Obviously, I have feelings about this. Been using Linux since 1998, so yeah, feelings.)
edit: spelling error / typo
Plenty of video games that will not run on Linux simply because of stuff like anticheat. Like Apex Legends (ran fine for a while but got blocked again recently) and Valorant, just to name 2 I’m personally aware of that’s stopping some of my friends from going to Linux.
You can say that dual booting would fix that, and my bf actually does that, but that’s obviously not a workable solution to the vast majority of people.
As long as games like that won’t run on Linux it’s simply impossible for a lot of people to switch.
CoD, Fortnite, basically any major multiplayer games are case by case basis. While most of them have turned to microtransaction shit I thought others should know a few big names. Check out resources like Arewewanticheatyet and The protondb.
I just installed Mint on my gaming TV table. I’m currently struggling to install a driver that works with my displaylink adapter. I’m also having an issue with my VTT (Arkenforge) where it fails to update and crashes.
Welcome to the Linux experience :) Good luck, have fun!
Hahaha, thank you. To anyone wondering, I deleted the automatic updater out of the Wine directory and that has fixed the crashing, and I’ve given up on the driver for my USB to HDMI adapter and I’m going to just use VGA.
I knew there would be some growing pains, but I’m mostly surprised at how much stuff just works out of the gate, and how relatively easy it’s been.
Linux is the best OS. Thanks to Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds and the Linux community.
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