My standard response to “just go Linux” :
I keep having to say this, as much as I like Linux for certain things, as a desktop it’s still no competition to Windows, even with this awful shit going on.
As some background - I wrote my first Fortran program on a Sperry Rand Univac (punched cards) in about 1985. Cobol was immediately after Fortran (wish I’d stuck with Cobol).
I had my first UNIX class in about 1990.
I run a Mint laptop (for the hell of it, and I do mean hell) . Power management is a joke. Configured as best as possible, walked in the other day and it was dead - as in battery at zero, won’t even POST.
Windows would never do this, no, Windows can never do this. It is incapable of running a battery to zero, it’ll shutoff before then to protect the battery. To really kill it you have to boot to BIOS and let it sit, Windows will not let a battery get to zero.
There no way even possible via the Mint GUI to config power management for things like low/critical battery conditions /actions. None, nada, zip, not at all. Command line only, in the twenty-furst century, something Windows has had since I don’t recall, 95 I think (I was carrying a laptop then, and I believe it had hibernate, sorry, it’s been what, almost thirty years now).
There are many reasons why Linux doesn’t compete with Windows on the desktop - this is just one glaring one.
Now let’s look at Office. Open an Excel spreadsheet with tables in any app other than excel. Tables are something that’s just a given in excel, takes 10 seconds to setup, and you get automatic sorting and filtering, with near-zero effort. The devs of open office refuse to support tables, saying “you should manage data in a proper database app”. While I don’t disagree with the sentiment, no, I’m not setting up a DB in an open-source competitor to Access. That’s just too much effort for simple sorting and filtering tasks, and isn’t realistically shareable with other people. I do this several times a day in excel.
Now there’s that print monitor that’s on by default, and can only be shut up by using a command line. Wtf? Again, in the 21st century?
Networking… Yea, samba works, but how do you clear creds you used one time to connect to a share, even though you didn’t say “save creds”? Oh, yea, command line again or go download an app to clear them for for you. In the 21st century?
Oh, you have a wireless Logitech mouse? Linux won’t even recognize it. You have to search for a solution and go find a third-party download that makes it work. My brand new wireless mouse works on any version of Windows since Win2k (at the least) and would probably work on Win95.
Someone else said it better than me:
Every time I’ve installed Linux as my main OS (many, many times since I was younger), it gets to an eventual point where every single thing I want to do requires googling around to figure out problems. While it’s gotten much better, I always ended up reinstalling Windows or using my work Mac. Like one day I turn it on and the monitor doesn’t look right. So I installed twenty things, run some arbitrary collection of commands, and it works… only it doesn’t save my preferences.
So then I need to dig into .bashrc or .bash_profile (is bashrc even running? Hey let me investigate that first for 45 minutes) and get the command to run automatically… but that doesn’t work, so now I can’t boot… so I have to research (on my phone now, since the machine deathscreens me once the OS tries to load) how to fix that… then I am writing config lines for my specific monitor so it can access the native resolution… wait, does the config delimit by spaces, or by tabs?? anyway, it’s been four hours, it’s 3:00am and I’m like Bryan Cranston in that clip from Malcolm in the Middle where he has a car engine up in the air all because he tried to change a lightbulb.
And then I get a new monitor, and it happens all damn over again. Oh shit, I got a new mouse too, and the drivers aren’t supported - great! I finally made it to Friday night and now that I have 12 minutes away from my insane 16 month old, I can’t wait to search for some drivers so I can get the cursor acceleration disabled. Or enabled. Or configured? What was I even trying to do again? What led me to this?
I just can’t do it anymore. People who understand it more than I will downvote and call me an idiot, but you can all kiss my ass because I refuse to do the computing equivalent of building a radio out of coconuts on a deserted island of ancient Linux forum posts because I want to have Spotify open on startup EVERY time and not just one time. I have tried to get into Linux as a main dev environment since 1997 and I’ve loved/liked/loathed it, in that order, every single time.
I respect the shit out of the many people who are far, far smarter than me who a) built this stuff, and 2) spend their free time making Windows/Mac stuff work on a Linux environment, but the part of me who liked to experiment with Linux has been shot and killed and left to rot in a ditch along the interstate.
Now I love Linux for my services: Proxmox, UnRAID, TrueNAS, containers for Syncthing, PiHole, Owncloud/NextCloud, CasaOS/Yuno, etc, etc. I even run a few Windows VM’s on Linux (Proxmox) because that’s better than running Linux VM’s of a Windows server.
Linux is brilliant for this stuff. Just not brilliant for a desktop, let alone in a business environment.
Linux doesn’t even use a common shell (which is a good thing in it’s own way), and that’s a massive barrier for users.
If it were 40 years ago, maybe Linux would’ve had a chance to beat MS, even then it would’ve required settling on a single GUI (which is arguably half of why Windows became a standard, the other half being a common API), a common build (so the same tools/utilities are always available), and a commitment to put usability for the inexperienced user first.
These are what MS did in the 1980’s to make Windows attractive to the 3 groups who contend with desktops: developers, business management, end users.
All this without considering the systems management requirements of even an SMB with perhaps a dozen users (let alone an enterprise with tens of thousands).
Some pretty wild claims in there. It’s okay to just not like it without making stuff up like ‘Linux doesn’t support Logitech mice’ or ‘windows can never run a laptop battery to zero’.
My home firewall blocks ads and telemetry, no matter device/OS.
Maybe M$ one day decided make Windows unbootable because it cannot connect to somesussymicrosoftprivacyviolater.com
It still would have to get past my firewall to try to make it so.
So your firewall is going to prevent OS updates?
It already does. I like to review the updates and wait a while to see if they cause any issues. When I’m confident with the updates, I temporarily remove the block from the firewall.
Actually Windows is much more convenient to use, if you just log-in everywhere and use it as a “normal human”. The thing is we don’t like companies taking our lifes, we demand freedom, thats why windows is a hell for us, but for most its convenient.
But a huge part is conditioning because people are forced to use Windows early and get used to it.
I have made the exact same “oh, this just works and is quite intuitive and convenient”-experience with Linux installs… for people lacking that prior forced contact with Windows (say older relatives with their first PC for example…).
Yeah, but when linux fucks up, you are screwed, you need to have some technical knowledge or smart friend to fix it, and in windows its often just restart
In my experience the fuck ups on the level where you need technical help are more in line with a “just freshly reinstall Windows yet another time”-scenario
I would rather use gentoo on my gaming rig than fuck around with DLLs for even a second
Just make them install Arch, I did just fine…
I installed black arch once, even my right click was weird
Why not Gentoo?
Because debian.
Same, but normies wont bother to RTFM
The wiki is great for those, who have some experience in Linux, not so for beginners.
It isnt that hard, moved from wondows 10 to mint, and a few months later to arch, and it took me less than 2 hours to install arch, and thats with slow internet.
And i learned a lot whole doing it, like Dekstop environments, disk partitoning(root, swap, and boot), filesystems, and a lot more.
I wouldnt recommend it to everyone, but it is great if you want to learn more about computers.
The wiki is actually good for beginners, too. As you are often forced to reallylly read through subpages and cross-referenced topics until you somewhat understand why you are doing something instead of just how. Doesn’t make it easy ofc but a beginner can totally handle the wiki, it just takes more time.
Yeah, this has more or less sold me on giving arch a shot in the near future. I really need to get some fundamental Linux knowledge under my belt, and the arch wiki is legendary for being pretty comprehensive.
I may get stabbed for this but, go for Endeavour, unless a (probably needlessly) tedious install process is important to you.
I had vanilla Arch up and running for a bit but kept having issues with Steam, so switched to Endeavour and haven’t had any issues since. Its still a pretty basic version of Arch, with a few minor QoL improvements like having yay and a DE already installed.
I’d just rather use Windows and not have to deal with my games not being supported, explaining to people how to print a word document or have to mess with wifi drivers.
A lot of those stereotypical problems have been non-issues for a long time. Last time I had to fuck around with wifi drivers was somewhere around 2012.
Earlier this month I bought a cheap Asus laptop for my gf and put zorin on it only to find that no one makes Linux drivers for the included WiFi card. Bought a new WiFi card and ended up returning the laptop because the touchpad wouldn’t work correctly either.
Anecdotal evidence blahblahblah. For example: I just had to reverse engineer some epson drivers to get my fucking printer to play with my USB hub. Shit sucks sometimes, and I’m not going to pretend windows doesn’t also have it’s moments, but they sure as hell are less frequent (for me recently) than they are on windows.
Linux by its nature is very fractious (See: the Gentoo vs Debian debate that had been going on since the dawn of time…), and that means we don’t get one general distro. Linux’s big strength is in it’s customizability, and while for you and me it’s clearly a great option that we love and cherish, for my grandma it’s just not there in terms of plug-n’-play usability. Also, it was probably made by the wrong sort of Baptist or something, my grandma is awful.
…
Anyways, while I love Linux, it’s nice that there’s an option for the people who just don’t care. I’d love for them to start caring, because they should, but until I’m made omnipotent dictator for life it’s just not going to happen. And that sucks, but at least I don’t get calls at 4am asking why they cant get a flatpak working on debian. (I know it’s supported but…)There are comments on this post proving that those “non-issues” are still issues.
Left thing is the right thing
Really?
Because nothing I use works in Linux or at least doesn’t easily.
My 10 year old Logjtech mouse doesn’t work, at all, until I Google how to make it work.
Then there’s OneNote, which syncs directly with every machine, no server required.
Or excel - got Tables in Libre office yet? You know, what 97% of people use Excel for?
I could go on for days. At every turn, Linux is inferior to Windows as a desktop.
And I use Linux every day as a server: Truenas, Proxmox, Freedombox, Rpi, etc. It’s briliant for purpose-built systems.
I wish I could use Linux at work but the software used does not have any alternative (that I can use) and I can’t be bothered with debloating and all that jazz. I try to keep work and private seperate instead.
Tried get my dad to use Linux for his work but had problems with his clients not being able to open the files he sent using the Linux word and Excell programs. So that’s clear for him not to use Linux.
My brother-in-law installed Linux Mint for his parents and they are very happy with it. The only problem was downloading epubs with Adobe DRM, so I taught her how to use knock1 in the terminal and then import the book into Calibre to upload them to her ereader.
[1] The original repo is either private or has been removed, but all code and binaries can be found here https://web.archive.org/web/20221010074634/https://github.com/BentonEdmondson/knock/releases
Teams.
I fucking hate teams.
Why are we using teams.
Why did they change outlook, it used to actually be good.
Teams can go fuck itself with a rock. We’ve taken licensing now that doesn’t include it.
Still holding on to classic outlook as long as possible. The new version/skin/glow-up can go share the aforementioned rock with teams. Where’s my VBA, where’s my ribbon customisations, and why must it be dumbed down to Fisher-Price levels of ‘user friendliness’?
A lot of my answers to user questions these days are ‘Because Microsoft ™️’.
There used to be a linux repo for installing teams but they recently removed it. Now you’re forced to use the shitty excuse of a PWA.
The browser-based versions of the M365 apps work great* for me in Firefox tabs on Linux. I prefer them being just apps/sites that I use as needed and not deeply integrated with the OS just because the same company made the two.
- I mean they work as intended for the same stuff I’ve used the Windows versions for, not that they are great apps on their own, lol
Either way I’m stuck on W11 at work. No way am I installing teams on my machine at home.
My work has a process for requesting software. Over the last five years, I’ve been slowly getting open source alterntives approved, using them, and telling coworkers they’re approved. It’s just one super specialized software left.
To me the funniest part is that telemetry is usually for ads to convince people to buy stuff, and secondly for nation states to track you, but the debloat crowd usually never leaves home (a registered address) or buys anything, and surprisingly apt at credit card points with the money they do spend (the og trackers).
How modern, I can’t believe your computers support Windows 11.
Why should my computer not be able to supprot Windows 11?
Because of the requirements like TPM2 and a bunch of of others.
Most places I know need to replace all their devices to support Windows 11. For the workload they are expected to run that hardware was fine.
Computer is new, win11 pre-installed. Would still prefer pop os.
Understandable, I don’t really see how it’s related to this thread though.
This won’t be popular but I haven’t had a stability problem on my home Windows 11 pro (server) machine. I disabled online login during first boot setup so maybe that’s why … my network handles telemetry shenanigans so I’m not worried about that. Never bothered to put a Linux on it, which was the plan, since it’s not failed once, it’s been a few years since it was spooled up. 🤷🏼♂️
How is your network handling telemetry shenanigans?
Eero Secure does a pretty decent job by itself but addresses can be blacklisted as well (hi Roku). If I had more money, time, and could figure out my double NAT, I’d probably switch from Secure to a Firewalla device, probably a Purple. Overall the eero’s have been a great, I don’t have to think about it, mesh system. Of course you have to be okay with Amazon owning them.
I found it impossible to set up 11 pro without a Microsoft account. Did you put one in for install and disable it after?
On 10 if you cut network access during install it’d let you set up offline accounts. On 11 it refuses to finish the installation until you connect to the internet somehow. I had to put my linux laptop in AP mode and connect a patch cable to the windows PC because i hadnt loaded the wifi drivers on the USB i had.
Shift +f10 to open a command prompt in the installer
OOBE\bypassnro
It reboots and restarts the out of box experience, but this time ‘I don’t have internet’ will be available as an option
Bonus tip, don’t choose a password either, as it will force stupid recovery questions. You can add that after first boot with net user on the command line.
Thanks! I appreciate learning the magic incantation
This is where I am too. Just built a new gaming pc and was planning to do dual boot.
Installed windows 11 LTSC and honestly, it’s everything I want in a gaming pc so I guess no need to install Linux.
Having said that, I bought a pc that came with windows; can’t wait to kill it with fire!
Arch is driving down the middle, flipping off both sides while having the time of your life.
(Caution: May be best or worst. Commenter may be heavily biased as he uses Arch btw.)
Where did the ‘windows resets all settings after an update’ thing start?
Somehow I’ve never seen this over using windows 10 for years…
TBF it’s only happened to me once on 8.1 and once on 10. I think it’s an uncommon bug
The privacy stuff? I’ve seen it happen in 11 for sure. I always check after an update now out of habit. But, not seen it in a while.
Resetting dual boot stuff? Before EFI/UEFI it would happen on most windows updates. It would just overwrite the boot record in a totally arrogant fuck you to whatever was already there. But since EFi/UEFI it plays nice with other operating systems generally.
I love Linux, a lot. I’ve distro hopped and tinkered to my hearts content. But I can’t let windows go, which is why I dual-boot with Windows 11 and currently, Bazzite.
Windows doesn’t have the ghub for my logitech mouse and headset. I can’t use my plugins for elite dangerous or extra software, like EDMC. Many games don’t work for various reasons (anti-cheat, or many other reasons). Can’t say, “well don’t play those games.”. Well, I want to. I like those games, and they don’t work on linux.
There is no AMD Adrenaline for my AMD GPU. I can’t use frame gen or many other features my card has. Battle.net games just refuse to work for me, try as I might to follow every tutorial ever (I just wanted to play Diablo IV T_T ). Those features are important to me.
OBS is much crappier on linux than on windows, due to no AV1 encoding support. As a streamer, AV1 looks MUCH better than whatever linux obs uses.
And lastly, Windows (even Windows 11), just works with everything. Any software you want, you just install it. On steam you don’t have to check proton.db, you’re 100% guaranteed for it to work. Any software you see, it works on windows. Any peripherals, just work. All their associated software, works.
I know not everyone games, but it’s the highest grossing entertainment market, so it’s important to more people than not.
According to a report by SuperData Research, the global gaming market was valued at $159.3 billion in 2020. This includes revenue from console games, PC games, mobile games, and esports. To put that in perspective, the music industry was valued at $19.1 billion in 2020, while the movie industry was valued at $41.7 billion. That means the gaming industry is making more than three times as much money as the music industry and almost four times as much as the movie industry. source
What I have heard on coding shows is making the Windows game available for Linux is clicking a check box for export/compile for Linux. And companies don’t.
Urm. No. In a few cases thats true, but for most complex systems, or even just ones that rely on non-default engine extensions (a category that includes nearly all games), they really do need work invested into them. Steam and proton are are making this better but its really not at ‘just check a box’ levels of ease yet.
Just conveying what coders say, can’t comment on which engines. But since Linux doesn’t care what binary it loads into memory to execute it doesn’t seem hard to support a translation layer.
I’m very curious what those coders meant! For what it’s worth, what you’re describing is essentially Proton and it has been extremely difficult to develop and requires a great deal of ongoing support. Cross-compiling is super hard, its the reason Android runs on (essentially) the JVM and that windows implemented UWP, and its the root cause behind driver compatability issues. I’m just not sure what you mean, I guess.
Battle.net for me wouldn’t install in steam as an extra app, it wouldn’t work in heroic, but lutris was happy to do it, and the performance is excellent. Linux mint.
I can’t use my plugins for elite dangerous or extra software, like EDMC.
Why not? The github page even says it will work with wine. I’ve not played ED for a long time. But, I am sure I had EDDiscovery at least working with it in linux a few years ago. Other games like WoW I have external tools that interface with it working fine, some within the same wine environment, some even external. You just need to make sure the drive is mapped (you can always go via the Z: drive too) where the app expects it.
From my experience, I have steam working and pretty much every game I want to play has worked. I don’t play games with kernel anti-cheat even in windows, so I’m not missing anything there. Battle net runs fine even with ray-traced shadows in wow. Pretty much everything else I need works. The only things I miss are the games that are part of XBOX/Windows store, but that’s hardly Linux’s fault. Maybe visual studio too. But I do have the OSS “Code” to cover most I did in VS so…
I have dual boot, I’ve not used it to go to windows in weeks. Almost everything just works fine.
And lastly, Windows (even Windows 11), just works with everything. Any software you want, you just install it. On steam you don’t have to check proton.db, you’re 100% guaranteed for it to work. Any software you see, it works on windows.
This is not my experience at all. I was recently trying to play Command and Conquer: Tiberian Firestorm, an older RTS on Windows. I own the game through Steam. On Windows, the game wont open. It crashes immediately on launch. If i run the game in XP compatibility mode, it launches but when playing the game there is some sort of microstutter: every unit is blinking, the mouse cursor is blinking, and the game plays at a crawling pace. Also everything freezes whenever you move the camera.
When i boot into Fedora on the same PC, install with steam and launch with Proton, the game works fine. I was even able to install a resolution patch for windows to get higher resolutions available.
I find this to be a pretty common experience for me when trying to play older Windows PC games. There are quite a few I cant seem to get working (or playable) on Windows, but that work fine on Linux. I mostly play older games anyway so for me, Linux is more of a game console OS.
Sorry to hear Battlenet doesn’t work for you. D4 is another one i play only on Linux, in thas case because i get some weird graphical artefacts when playing on Windows. I haven’t bought the new expansion yet though, maybe after the holidays are over.
My experience is the opposite.
Took an hour just to get a mouse to work on Mint
Took hours to get wifi working on Mint after wasting a day trying to get my GPU working on Bazzite (all AMD setup before someone asks)
Meanwhile I install windows with English UK as my language and don’t get any of the bullshit people complain about AND everything works.
I’ll play Fallen Order on Linux (shader issue on Windows causes stutter while they’re loading while the game is running) and will probably uninstall it and just continue using Windows.
That’s wild. Mice are a generic driver just like on Windows. It should be plug and play on either OS.
Why did it take an hour? Any idea what was happening?
Still have an absolute mess on Linux Mint with my projector, wrong aspect ratios everywhere, sometimes only one screen is selected. Maybe it has something to do with how and when I connected/booted/powered each device…
Unless you have an Nvidia card.
I’ve been on linux for years, I work the Nvidia libraries all the time, I alternate booting wayland and X… I even use my AMD IGP as output these days, instead of the Nvidia card.
And I STILL hold my breath wondering if I’m going to get a blackscreen, and have to go into tty mode or boot from a usb stick to investigate and fix it.
I… have had an NVIDIA 2080ti since they are sold (so… about 6 years?) and use it daily, gaming, using it for selfhosting AI a bit with CUDA and… just works, from gaming to tinkering. I don’t get those comments. Sorry you had such a bad experience, it’s not mine.
Same thing here. There was a big update earlier this year that made it so I can use Wayland, where before that, it was impossible. At this point, I can’t tell you the last time I’ve had any GPU related issues. Further, I believe that Nvidia is now working with Linux for driver support, so it should get even better going forward.
I’ve been lucky then, only problems I’m having (Wayland + NVidia) are:
- Steam menu corruption, mostly on friends window (can be solved by maximising window)
- Maximising browser on my second screen results in not all the screen being used, but buttons react as if they were using the whole screen (so you’re not clicking where you think you are). Solution is to resize window to maximum manually. Minor annoyance.
Oh and I disabled stand-by entirely. It’s was 50/50 if it would return from it. I think most problems are because I have mismatched resolutions (1080 and 1440).
That 2nd monitor window thing sounds like a DPI scaling issue, especially if your main screen has different scaling than the one causing issues. I get this a lot at work because of my setup and the software I use (on windows btw) and I got so used to manually moving the window and smashing it against the top of the screen to maximize it that I don’t really mind. But maybe the term can help you troubleshoot it further
I thought that too, and things got better when I set 1x scaling on both (it was 1/1.5) but it’s not stopped the problem entirely.
And nothing sops you from starting a X session for a specific game, anyway
I fear top commenter lost patience just a tiny bit too early
I’ve yet to have an actual game dislike wayland. But you’re right, there is always the option to swap.
Just out of curiosity, how would one do this (in general terms)?
I hope I never have to because I’m sure I would not figure it out lol
In the screen, where you type your password to log into your computer, there is an option to choose which of the installed desktop environments / window manager you want to use.
On gnome standard login screen, it is down in the right corner, but there are many of this “lock screens” available and each can place the dropdown(or dropup, lol) anywhere they want. Just search your screen where you have to type your password to login for options.
IF you are a distro hopper try openSUSE, nVidia maintains a repo on their own servers for the SUSE/OpenSUSE drivers. I have not had any GPU issues for 7 years.
Works pretty well on pop!_os (with X) barring some oddities that I’m not even sure are specific to Nvidia cards (like the compositor losing its shit when I try to pop out a video from my browser and put it over a game’s window)
This one makes a lot more sense.
