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I chuckled at your parting "y'all can light me up," but if Gnome on an Intel NUC meets your needs, you are indeed a happy man. (NUCs are on Newegg for around $3

by sounds 10y ago

I chuckled at your parting "y'all can light me up," but if Gnome on an Intel NUC meets your needs, you are indeed a happy man. (NUCs are on Newegg for around $386 right now.) Here's what is most commonly mentioned that Linux "can't do". Maybe some things on this list haven't bitten you yet, but it's worth reviewing: • Fewer games. It's not as bad as comparing Linux to Windows, but even Mac has games that don't have a Linux port. Wine is pretty impressive these days -- if you are willing to mess with the command line and config files and searching random internet posts for how to get the game to work. • "Professional" software. Microsoft, Adobe, nVidia and Autodesk all openly refuse to support Linux. Whatever their reasons, it means that Linux users must do the format conversion to something that does run on Linux. Arguably that's a good thing because proprietary data formats mean archived data can't be opened in a decade, but day to day it's super painful. • Driver issues #1: plugging random things in via USB. Linux has impressive driver support for things that are well understood. But the lesser well-standardized hardware (printers, scanners, wifi dongles, ...) may not work. Know before you buy. Windows again has it best, but knowing if it runs on Mac is usually printed on the packaging. (And Linux is not.) • Driver issues #2: Actually Linux wins out if you're willing to wait a few years because Linux will gain driver support for quirky fringe hardware over time. macOS actually DROPS support for things over time. • Driver issues #3: Very new hardware like VR headsets are going to be an adventure in cobbling together new kernels, the latest software versions built from source or downloaded from an unstable branch, ... [1]. Or, sometimes the answer is: nope, never going to get Linux support. [1] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/first-steps-with-openvr-and-the-vive-on-linux.7229 https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/first-steps-with-open...

windlep 10y ago
I agree entirely with everything on this list. Thankfully, there is a modern solution! Buy the PC of your dreams, install Windows 10 on it, then install VMWare Workstation. Put the linux distro of your choice in vmware, enjoy! Everything will just work, consistently, elegantly, and without hassle. Play your games with Steam in Windows of course, and thanks to Windows handling all the drivers, you can enjoy issue-less plug-and-play with USB and everything else. Merely install the apps that only work in Windows.... in Windows, and keep the rest of the dev-work in the linux VM. The only caveat I can think of, is that you don't get 2d GPU hardware acceleration, vmware will accelerate 3d, but not 2d for say, compiz. I usually turn off these random 2D type effects so I don't notice that. Virtualbox is an option of course, but it still doesn't feel solid enough to me. At some point Hyper-V will have enough GPU acceleration with vmconnect that Windows 10 Pro + Hyper-V will be plenty (I know it has RemoteX acceleration now, but afaik that's only for Windows Server...). I've loved this solution so much, I actually copied my VM over to my Retina MacBook Pro so I can use the linux VM for development work on the go. OSX handles ensuring the wifi always works, and the VM sees it as a reliable hardwired connection, no issues. After 15 years of being a hardcore OSX/Apple user(fanboi), I cannot be more happy with the past 18 months since switching to this configuration. Cheaper than the Apple ecosystem, and waaaay faster hardware.
- gtirloni 10y ago
  Exactly my situation. I've been a 24x7 Linux/BSD desktop user since the Slackware 3.3 days but got too tired with all the issues. I started dual booting an year ago and a few months ago switched for good. Now I'm using Win10 and VMware Workstation 12.1 and some Fedora/CentOS VMs. 3D acceleration screams and my desktop just works. Workload involves working with Linux servers all day, developing inside the VMs, etc. Everything else I do natively on Windows. I wish it had turned out differently over these 10+ years (with a pure OSS desktop) but that's where I find myself today.
linkregister 10y ago
Another alternative to windlep's great post is simply installing both Windows and Linux, and booting in to Windows whenever you need to do some AutoCAD or Photoshop.
- pYQAJ6Zm 10y ago
  Or the inverse: virtualizing Windows on Linux. I used to do this for a while with a dedicated GPU, and, besides some minor glitches with audio which I didn’t get to solve, it worked very, very well. (Why? Because I wanted to play some Windows-only games without having to reboot. Drivers were not a problem thanks to USB attaching in libvirt. That’s how I got to play Elite: Dangerous “in” Linux.)
witty_username 10y ago
> • Driver issues #1: plugging random things in via USB. Linux has impressive driver support for things that are well understood. But the lesser well-standardized hardware (printers, scanners, WiFi dongles, ...) may not work. Know before you buy. Windows again has it best, but knowing if it runs on Mac is usually printed on the packaging. (And Linux is not.) A printer and a WiFi dongle work out of the box, probably because they aren't the newest technology. > And Linux is not. My WiFi dongle advertised Linux support—and it's just the cheapest thing I found. I think anything older than a couple of years is generally well supported. YMMV.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

by sounds 10y ago

windlep 10y ago

I agree entirely with everything on this list. Thankfully, there is a modern solution! Buy the PC of your dreams, install Windows 10 on it, then install VMWare Workstation. Put the linux distro of your choice in vmware, enjoy! Everything will just work, consistently, elegantly, and without hassle. Play your games with Steam in Windows of course, and thanks to Windows handling all the drivers, you can enjoy issue-less plug-and-play with USB and everything else. Merely install the apps that only work in Windows.... in Windows, and keep the rest of the dev-work in the linux VM. The only caveat I can think of, is that you don't get 2d GPU hardware acceleration, vmware will accelerate 3d, but not 2d for say, compiz. I usually turn off these random 2D type effects so I don't notice that. Virtualbox is an option of course, but it still doesn't feel solid enough to me. At some point Hyper-V will have enough GPU acceleration with vmconnect that Windows 10 Pro + Hyper-V will be plenty (I know it has RemoteX acceleration now, but afaik that's only for Windows Server...). I've loved this solution so much, I actually copied my VM over to my Retina MacBook Pro so I can use the linux VM for development work on the go. OSX handles ensuring the wifi always works, and the VM sees it as a reliable hardwired connection, no issues. After 15 years of being a hardcore OSX/Apple user(fanboi), I cannot be more happy with the past 18 months since switching to this configuration. Cheaper than the Apple ecosystem, and waaaay faster hardware.

gtirloni 10y ago
Exactly my situation. I've been a 24x7 Linux/BSD desktop user since the Slackware 3.3 days but got too tired with all the issues. I started dual booting an year ago and a few months ago switched for good. Now I'm using Win10 and VMware Workstation 12.1 and some Fedora/CentOS VMs. 3D acceleration screams and my desktop just works. Workload involves working with Linux servers all day, developing inside the VMs, etc. Everything else I do natively on Windows. I wish it had turned out differently over these 10+ years (with a pure OSS desktop) but that's where I find myself today.

linkregister 10y ago

Another alternative to windlep's great post is simply installing both Windows and Linux, and booting in to Windows whenever you need to do some AutoCAD or Photoshop.

pYQAJ6Zm 10y ago
Or the inverse: virtualizing Windows on Linux. I used to do this for a while with a dedicated GPU, and, besides some minor glitches with audio which I didn’t get to solve, it worked very, very well. (Why? Because I wanted to play some Windows-only games without having to reboot. Drivers were not a problem thanks to USB attaching in libvirt. That’s how I got to play Elite: Dangerous “in” Linux.)

witty_username 10y ago

> • Driver issues #1: plugging random things in via USB. Linux has impressive driver support for things that are well understood. But the lesser well-standardized hardware (printers, scanners, WiFi dongles, ...) may not work. Know before you buy. Windows again has it best, but knowing if it runs on Mac is usually printed on the packaging. (And Linux is not.) A printer and a WiFi dongle work out of the box, probably because they aren't the newest technology. > And Linux is not. My WiFi dongle advertised Linux support—and it's just the cheapest thing I found. I think anything older than a couple of years is generally well supported. YMMV.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]