4 ms·

I kind of agree, with distros like Ubuntu you get the Windows convenience and most of the people just use a browser for everything nowadays anyway.

by jeena 7y ago

arminiusreturns 7y ago
Ubuntu isn't the only user friendly distro either. It depends on what the user wants to do. For example Manjaro, while not perfect, has an excellent hardware detector, and I sometimes recommend it for people who want to game. I have many times wanted to really dig into the "windows skins" for a few different DE's and experiment on users to see if they even noticed the difference. I suspect done correctly you could have a windows lookalike with linux underneath that many of the browser only users wouldn't be able to tell apart. I also suspect that Microsoft knows they have hurt themselves with 8/10 and their recent pushes into Linux Foundation are hedging their bets, trying to find ways to keep people on doze who might otherwise leave the ecosystem. I do get frustrated at how many people at HN ignore MS's history of anti-foss and now deride anyone who brings up EEE, but I disgress. I went gnu/linux only years ago seeing this coming after years of sysadmin'ing Win/OSX/Linux, and haven't regretted it at all. Beyond that, I remind people that they had to learn how to use windows, and even it keeps changing things (umm where did local account creation go at install, oh wait, I have to unplug ethernet to get that option? thats bullshit), so why not learn to use something like linux? It's really not that hard, especially with all the gtk frontends for cli stuff.
sz4kerto 7y ago
We still don't have fully hardware accelerated video playback in browsers under Linux. To check this, watch a 4K video in the browser and look at the CPU usage. Edit: I can block ads in various ways (pi.hole, etc.) but I can't fix laggy UI. I'm always using Linux on one of my PCs so that I can follow how it's progressing, but Win10+WSL2+VcXsrv gives me the best of all worlds.
sterlind 7y ago
Eh, that's true for many consumers, but a lot of software still uses Windows and doesn't fit in a browser. For my hobby, I use Fusion 360, which makes heavy use of the GPU for rendering and simulation stuff. It does not support Linux. So I use NixOS, run Windows 10 in KVM and use VFIO passthrough to give my VM a graphics card. This way I can use Linux for writing code and Windows for rich apps. It also shields me from the practical downsides of NixOS (limited software compatibility, lots of hair-pulling) since I can just use Windows if I'm in a bind.

I kind of agree, with distros like Ubuntu you get the Windows convenience and most of the people just use a browser for everything nowadays anyway.

by jeena 7y ago

I kind of agree, with distros like Ubuntu you get the Windows convenience and most of the people just use a browser for everything nowadays anyway.

arminiusreturns 7y ago

Ubuntu isn't the only user friendly distro either. It depends on what the user wants to do. For example Manjaro, while not perfect, has an excellent hardware detector, and I sometimes recommend it for people who want to game. I have many times wanted to really dig into the "windows skins" for a few different DE's and experiment on users to see if they even noticed the difference. I suspect done correctly you could have a windows lookalike with linux underneath that many of the browser only users wouldn't be able to tell apart. I also suspect that Microsoft knows they have hurt themselves with 8/10 and their recent pushes into Linux Foundation are hedging their bets, trying to find ways to keep people on doze who might otherwise leave the ecosystem. I do get frustrated at how many people at HN ignore MS's history of anti-foss and now deride anyone who brings up EEE, but I disgress. I went gnu/linux only years ago seeing this coming after years of sysadmin'ing Win/OSX/Linux, and haven't regretted it at all. Beyond that, I remind people that they had to learn how to use windows, and even it keeps changing things (umm where did local account creation go at install, oh wait, I have to unplug ethernet to get that option? thats bullshit), so why not learn to use something like linux? It's really not that hard, especially with all the gtk frontends for cli stuff.

sz4kerto 7y ago

We still don't have fully hardware accelerated video playback in browsers under Linux. To check this, watch a 4K video in the browser and look at the CPU usage. Edit: I can block ads in various ways (pi.hole, etc.) but I can't fix laggy UI. I'm always using Linux on one of my PCs so that I can follow how it's progressing, but Win10+WSL2+VcXsrv gives me the best of all worlds.

sterlind 7y ago

Eh, that's true for many consumers, but a lot of software still uses Windows and doesn't fit in a browser. For my hobby, I use Fusion 360, which makes heavy use of the GPU for rendering and simulation stuff. It does not support Linux. So I use NixOS, run Windows 10 in KVM and use VFIO passthrough to give my VM a graphics card. This way I can use Linux for writing code and Windows for rich apps. It also shields me from the practical downsides of NixOS (limited software compatibility, lots of hair-pulling) since I can just use Windows if I'm in a bind.