6 ms·

> Oh, I'm sure some clueless Linux Desktop evangelist will try to claim otherwise Non-evangelist here. I've been running Ubuntu as my daily driver for years, a

> Oh, I'm sure some clueless Linux Desktop evangelist will try to claim otherwise Non-evangelist here. I've been running Ubuntu as my daily driver for years, and mostly it just works. Not saying it's going to take over the business world, just saying it's not worse than Windows for me in any way.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
> Non-evangelist here. I've been running Ubuntu as my daily driver for years, and mostly it just works. Not saying it's going to take over the business world, just saying it's not worse than Windows for me in any way. Ok. But it is worse for me, and basically everyone else who uses Windows and says that Linux Desktop won't suit their needs. I don't have a problem with people who use the Linux Desktop. Hell, if I bother to count all the desktops in my house then I use it on 4/5 PCs myself. What I have a problem with are evangelists who believe that anyone not using a Linux Desktop is doing so for stupid reasons. I can't even count the number of times over the past 2 decades I've had to listen to some Linux Desktop evangelist proclaim that there was literally no reason to use anything else, and then proceed to argue the case with no knowledge whatsoever of the needs of the person they're arguing against. It's these people who are being referred to when people talk about how the Linux Desktop community itself is the worst part of using the Linux Desktop. It is a mindset I really can't stand about tech people: assuming that because something works for them that it therefore is the right choice for everyone else. That they are so superior to the rest of humanity that they can instantly understand everyone's use cases, and anyone who claims otherwise is just being a stubborn fool.
- gradstudent 7y ago
  > Ok. But it is worse for me, and basically everyone else who uses Windows and says that Linux Desktop won't suit their needs. The irony is delicious.
- p1necone 7y ago
  As a dev, but not really an OS power user: I've tried switching to Linux (ubuntu and mint) full time before and I really don't see any major shortcomings vs windows for regular desktop use - I know anecdotal evidence is pretty useless but it's all you really can get about this on here. The only reason I'm not on Linux full time is video game compatibility. I suspect no retail PCs coming with Linux preinstalled, and general lack of knowledge that it even exists or what it is is just as big (if not more) of a contributor to it's lack of users for non techies as UX is.
  - mjevans 7y ago
    Proton is nearly there and integrating in to wine in to Steam. However if the game in question makes use of the Windows Video decoding APIs results are currently very disappointing; the last time I tested it (which was earlier this month) I still couldn't actually play Obduction (the Myst like game) due to none of the puzzle explanations / video data that make up the story of the game running.
    - justinclift 7y ago
      Yep, Proton is really good for lots of things. Unfortunately, it's not a 100% complete solution. For example, no-one seems to have gotten Crysis (the original - and best ;) - version) to work, due to some kind of DRM thing in Crysis itself. :(
    - munmaek 7y ago
      Proton is improving but a lot of games still don't work or have random issues. And for linux, forget any game that uses BattleEye for anti-cheat detection.
    - heelix 7y ago
      Things have really, really come a long way. I've got Centos 8 running Steam, and huge swaths of my library just work. I was not expecting that.
      - RealStickman 7y ago
        I recently started to change over to linux for gaming and I was pleasantly surprised by how many games work through lutris.
  - kbenson 7y ago
    It really depends on your dev workflow. If you're a Visual Studio user, you might find it quite jarring, but if you are, there are probably plenty of other reasons not to switch (it's switching away from your target environment). For non-devs, it depends on how much MS infrastructure and solutions they've already adopted and have resources invested in. For a lot of companies, all that really matters is that they have hundreds or thousands of excel documents being passed around, and they can get better support and licensing through Windows. Online versions of a lot of these reduce this to some degree, but most people would probably prefer to run Word and Excel natively than through an online app, even if they sync to shared storage and occasionally use those to view/edit something. Add to that the fact that MS offers an end-to-end environment where you can buy something for whatever you find your needs are and find directions on how to integrate it, and there's really not much to compare.
- philliphaydon 7y ago
  > Ok. But it is worse for me, and basically everyone else who uses Windows and says that Linux Desktop won't suit their needs. I tried Linux a few times at home for 6m to a year, in this regard I missed nothing of Windows. However twice my instance was killed by Nvidia driver updates. People claim AMD has better drivers on Linux so I recently bought a Ryzen 7 3700x and 5700XT. But after being burned and /never/ having anything similar happen on Windows, I can't bring myself to put Linux on my computer in fear of the same shit happening again...
  - montyboy_us 7y ago
    The other elephant in the room is hardware acceleration in browsers. Fire up a Google Meet (or YouTube for that matter) on your distro of choice using Chrome/Chromium/Firefox and watch those cores shoot through the roof, the fans ramp up, and battery life nose dive. Now, try the same thing on Windows or macOS ... night and day.
  - dralley 7y ago
    The entire problem with Nvidia's drivers is that they aren't in the kernel, and the kernel driver API/ABI isn't stable, so potentially any kernel update could break the drivers. That's not true for AMD on Linux. The drivers are in the kernel itself so any changes made to the kernel interfaces will include changes to the drivers that use them. It's not the case for either vendor on Windows because Windows has stable driver APIs. Basically, if you're on Linux and your hardware has mainlined kernel support you are not likely to ever have that kind of problem.
    - philliphaydon 7y ago
      Thanks for the info! Appreciate it. Will definitely try out linux again.
      - dralley 7y ago
        There is one thing to know about though. On Windows, since the vendors control the drivers, they can ship out new hardware support immediately. On Linux, if the driver is mainlined, it's tied to your kernel. So if you have a really new graphics card you might need a new kernel also. If your preferred distro isn't Arch or Fedora (which have very up-to-date kernels), that might also be an issue. Debian Stable for instance might not have support for a new graphics card.
- bubblethink 7y ago
  >It's these people who are being referred to when people talk about how the Linux Desktop community itself is the worst part of using the Linux Desktop. Those people are trying to be helpful by educating people about alternatives since in their assessment it is a suitable replacement. Imagine if everyone whined about windows and also recommended windows. What would that achieve ? It's not like Nadella is lining up to listen to your whining either.
  - optimiz3 7y ago
    The license cost of Windows is less than 1hr of most people's time who post here. Focus on making Linux desktop a positive opportunity cost vs calling people whiners. Also, Windows users tend to pay for software, Linux users less so. Guess which user base is going to be more valuable to 3rd party devs.
    - bubblethink 7y ago
      I have no dog in the game. Each person should use (or develop for) whatever they want. But coming to a thread that is critical of windows and still somehow bashing linux is beyond pointless. Either do something productive, or let others do their bit.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    > Those people are trying to be helpful by educating people about alternatives since in their assessment it is a suitable replacement. And that's an extremely arrogant mindset. They think because they know some tech shit that they understand all of that person's needs. I mean, they've converted an image from BMP to PNG in GIMP once, so clearly that's a suitable Photoshop replacement right?
- neltnerb 7y ago
  I use a linux desktop personally, but when you open up a powerpoint presentation or submit a proposal you need to be reaaly sure it looks as is intended. That means real powerpoint or word inside a real windows OS. It's unfortunate, but it's just required. I wish VMware hadn't killed the mode where applications looked like they were on the real desktop.
dirkg 7y ago
Its not worse. Not anymore. And arguably better in many desktop areas. But LOTD is not any easier for your average non techie. And it was never about ease of use, its about adoption, presence and marketing.
- vetinari 7y ago
  > But LOTD is not any easier for your average non techie. For non-techies, it is actually a non-problem; they are already used to fact there are systems different than Windows (they know about Android, iOS or ChromeOS). This kind of users are so undemanding, that sitting them behind stock Ubuntu machine they will relatively quickly go their way and are able to do everything they need. It's Windows power-users who have it most troublesome. They learned something about one platform, and to move to another platform they have to start from scratch. > And it was never about ease of use, its about adoption, presence and marketing. Very true. I would add bizdev there too.
  - dirkg 7y ago
    Windows file management and UI is far superior to anything out there. Its a little ironic that NTFS isn't faster than ext3 (in fact its slower for many use cases) but Explorer is amazing - Finder is a joke and most Linux fm's are modeled after Explorer, so is taskbar and start menu.
    - vetinari 7y ago
      > Windows file management and UI is far superior to anything out there Ehm, no, you are just used to it. In my not-so-humble opinion, it is Finder > Nautilus > Explorer. In Linux, the taskbar and start menus are not a part of the file manager, but part the desktop shell. The most used one is Gnome, which doesn't have taskbar and start menu.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - 7y ago
komali2 7y ago
Same but that's not good enough. It has to be such that, say, an IT department could deploy and manage machines to an office of 500 people with questionable computer literacy. That's the market windows has nailed down. I remember reading about some German city trying to switch over to Linux and being forced to eventually switch back. I'm a total libre evangelist but we don't have the power to overcome multi billion dollar engineering and sales departments...

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago

> Non-evangelist here. I've been running Ubuntu as my daily driver for years, and mostly it just works. Not saying it's going to take over the business world, just saying it's not worse than Windows for me in any way. Ok. But it is worse for me, and basically everyone else who uses Windows and says that Linux Desktop won't suit their needs. I don't have a problem with people who use the Linux Desktop. Hell, if I bother to count all the desktops in my house then I use it on 4/5 PCs myself. What I have a problem with are evangelists who believe that anyone not using a Linux Desktop is doing so for stupid reasons. I can't even count the number of times over the past 2 decades I've had to listen to some Linux Desktop evangelist proclaim that there was literally no reason to use anything else, and then proceed to argue the case with no knowledge whatsoever of the needs of the person they're arguing against. It's these people who are being referred to when people talk about how the Linux Desktop community itself is the worst part of using the Linux Desktop. It is a mindset I really can't stand about tech people: assuming that because something works for them that it therefore is the right choice for everyone else. That they are so superior to the rest of humanity that they can instantly understand everyone's use cases, and anyone who claims otherwise is just being a stubborn fool.

gradstudent 7y ago
> Ok. But it is worse for me, and basically everyone else who uses Windows and says that Linux Desktop won't suit their needs. The irony is delicious.
p1necone 7y ago
As a dev, but not really an OS power user: I've tried switching to Linux (ubuntu and mint) full time before and I really don't see any major shortcomings vs windows for regular desktop use - I know anecdotal evidence is pretty useless but it's all you really can get about this on here. The only reason I'm not on Linux full time is video game compatibility. I suspect no retail PCs coming with Linux preinstalled, and general lack of knowledge that it even exists or what it is is just as big (if not more) of a contributor to it's lack of users for non techies as UX is.
- mjevans 7y ago
  Proton is nearly there and integrating in to wine in to Steam. However if the game in question makes use of the Windows Video decoding APIs results are currently very disappointing; the last time I tested it (which was earlier this month) I still couldn't actually play Obduction (the Myst like game) due to none of the puzzle explanations / video data that make up the story of the game running.
  - justinclift 7y ago
    Yep, Proton is really good for lots of things. Unfortunately, it's not a 100% complete solution. For example, no-one seems to have gotten Crysis (the original - and best ;) - version) to work, due to some kind of DRM thing in Crysis itself. :(
  - munmaek 7y ago
    Proton is improving but a lot of games still don't work or have random issues. And for linux, forget any game that uses BattleEye for anti-cheat detection.
  - heelix 7y ago
    Things have really, really come a long way. I've got Centos 8 running Steam, and huge swaths of my library just work. I was not expecting that.
    - RealStickman 7y ago
      I recently started to change over to linux for gaming and I was pleasantly surprised by how many games work through lutris.
- kbenson 7y ago
  It really depends on your dev workflow. If you're a Visual Studio user, you might find it quite jarring, but if you are, there are probably plenty of other reasons not to switch (it's switching away from your target environment). For non-devs, it depends on how much MS infrastructure and solutions they've already adopted and have resources invested in. For a lot of companies, all that really matters is that they have hundreds or thousands of excel documents being passed around, and they can get better support and licensing through Windows. Online versions of a lot of these reduce this to some degree, but most people would probably prefer to run Word and Excel natively than through an online app, even if they sync to shared storage and occasionally use those to view/edit something. Add to that the fact that MS offers an end-to-end environment where you can buy something for whatever you find your needs are and find directions on how to integrate it, and there's really not much to compare.
philliphaydon 7y ago
> Ok. But it is worse for me, and basically everyone else who uses Windows and says that Linux Desktop won't suit their needs. I tried Linux a few times at home for 6m to a year, in this regard I missed nothing of Windows. However twice my instance was killed by Nvidia driver updates. People claim AMD has better drivers on Linux so I recently bought a Ryzen 7 3700x and 5700XT. But after being burned and /never/ having anything similar happen on Windows, I can't bring myself to put Linux on my computer in fear of the same shit happening again...
- montyboy_us 7y ago
  The other elephant in the room is hardware acceleration in browsers. Fire up a Google Meet (or YouTube for that matter) on your distro of choice using Chrome/Chromium/Firefox and watch those cores shoot through the roof, the fans ramp up, and battery life nose dive. Now, try the same thing on Windows or macOS ... night and day.
- dralley 7y ago
  The entire problem with Nvidia's drivers is that they aren't in the kernel, and the kernel driver API/ABI isn't stable, so potentially any kernel update could break the drivers. That's not true for AMD on Linux. The drivers are in the kernel itself so any changes made to the kernel interfaces will include changes to the drivers that use them. It's not the case for either vendor on Windows because Windows has stable driver APIs. Basically, if you're on Linux and your hardware has mainlined kernel support you are not likely to ever have that kind of problem.
  - philliphaydon 7y ago
    Thanks for the info! Appreciate it. Will definitely try out linux again.
    - dralley 7y ago
      There is one thing to know about though. On Windows, since the vendors control the drivers, they can ship out new hardware support immediately. On Linux, if the driver is mainlined, it's tied to your kernel. So if you have a really new graphics card you might need a new kernel also. If your preferred distro isn't Arch or Fedora (which have very up-to-date kernels), that might also be an issue. Debian Stable for instance might not have support for a new graphics card.
bubblethink 7y ago
>It's these people who are being referred to when people talk about how the Linux Desktop community itself is the worst part of using the Linux Desktop. Those people are trying to be helpful by educating people about alternatives since in their assessment it is a suitable replacement. Imagine if everyone whined about windows and also recommended windows. What would that achieve ? It's not like Nadella is lining up to listen to your whining either.
- optimiz3 7y ago
  The license cost of Windows is less than 1hr of most people's time who post here. Focus on making Linux desktop a positive opportunity cost vs calling people whiners. Also, Windows users tend to pay for software, Linux users less so. Guess which user base is going to be more valuable to 3rd party devs.
  - bubblethink 7y ago
    I have no dog in the game. Each person should use (or develop for) whatever they want. But coming to a thread that is critical of windows and still somehow bashing linux is beyond pointless. Either do something productive, or let others do their bit.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  > Those people are trying to be helpful by educating people about alternatives since in their assessment it is a suitable replacement. And that's an extremely arrogant mindset. They think because they know some tech shit that they understand all of that person's needs. I mean, they've converted an image from BMP to PNG in GIMP once, so clearly that's a suitable Photoshop replacement right?
neltnerb 7y ago
I use a linux desktop personally, but when you open up a powerpoint presentation or submit a proposal you need to be reaaly sure it looks as is intended. That means real powerpoint or word inside a real windows OS. It's unfortunate, but it's just required. I wish VMware hadn't killed the mode where applications looked like they were on the real desktop.

dirkg 7y ago

Its not worse. Not anymore. And arguably better in many desktop areas. But LOTD is not any easier for your average non techie. And it was never about ease of use, its about adoption, presence and marketing.

vetinari 7y ago
> But LOTD is not any easier for your average non techie. For non-techies, it is actually a non-problem; they are already used to fact there are systems different than Windows (they know about Android, iOS or ChromeOS). This kind of users are so undemanding, that sitting them behind stock Ubuntu machine they will relatively quickly go their way and are able to do everything they need. It's Windows power-users who have it most troublesome. They learned something about one platform, and to move to another platform they have to start from scratch. > And it was never about ease of use, its about adoption, presence and marketing. Very true. I would add bizdev there too.
- dirkg 7y ago
  Windows file management and UI is far superior to anything out there. Its a little ironic that NTFS isn't faster than ext3 (in fact its slower for many use cases) but Explorer is amazing - Finder is a joke and most Linux fm's are modeled after Explorer, so is taskbar and start menu.
  - vetinari 7y ago
    > Windows file management and UI is far superior to anything out there Ehm, no, you are just used to it. In my not-so-humble opinion, it is Finder > Nautilus > Explorer. In Linux, the taskbar and start menus are not a part of the file manager, but part the desktop shell. The most used one is Gnome, which doesn't have taskbar and start menu.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - 7y ago

komali2 7y ago

Same but that's not good enough. It has to be such that, say, an IT department could deploy and manage machines to an office of 500 people with questionable computer literacy. That's the market windows has nailed down. I remember reading about some German city trying to switch over to Linux and being forced to eventually switch back. I'm a total libre evangelist but we don't have the power to overcome multi billion dollar engineering and sales departments...