5 ms·

I've been seeing the trajectory of Windows (pre-2012 or so) -> Mac (2012 - ~2019 or so) -> Linux (~2018 - now) play out with quite a few people without any issu

I've been seeing the trajectory of Windows (pre-2012 or so) -> Mac (2012 - ~2019 or so) -> Linux (~2018 - now) play out with quite a few people without any issues. And I don't mean developers. They're all pretty educated people but it's taken me by surprise. They come to me in frustration over Mac, they don't want to return to Windows and they really, really, really want linux. I've been using linux since about 1997 so they come to me. I usually push back, thinking "do you really want a unix workstation?!" but they insist. My strategy has been some x2xx lenovo (like x230 or so) for about $300 from ebay, 8/16gb of ram or so with an SSD, the extended battery pack, putting mint on it and then just handing it over. Everyone, much to my continued surprise, has loved it and are really happy with it. It's happened 4 times now and I'm still shocked every time. They've told me they use youtube to figure things out. They're fine with libreoffice, gimp does what they need, supposedly spotify works on it fine, they don't know what bash or the kernel is and it's all fine. Incredible.

alluro2 6y ago
Adding to anecdotal, same trajectory for me, for web development. Really happy with Manjaro on Razor Blade 15 for a year now.
neuronic 6y ago
Not associated at all but due to loving it, I wanted to share PhotoPea as you mentioned Gimp. https://www.photopea.com https://www.photopea.com
- kristopolous 6y ago
  try this: $ google-chrome --app=https://www.photopea.com https://www.photopea.com
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
azinman2 6y ago
I recently _really_ tried adopting Linux on a hobby development machine that I built back in 2016 (hardly new hardware -- and desktop not laptop). Sleep never worked, graphics sometimes borked, UI felt janky and inconsistent, icons are super fugly and often too theme-y to the point of being undifferentiated at a glance, HiDPI support is a giant mixed bag (in 2020), machine would randomly freeze (mostly elementOS; Ubuntu didn't freeze as much), Hauppage drivers rarely worked consistently and often required reboots, I hated the mouse acceleration curves and was horrified to learn they were effectively hardcoded in X (I'm not talking just speed which is tweakable), gstreamer was nightmare to develop for, the Ubuntu & elementaryOS stores are a joke, and the mix of apt/snap/nix was very frustrating and the opposite of user-friendly. I switched back to my 2012 MBP and it's predictably gone well since, plus I get iMessage integration with my iPhone. YMMV
- bproven 6y ago
  Yeah - the hw really has to be curated. I havent tried using a machine cobbled together from various parts (custom desktop), but off the shelf quality laptops work fine for me last 2 years or so and have none of the issues you mentioned. Emphasis on quality - not cheapo models. I think if you treat Linux same as OSX and run it on known good hardware supported well by Linux you are fine today IME >HiDPI support is a giant mixed bag I will say that this is still a thing, although with experimental gnome fractional support it works pretty well now. Honestly I have a 2019 macbook pro 15 and have more problems with it than I do with my Thinkpad X1 Carbon 6th gen with Fedora 32.
- kristopolous 6y ago
  See, that's the response I was used to and the one I expected to get from everyone. The crazy thing is that I haven't heard it yet from the people I helped. Times may actually be changing now, just not swiftly. Perhaps it's the "decade" of desktop linux. It's also not because linux is so great but because windows and apple are constantly stumbling over their own shoelaces and shooing customers away.
FullyFunctional 6y ago
True. Amusingly, I was always trying to make Windows behave more like Unix, but now I'm trying to make Linux behave more like Mac (just a few things, like the global keyboard bindings). The major pain points are nearly all related to lack of integration with my iPhone (with Messages being the big one, followed by Notes).

alluro2 6y ago

Adding to anecdotal, same trajectory for me, for web development. Really happy with Manjaro on Razor Blade 15 for a year now.

neuronic 6y ago

Not associated at all but due to loving it, I wanted to share PhotoPea as you mentioned Gimp. https://www.photopea.com https://www.photopea.com

kristopolous 6y ago
try this: $ google-chrome --app=https://www.photopea.com https://www.photopea.com

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

azinman2 6y ago

I recently _really_ tried adopting Linux on a hobby development machine that I built back in 2016 (hardly new hardware -- and desktop not laptop). Sleep never worked, graphics sometimes borked, UI felt janky and inconsistent, icons are super fugly and often too theme-y to the point of being undifferentiated at a glance, HiDPI support is a giant mixed bag (in 2020), machine would randomly freeze (mostly elementOS; Ubuntu didn't freeze as much), Hauppage drivers rarely worked consistently and often required reboots, I hated the mouse acceleration curves and was horrified to learn they were effectively hardcoded in X (I'm not talking just speed which is tweakable), gstreamer was nightmare to develop for, the Ubuntu & elementaryOS stores are a joke, and the mix of apt/snap/nix was very frustrating and the opposite of user-friendly. I switched back to my 2012 MBP and it's predictably gone well since, plus I get iMessage integration with my iPhone. YMMV

bproven 6y ago
Yeah - the hw really has to be curated. I havent tried using a machine cobbled together from various parts (custom desktop), but off the shelf quality laptops work fine for me last 2 years or so and have none of the issues you mentioned. Emphasis on quality - not cheapo models. I think if you treat Linux same as OSX and run it on known good hardware supported well by Linux you are fine today IME >HiDPI support is a giant mixed bag I will say that this is still a thing, although with experimental gnome fractional support it works pretty well now. Honestly I have a 2019 macbook pro 15 and have more problems with it than I do with my Thinkpad X1 Carbon 6th gen with Fedora 32.
kristopolous 6y ago
See, that's the response I was used to and the one I expected to get from everyone. The crazy thing is that I haven't heard it yet from the people I helped. Times may actually be changing now, just not swiftly. Perhaps it's the "decade" of desktop linux. It's also not because linux is so great but because windows and apple are constantly stumbling over their own shoelaces and shooing customers away.

FullyFunctional 6y ago

True. Amusingly, I was always trying to make Windows behave more like Unix, but now I'm trying to make Linux behave more like Mac (just a few things, like the global keyboard bindings). The major pain points are nearly all related to lack of integration with my iPhone (with Messages being the big one, followed by Notes).