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I am a sample size of 1. For me, the inconveniences of using linux are far greater than the inconveniences of using windows. This article is targeted at the dev

I am a sample size of 1. For me, the inconveniences of using linux are far greater than the inconveniences of using windows. This article is targeted at the developer community mostly. As a programmer, I cannot recall being hindered by file name conventions, un-resizeable dialog boxes, bug trackers etc., as much I have been inconvenienced on linux by poor driver support, and regularly dropping to command line for configuring my system. As a gamer, well, there is no competition for me, really. As your average user, I find the user interface on windows nicer and see more compatible programs. If there is anything I absolutely have to have linux for, I can just use a raspberry pi, a cloud server etc.

antonzabirko 6y ago
Yup, exactly my experience. Linux kernel is less equipped.
gerdesj 6y ago
"poor driver support" Please expand on this gem. Bear in mind that all drivers in Linux are delivered by the kernel. I'll grant you that not everything is golden in Linux land but the sheer pain of finding and updating drivers in Windows is an order of magnitude worse than in Linux. You get them out of the box in Linux, in Windows you don't. What sort of Window Manager are you having problems with? Why not try another one?
tcbawo 6y ago
I recently spent 30 minutes figuring out why the Bluetooth pairing process wasn't giving me the pin number I needed to pair my new wireless keyboard. Ugh. Eventually, after searching through forums, I updated the right modules to get it working. I want to use Linux as my daily driver, but I am frustrated by little things that don't work or go wrong.
- AlanSE 6y ago
  I find myself using my Android phone a lot more when on Linux... just because I have to practically work around some things, because I don't have all day to debug non-essential tasks. For instance, I upgraded Fedora from 32 to 33, and Spotify stopped working. Can this be fixed? I'm absolutely sure it can be fixed. Do I have time? No. I have watched way too many coworkers bomb meetings because of trying to use bluetooth headsets on Linux. Am I trying to cause suffering? No, I will use a headset with the good old headphone jack, because I have something else that I need to do with my actual day.
  - lukeschlather 6y ago
    I've actually quit using Bluetooth for Zoom meetings on Windows because it has been too unreliable.
    - sangli 6y ago
      I have done this too, partially. The problem with bluetooth on windows is that it doesn't work in duplex mode. You can't use speaker and mic together on bluetooth. If you disable the module for mic(don't remember what it's called) then the speaker function works perfectly. All the support posts that I read told me that bluetooth is the problem, not windows. But I call BS on that as the bluetooth duplexing works perfectly fine on Linux as well as macos.
      - AshamedCaptain 6y ago
        The support posts are right. Bluetooth is not full-duplex when you are using it in A2DP mode (required for stereo audio).
    - Cloudef 6y ago
      Bluetooth and zoom is very unreliable on my work mac laptop as well.
  - crankyoldcrank 6y ago
    I've had similar experiences on Windows and Mac. Computers are finicky and they break sometimes, especially during upgrades.
- lukeschlather 6y ago
  I've been using Windows for the past couple years for work after mostly using Ubuntu for several years. I felt the same way about Bluetooth but I've found all the Bluetooth problems I thought were "Linux" are just as bad on Windows. But Windows is just a lot more unstable. Every other week there's some new thing that breaks in a confusing way, and it's all closed source shovelware so I can't even figure out what is causing the problem.
  - Spearchucker 6y ago
    Counter example I've been using bluetooth for keyboard, mouse and headphones on my Surface Pro 1 since the Surface Pro 1 was released in I think 2013 or 2014. Never reinstalled Windows, and it works to this day as it did on day 1. I use it 3/4 times a week for maybe 5 hours when I'm not at my PC. I used to try Linux once a year or so but gave up doing that a few years ago because there is no single place to go to for answers and it's a time sink. The operating system needs to get out of my way so that I can make software. Windows does that. I'm sure bias has a lot to do with my perception, I'm ok with that.
    - lukeschlather 6y ago
      It might be that the Surface laptops legitimately "just work." I am using a bleeding-edge MSI gaming laptop and its drivers are very bad. Bluetooth is just the easiest problem to identify and point at in a single word.
  - watwut 6y ago
    I was using windows for years, both in work and at home. It never ever break up that often for me. Serious question: what is breaking up that often for all? I mean, which part of the system, what it does when it breaks?
  - lenkite 6y ago
    Windows updates unstable ? That seems strange. Can you describe what "breaks in a confusing way" ?
- smichel17 6y ago
  Funny how these things work. For many years while I was dual booting I had a bluetooth receiver that I used regularly with Linux, where it just worked, but was never able to get it working reliably on Windows.
- 3np 6y ago
  Bluetooth is a god damn mess regardless of OS. Probably (I have not tried, just assuming) the one exception being Apple hardware with Apple OS. Especially audio and keyboard. Haven't had any issues with Microsoft mice on Linux, though. knocks on wood
archseer 6y ago
Proton makes almost everything playable on linux. Sometimes with worse performance, sometimes with a lot better performance so it balances out.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cjbconnor 6y ago
  Many of the multiplayer games I play won't work on linux, typically due to the anticheat software they use. Also, there's typically a few hoops to jump through for popular games.
  - fartcannon 6y ago
    With proton, the hoops are rare, not typical.
    - leetrout 6y ago
      I have to use golden egg roll fork but it has been very impressive what it will run.
  - sergeykish 6y ago
    Anticheat is a rootkit, right? That's almost complaining Windows viruses does not run in Wine.
    - eindiran 6y ago
      Viruses and other malware can sometimes run under Wine: https://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2007-January/053719.html https://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2007-January/053...
    - the_only_law 6y ago
      Yeah well thats just modern software I guess. Malware as a feature.
davrosthedalek 6y ago
...or just run WSL2, which is absolutely amazing.
- aeyes 6y ago
  Shared filesystem performance on WSL2 is anything but amazing and pretty much everything I want it for depends heavily on the filesystem. Native I/O performance is good but without shared files, WSL2 doesn't have any benefits over a VM.
  - 3PS 6y ago
    WSL2 has lots of benefits over a typical VM. It's a lot faster than your average type 2 VM (e.g. VirtualBox), it cold boots quickly, and you can run servers on localhost out of the box and access them through a regular Windows browser. I enjoy using it for Jupyter notebooks. Plus WSL2 has way better tooling integration than most VMs - Windows Terminal, VSCode, etc. work well. I've found the experience compelling enough that I don't see much reason to dual boot Linux outside of CUDA applications (which are also supported now on Insiders.)
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    Linux got virtio-fs[1] capabilities as of Linux 5.4, and a driver for Windows guests was released recently. Along with VFIO passthrough, you can have accelerated and nearly native speed Windows guests on Linux if WSL2 isn't working out. [1] https://virtio-fs.gitlab.io/ https://virtio-fs.gitlab.io/
fartcannon 6y ago
Have you ever tried to disable something that windows insists you use? Like all the telemetry? Just try to stay on top of that. Impossible because you're not in charge of your machine, Microsoft is. You change it, they just change it back. Frustrating. On Linux? Its yours. Change anything you want. All arguments of convenience go out the window when you are not in control.
- tartoran 6y ago
  Recently had enough with windows and gave linux a try. Love it.It’s really good for SW development especially for experimenting and exploring languages. For work I still use windows but as soon as work is over i reboot into linux. But Im no tipical user, I don’t play games and don’t consume a lot of modern media or crazy new hardware, but do watch some youtube, listen to podcasts and read a lot and linux offers more than what I need. Linux got to a point that installing it is way frictionless. I had some attempts to install linux 15 and then maybe 10 years ago and gave up quickly. Nowadays not only that it runs live off a usb stick, it also installs easily on an existing windows system with a choice of partition of any convenient size. Also playing with python, racket, chicken scheme plays a whole lot nicer under Linux. I am really thrilled to be on Linux.
- zepearl 6y ago
  I have to confirm this (in general). I have a secondary Win10 OS and, throughout months, after each update it kept losing more and more of the preferences which I initially set -> too frustrating -> I gave up trying to have it be set the way I want. The same can happen of course as well on Linux, but it happens definitely less frequently.
- alphachloride 6y ago
  That is something I do not care about it enough to dissuade me from the rest of the windows experience. Even accounting for it, the windows experience is still superior to linux for me. I suspect this applies to a big chunk of the population as well who don't care about open source/telemetry etc. If it comes down to it, I can add some rules in the hosts file or run some powershell scripts.
sergeykish 6y ago
As Linux user the article does not resonate with me. The actual points are discarded points # Linux is more stable and reliable. I've reinstalled Windows so many times, never reinstalled Linux. System is separate from the user, I can remove all user configurations and it would work like new. # Linux is more secure and private. I have so many packages, they are free and safe. I've tried Windows recently, have to install software from the web. It is scary. No telemetry by default. I send package statistics, have install it myself: # pacman -S pkgstats # Linux is faster and less bloated There are many communities, some run Destkop Environments, I run quite minimal setup, boot to graphical environment takes 100MB RAM. Old netbook is router/NAS, 1GB is plenty. # Linux is more flexible and customizable. Primary reason I've switched. So many options, it is awesome! GNOME, KDE, XFCE, OpenBox, wmii, dwm, xmonad. Entire distributions — Ubuntu, Arch, Nix and many more. # Linux gives you more control over your computer. There was liberating feeling — my computer is just a hardware. Never felt it with Windows, it always had its own way. You know, some people kick their computers in rage. That has gone. Linux has a great driver support for supported hardware, it is like complaining about hackintosh. Windows adopting command line and package management tools. Yes, had to stop gaming, that's changing with Proton. I find Windows UI atrocious, my desktop for comparison: http://sergeykish.com/side-by-side-no-decorations.png http://sergeykish.com/side-by-side-no-decorations.png multiple workspaces, no decorations, not even browser scroll bar. I'd like to have universal solution for sticky headers. And, maybe, the most valuable — Linux is getting better while Windows and macOS getting worse. Telemetry, advertisement, walled garden, executable restrictions, firewall bypass, proprietary hardware — scandal after scandal. While on the Linux side — AMD GPU, Wayland, Flatpak, Steam Proton, web applications, better than ever laptops support.
- TylerE 6y ago
  I have literally not needed to reinstall Windows in close to a decade. You couldn't pay me to put up with the massively inferior environment of any of the Linux DEs at this point. They are all, in varying ways, completely miserable to use. Windows 10 is actually a really solid OS, and virtualization makes it so easy to spin up a Linux VM if I really need it.
  - 6y ago
tenebrisalietum 6y ago
> As a programmer > dropping to command line for configuring my system Doesn't add up. You're a programmer, write a script if it bothers you? > I find the user interface on windows nicer Seriously though, expand on this. Interested in what you are comparing it to; Gnome, KDE, etc.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  > Doesn't add up. You're a programmer, write a script if it bothers you? It does add up. "I'm a programmer" doesn't mean "I want to program every little thing in my life". I want to be not a programmer for a significant portion of my life. You don't expect a surgeon to perform surgeries all the time, do you?
  - tenebrisalietum 6y ago
    No but it's a lot like saying "I'm a mechanic but it's too much of a burden for me to change my own oil or tires." I probably wouldn't use your services.
    - dmitriid 6y ago
      "I'm a surgeon, but it's too much of a burden for me to perform surgery on myself". I probably wouldn't use your services. See how stupid it sounds?
      - Terrario 6y ago
        It sounds stupid because that analogy doesn’t work. A surgeon can’t properly do most kinds of surgery on themselves, some are down right impossible. There’s nothing a mechanic can’t do to their car that they can’t do for their costumers.
ur-whale 6y ago
>As your average user, I find the user interface on windows nicer Yes, especially the ads, they're so colorful and shiny ! /s>
- tester34 6y ago
  which ads? I do ask seriously - I'm using Win Pro and I'm not sure what you're talking about recommendations of installing Microsoft Chrome?
  - majkinetor 6y ago
    The same ads in search that were present on Ubuntu way before Windows ...
    - kerberos84 6y ago
      it is not the same thing to see ads while already paying for the OS.
3np 6y ago
When was the last time you gave it a serious try? I've been Linux only for several years now and things have stabilized a lot in past years. Ubuntu's kind of lost its way recently though (snaps/apt mess, went a tad bit early with pushing Wayland as default). The derivatives like Mint, Manjaro, PopOS and Zorin seem to be the way to go for the average user. The one thing that might trip you up is (these days rare) hardware incompatibilities. Dell and Lenovo (the only personal experience I have) are great when it comes to laptops. For integrated GPU, Intel Just Works; nVidia and AMD can occasionally require a bit of hassle depending on chipset and kernel. Discrete GPUs I don't have any recent experience but the word on the street seems to be that if you're fine with proprietary drivers both nVidia and AMD/ATI works flawlessly while FOSS drivers can be hit or miss.
- g_p 6y ago
  On the discrete GPU front, most AMD users will be using FOSS drivers that are built into the kernel, plus the standard open source Mesa. In fact, AMD actively recommend you use the open source ones. I think the community radv vulkan driver also outperforms anything proprietary they offer. Nvidia still requires proprietary out-of-tree drivers and causes breakage every so often, but AMD is just like Intel integrated graphics now. Never tried it with an AMD APU, but I would hope it would be the same with the open source amdgpu driver.
  - 3np 6y ago
    I did have some issues with getting proper utilization of a 3000-series APU on Debian stable. Eventually got it working but it did requires mesa > 20.1 and some specific version/params in kernel (can't recall exactly what did it).
    - anthk 6y ago
      If you use Debian Stable, set the backports repo as 9999 priority and then upgrade everything.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    > Never tried it with an AMD APU, but I would hope it would be the same with the open source amdgpu driver. It is a big regression that won't ever be fixed, OpenGL 3.3 instead of OpenGL 4.1 and barely working hardware video decoding. Yep, it is a 10 years old hardware, yet Windows 10 drivers are perfectly capable of handling it properly.
jeromenerf 6y ago
This is ok. I don’t know why everyone should only use one OS for everything. Or one language, or one text editor. It has never been easier to use multiples, in parallel. I personally use Linux and iOS. My main pain point isn’t Linux but apple lacking proper API to access iCloud services from Linux, or anything than Apple OSes really. I try not to spend too much time "expecting".
- scns 6y ago
  My guess would be our tribalistic predispostions.
imtringued 6y ago
>As a gamer, well, there is no competition for me, really. In 2018 I switched to Arch Linux at home because I heard "Linux has less games". Before that I used Linux exclusively at work. To test it out I installed it on a 32GB flash drive so that I don't have the urge to install games when I'm space limited. It worked for the first 3 months. Then I got a new SSD and installed it there. A few days later proton came out and I ended up clocking in 600 hours in Warframe. The idea that linux has "no games" is an urban myth. I got scammed by Windows users.
- einpoklum 6y ago
  You're conflating "less games" with "no games". Linux has less games available. (I guess a lot less but I haven't played in decades.)
  - krebs_liebhaber 6y ago
    If we want to be the biggest pedants we possibly can: you're confusing "less games" with "fewer games".
cupofcoffee 6y ago
You are definitely not a sample size of 1. Back when I was using linux 2010s or so, it had serious issues with drivers and overheating. Config files would break unexpectedly and I found myself spending a lot of time in IRC channels trying to fix stuff. At uni they were pushing us to use Linux and I think that made a lot of sense. People would learn bash effectively and learn some lower level bare stuff as well. A lot of time "linux is free if your time has no value" made a lot of sense. Nowadays, I hear some good news about Linux though I would never switch to it as a main OS.
swiley 6y ago
>regularly dropping to command line for configuring my system I've really never understood this complaint. "oh why do I have to use a standardized set of abstractions for configuration instead of bizarre bespoke GUIs that are different for every piece of software."
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  > "oh why do I have to use a standardized set of abstractions for configuration" Linux config files absolutely do not follow one standardized convention.
- alphachloride 6y ago
  Its pretty simple: GUI is more intuitive. I do not find them bizarre. Their diversity or bespokeness doesn't register as a hindrance to me. The options are visible all at once, or are a couple of clicks away. Contrast this with the command line where I more or less have to memorize each application's interface or look online or browse the manual for answers. GUI lets me use keyboard + mouse. CLI is keyboard only. Regardless of any rationale, my experience is what it is. No amount of counterpoints are going to change what I've felt using CLIs.
  - swiley 6y ago
    >GUI is more intuitive. I would completely disagree here, they're more aesthetic but not more intuitive or discoverable. Compare tar with apple's camera app on the iphone for example: tar --help will tell you how to do everything in the app. Is there something equivalent that tells how to do manual focus in the camera app? (yes, it's supported that for years and no one knows how to do it because it won't tell you.)
    - Grimm665 6y ago
      Of all the examples you could have chosen you picked tar? The program with such an obtuse command interface it has its own xkcd comic?

antonzabirko 6y ago

Yup, exactly my experience. Linux kernel is less equipped.

gerdesj 6y ago

"poor driver support" Please expand on this gem. Bear in mind that all drivers in Linux are delivered by the kernel. I'll grant you that not everything is golden in Linux land but the sheer pain of finding and updating drivers in Windows is an order of magnitude worse than in Linux. You get them out of the box in Linux, in Windows you don't. What sort of Window Manager are you having problems with? Why not try another one?

tcbawo 6y ago

I recently spent 30 minutes figuring out why the Bluetooth pairing process wasn't giving me the pin number I needed to pair my new wireless keyboard. Ugh. Eventually, after searching through forums, I updated the right modules to get it working. I want to use Linux as my daily driver, but I am frustrated by little things that don't work or go wrong.

AlanSE 6y ago
I find myself using my Android phone a lot more when on Linux... just because I have to practically work around some things, because I don't have all day to debug non-essential tasks. For instance, I upgraded Fedora from 32 to 33, and Spotify stopped working. Can this be fixed? I'm absolutely sure it can be fixed. Do I have time? No. I have watched way too many coworkers bomb meetings because of trying to use bluetooth headsets on Linux. Am I trying to cause suffering? No, I will use a headset with the good old headphone jack, because I have something else that I need to do with my actual day.
- lukeschlather 6y ago
  I've actually quit using Bluetooth for Zoom meetings on Windows because it has been too unreliable.
  - sangli 6y ago
    I have done this too, partially. The problem with bluetooth on windows is that it doesn't work in duplex mode. You can't use speaker and mic together on bluetooth. If you disable the module for mic(don't remember what it's called) then the speaker function works perfectly. All the support posts that I read told me that bluetooth is the problem, not windows. But I call BS on that as the bluetooth duplexing works perfectly fine on Linux as well as macos.
    - AshamedCaptain 6y ago
      The support posts are right. Bluetooth is not full-duplex when you are using it in A2DP mode (required for stereo audio).
  - Cloudef 6y ago
    Bluetooth and zoom is very unreliable on my work mac laptop as well.
- crankyoldcrank 6y ago
  I've had similar experiences on Windows and Mac. Computers are finicky and they break sometimes, especially during upgrades.
lukeschlather 6y ago
I've been using Windows for the past couple years for work after mostly using Ubuntu for several years. I felt the same way about Bluetooth but I've found all the Bluetooth problems I thought were "Linux" are just as bad on Windows. But Windows is just a lot more unstable. Every other week there's some new thing that breaks in a confusing way, and it's all closed source shovelware so I can't even figure out what is causing the problem.
- Spearchucker 6y ago
  Counter example I've been using bluetooth for keyboard, mouse and headphones on my Surface Pro 1 since the Surface Pro 1 was released in I think 2013 or 2014. Never reinstalled Windows, and it works to this day as it did on day 1. I use it 3/4 times a week for maybe 5 hours when I'm not at my PC. I used to try Linux once a year or so but gave up doing that a few years ago because there is no single place to go to for answers and it's a time sink. The operating system needs to get out of my way so that I can make software. Windows does that. I'm sure bias has a lot to do with my perception, I'm ok with that.
  - lukeschlather 6y ago
    It might be that the Surface laptops legitimately "just work." I am using a bleeding-edge MSI gaming laptop and its drivers are very bad. Bluetooth is just the easiest problem to identify and point at in a single word.
- watwut 6y ago
  I was using windows for years, both in work and at home. It never ever break up that often for me. Serious question: what is breaking up that often for all? I mean, which part of the system, what it does when it breaks?
- lenkite 6y ago
  Windows updates unstable ? That seems strange. Can you describe what "breaks in a confusing way" ?
smichel17 6y ago
Funny how these things work. For many years while I was dual booting I had a bluetooth receiver that I used regularly with Linux, where it just worked, but was never able to get it working reliably on Windows.
3np 6y ago
Bluetooth is a god damn mess regardless of OS. Probably (I have not tried, just assuming) the one exception being Apple hardware with Apple OS. Especially audio and keyboard. Haven't had any issues with Microsoft mice on Linux, though. knocks on wood

archseer 6y ago

Proton makes almost everything playable on linux. Sometimes with worse performance, sometimes with a lot better performance so it balances out.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cjbconnor 6y ago
Many of the multiplayer games I play won't work on linux, typically due to the anticheat software they use. Also, there's typically a few hoops to jump through for popular games.
- fartcannon 6y ago
  With proton, the hoops are rare, not typical.
  - leetrout 6y ago
    I have to use golden egg roll fork but it has been very impressive what it will run.
- sergeykish 6y ago
  Anticheat is a rootkit, right? That's almost complaining Windows viruses does not run in Wine.
  - eindiran 6y ago
    Viruses and other malware can sometimes run under Wine: https://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2007-January/053719.html https://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2007-January/053...
  - the_only_law 6y ago
    Yeah well thats just modern software I guess. Malware as a feature.

davrosthedalek 6y ago

...or just run WSL2, which is absolutely amazing.

aeyes 6y ago
Shared filesystem performance on WSL2 is anything but amazing and pretty much everything I want it for depends heavily on the filesystem. Native I/O performance is good but without shared files, WSL2 doesn't have any benefits over a VM.
- 3PS 6y ago
  WSL2 has lots of benefits over a typical VM. It's a lot faster than your average type 2 VM (e.g. VirtualBox), it cold boots quickly, and you can run servers on localhost out of the box and access them through a regular Windows browser. I enjoy using it for Jupyter notebooks. Plus WSL2 has way better tooling integration than most VMs - Windows Terminal, VSCode, etc. work well. I've found the experience compelling enough that I don't see much reason to dual boot Linux outside of CUDA applications (which are also supported now on Insiders.)
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  Linux got virtio-fs[1] capabilities as of Linux 5.4, and a driver for Windows guests was released recently. Along with VFIO passthrough, you can have accelerated and nearly native speed Windows guests on Linux if WSL2 isn't working out. [1] https://virtio-fs.gitlab.io/ https://virtio-fs.gitlab.io/

fartcannon 6y ago

Have you ever tried to disable something that windows insists you use? Like all the telemetry? Just try to stay on top of that. Impossible because you're not in charge of your machine, Microsoft is. You change it, they just change it back. Frustrating. On Linux? Its yours. Change anything you want. All arguments of convenience go out the window when you are not in control.

tartoran 6y ago
Recently had enough with windows and gave linux a try. Love it.It’s really good for SW development especially for experimenting and exploring languages. For work I still use windows but as soon as work is over i reboot into linux. But Im no tipical user, I don’t play games and don’t consume a lot of modern media or crazy new hardware, but do watch some youtube, listen to podcasts and read a lot and linux offers more than what I need. Linux got to a point that installing it is way frictionless. I had some attempts to install linux 15 and then maybe 10 years ago and gave up quickly. Nowadays not only that it runs live off a usb stick, it also installs easily on an existing windows system with a choice of partition of any convenient size. Also playing with python, racket, chicken scheme plays a whole lot nicer under Linux. I am really thrilled to be on Linux.
zepearl 6y ago
I have to confirm this (in general). I have a secondary Win10 OS and, throughout months, after each update it kept losing more and more of the preferences which I initially set -> too frustrating -> I gave up trying to have it be set the way I want. The same can happen of course as well on Linux, but it happens definitely less frequently.
alphachloride 6y ago
That is something I do not care about it enough to dissuade me from the rest of the windows experience. Even accounting for it, the windows experience is still superior to linux for me. I suspect this applies to a big chunk of the population as well who don't care about open source/telemetry etc. If it comes down to it, I can add some rules in the hosts file or run some powershell scripts.

sergeykish 6y ago

As Linux user the article does not resonate with me. The actual points are discarded points # Linux is more stable and reliable. I've reinstalled Windows so many times, never reinstalled Linux. System is separate from the user, I can remove all user configurations and it would work like new. # Linux is more secure and private. I have so many packages, they are free and safe. I've tried Windows recently, have to install software from the web. It is scary. No telemetry by default. I send package statistics, have install it myself: # pacman -S pkgstats # Linux is faster and less bloated There are many communities, some run Destkop Environments, I run quite minimal setup, boot to graphical environment takes 100MB RAM. Old netbook is router/NAS, 1GB is plenty. # Linux is more flexible and customizable. Primary reason I've switched. So many options, it is awesome! GNOME, KDE, XFCE, OpenBox, wmii, dwm, xmonad. Entire distributions — Ubuntu, Arch, Nix and many more. # Linux gives you more control over your computer. There was liberating feeling — my computer is just a hardware. Never felt it with Windows, it always had its own way. You know, some people kick their computers in rage. That has gone. Linux has a great driver support for supported hardware, it is like complaining about hackintosh. Windows adopting command line and package management tools. Yes, had to stop gaming, that's changing with Proton. I find Windows UI atrocious, my desktop for comparison: http://sergeykish.com/side-by-side-no-decorations.png http://sergeykish.com/side-by-side-no-decorations.png multiple workspaces, no decorations, not even browser scroll bar. I'd like to have universal solution for sticky headers. And, maybe, the most valuable — Linux is getting better while Windows and macOS getting worse. Telemetry, advertisement, walled garden, executable restrictions, firewall bypass, proprietary hardware — scandal after scandal. While on the Linux side — AMD GPU, Wayland, Flatpak, Steam Proton, web applications, better than ever laptops support.

TylerE 6y ago
I have literally not needed to reinstall Windows in close to a decade. You couldn't pay me to put up with the massively inferior environment of any of the Linux DEs at this point. They are all, in varying ways, completely miserable to use. Windows 10 is actually a really solid OS, and virtualization makes it so easy to spin up a Linux VM if I really need it.
- 6y ago

tenebrisalietum 6y ago

> As a programmer > dropping to command line for configuring my system Doesn't add up. You're a programmer, write a script if it bothers you? > I find the user interface on windows nicer Seriously though, expand on this. Interested in what you are comparing it to; Gnome, KDE, etc.

dmitriid 6y ago
> Doesn't add up. You're a programmer, write a script if it bothers you? It does add up. "I'm a programmer" doesn't mean "I want to program every little thing in my life". I want to be not a programmer for a significant portion of my life. You don't expect a surgeon to perform surgeries all the time, do you?
- tenebrisalietum 6y ago
  No but it's a lot like saying "I'm a mechanic but it's too much of a burden for me to change my own oil or tires." I probably wouldn't use your services.
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    "I'm a surgeon, but it's too much of a burden for me to perform surgery on myself". I probably wouldn't use your services. See how stupid it sounds?
    - Terrario 6y ago
      It sounds stupid because that analogy doesn’t work. A surgeon can’t properly do most kinds of surgery on themselves, some are down right impossible. There’s nothing a mechanic can’t do to their car that they can’t do for their costumers.

ur-whale 6y ago

>As your average user, I find the user interface on windows nicer Yes, especially the ads, they're so colorful and shiny ! /s>

tester34 6y ago
which ads? I do ask seriously - I'm using Win Pro and I'm not sure what you're talking about recommendations of installing Microsoft Chrome?
- majkinetor 6y ago
  The same ads in search that were present on Ubuntu way before Windows ...
  - kerberos84 6y ago
    it is not the same thing to see ads while already paying for the OS.

3np 6y ago

When was the last time you gave it a serious try? I've been Linux only for several years now and things have stabilized a lot in past years. Ubuntu's kind of lost its way recently though (snaps/apt mess, went a tad bit early with pushing Wayland as default). The derivatives like Mint, Manjaro, PopOS and Zorin seem to be the way to go for the average user. The one thing that might trip you up is (these days rare) hardware incompatibilities. Dell and Lenovo (the only personal experience I have) are great when it comes to laptops. For integrated GPU, Intel Just Works; nVidia and AMD can occasionally require a bit of hassle depending on chipset and kernel. Discrete GPUs I don't have any recent experience but the word on the street seems to be that if you're fine with proprietary drivers both nVidia and AMD/ATI works flawlessly while FOSS drivers can be hit or miss.

g_p 6y ago
On the discrete GPU front, most AMD users will be using FOSS drivers that are built into the kernel, plus the standard open source Mesa. In fact, AMD actively recommend you use the open source ones. I think the community radv vulkan driver also outperforms anything proprietary they offer. Nvidia still requires proprietary out-of-tree drivers and causes breakage every so often, but AMD is just like Intel integrated graphics now. Never tried it with an AMD APU, but I would hope it would be the same with the open source amdgpu driver.
- 3np 6y ago
  I did have some issues with getting proper utilization of a 3000-series APU on Debian stable. Eventually got it working but it did requires mesa > 20.1 and some specific version/params in kernel (can't recall exactly what did it).
  - anthk 6y ago
    If you use Debian Stable, set the backports repo as 9999 priority and then upgrade everything.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  > Never tried it with an AMD APU, but I would hope it would be the same with the open source amdgpu driver. It is a big regression that won't ever be fixed, OpenGL 3.3 instead of OpenGL 4.1 and barely working hardware video decoding. Yep, it is a 10 years old hardware, yet Windows 10 drivers are perfectly capable of handling it properly.

jeromenerf 6y ago

This is ok. I don’t know why everyone should only use one OS for everything. Or one language, or one text editor. It has never been easier to use multiples, in parallel. I personally use Linux and iOS. My main pain point isn’t Linux but apple lacking proper API to access iCloud services from Linux, or anything than Apple OSes really. I try not to spend too much time "expecting".

scns 6y ago
My guess would be our tribalistic predispostions.

imtringued 6y ago

>As a gamer, well, there is no competition for me, really. In 2018 I switched to Arch Linux at home because I heard "Linux has less games". Before that I used Linux exclusively at work. To test it out I installed it on a 32GB flash drive so that I don't have the urge to install games when I'm space limited. It worked for the first 3 months. Then I got a new SSD and installed it there. A few days later proton came out and I ended up clocking in 600 hours in Warframe. The idea that linux has "no games" is an urban myth. I got scammed by Windows users.

einpoklum 6y ago
You're conflating "less games" with "no games". Linux has less games available. (I guess a lot less but I haven't played in decades.)
- krebs_liebhaber 6y ago
  If we want to be the biggest pedants we possibly can: you're confusing "less games" with "fewer games".

cupofcoffee 6y ago

You are definitely not a sample size of 1. Back when I was using linux 2010s or so, it had serious issues with drivers and overheating. Config files would break unexpectedly and I found myself spending a lot of time in IRC channels trying to fix stuff. At uni they were pushing us to use Linux and I think that made a lot of sense. People would learn bash effectively and learn some lower level bare stuff as well. A lot of time "linux is free if your time has no value" made a lot of sense. Nowadays, I hear some good news about Linux though I would never switch to it as a main OS.

swiley 6y ago

>regularly dropping to command line for configuring my system I've really never understood this complaint. "oh why do I have to use a standardized set of abstractions for configuration instead of bizarre bespoke GUIs that are different for every piece of software."

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
> "oh why do I have to use a standardized set of abstractions for configuration" Linux config files absolutely do not follow one standardized convention.
alphachloride 6y ago
Its pretty simple: GUI is more intuitive. I do not find them bizarre. Their diversity or bespokeness doesn't register as a hindrance to me. The options are visible all at once, or are a couple of clicks away. Contrast this with the command line where I more or less have to memorize each application's interface or look online or browse the manual for answers. GUI lets me use keyboard + mouse. CLI is keyboard only. Regardless of any rationale, my experience is what it is. No amount of counterpoints are going to change what I've felt using CLIs.
- swiley 6y ago
  >GUI is more intuitive. I would completely disagree here, they're more aesthetic but not more intuitive or discoverable. Compare tar with apple's camera app on the iphone for example: tar --help will tell you how to do everything in the app. Is there something equivalent that tells how to do manual focus in the camera app? (yes, it's supported that for years and no one knows how to do it because it won't tell you.)
  - Grimm665 6y ago
    Of all the examples you could have chosen you picked tar? The program with such an obtuse command interface it has its own xkcd comic?