4 ms·

One can complain about Windows, but at the end of the day I have way more issues with desktop Linux (which I use principally.) I find myself in an awkward situ

by eloff 5y ago

One can complain about Windows, but at the end of the day I have way more issues with desktop Linux (which I use principally.) I find myself in an awkward situation where I don't like any of the three major desktop operating systems for different reasons. It's more a matter of picking the one that's less bad. Currently for me that's Linux for work, Windows for games, and Mac for a laptop. I need a new laptop next year. I'll probably go for a Windows laptop where I can dual boot Linux.

criddell 5y ago
I've been using Linux on-and-off since the fall of 1993 and I've learned that the best way to use Linux is to pick the most popular distribution and then do as little customization as possible. You still will probably have to wipe and reinstall from scratch every five years, but that's not a Linux-only problem.
- eloff 5y ago
  That's also been my strategy. I use Ubuntu and I don't mess with the configuration. Printers, scanners, nvidia graphics cards, dual monitors have all been a huge source of issues for me. Then a lot of stuff is just glitchy and fixing it is a pain. For some reason QT from apt was completely messed up for me, so I had to compile and install it myself, which was non trivial.
  - criddell 5y ago
    My non-customization strategy extends to basically not connecting printers and scanners, not using anything other than basic video modes, and I've never even tried multi-monitor setups.
    - eloff 5y ago
      That's definitely safer based on my experience.
amatecha 5y ago
Check out FreeBSD or OpenBSD. Worth looking into, many ppl use these as their daily driver desktop OS.
- amatecha 5y ago
  Not sure why someone decided to downvote my comment, as it's a completely valid suggestion made in good faith and not some kind of nag or offtopic. The BSD OSes are often overlooked as a desktop platform despite being very easy to run and configure. They have excellent built-in documentation that the rest of the community could take inspiration from. They are a complete OS built and maintained together, rather than a distribution of disparate software from various sources bundled around a kernel. Even this reason alone is enough to make them very cohesive, and easy to understand. Their default installations are minimal (perhaps even to a fault in some users' eyes) allowing you to be clearly aware of the software that gets installed. Managing and configuring services is, IMO, far easier than on Linux (depending on distribution). This introduction to OpenBSD is a good video to watch get a bit of an idea of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkDVKthufAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkDVKthufAM I understand that it's not for everyone, but I thought it's worth mentioning in case you hadn't looked at this family of OSes before, since I think they offer a huge amount of what Linux offers, but in a more cohesively-structured and simplified way. I'm definitely gradually becoming more invested myself (though still testing the waters hehe).
  - NexRebular 5y ago
    Definitely worth looking at BSDs. For servers they are a no-brainer (as is illumos) but GhostBSD is also quite nice desktop ready edition of FreeBSD with GUI installer and all. Been trialing it at $work for general desktop use instead of linux and it seems to run pretty good on quite new hardware as well.

by eloff 5y ago

criddell 5y ago

I've been using Linux on-and-off since the fall of 1993 and I've learned that the best way to use Linux is to pick the most popular distribution and then do as little customization as possible. You still will probably have to wipe and reinstall from scratch every five years, but that's not a Linux-only problem.

eloff 5y ago
That's also been my strategy. I use Ubuntu and I don't mess with the configuration. Printers, scanners, nvidia graphics cards, dual monitors have all been a huge source of issues for me. Then a lot of stuff is just glitchy and fixing it is a pain. For some reason QT from apt was completely messed up for me, so I had to compile and install it myself, which was non trivial.
- criddell 5y ago
  My non-customization strategy extends to basically not connecting printers and scanners, not using anything other than basic video modes, and I've never even tried multi-monitor setups.
  - eloff 5y ago
    That's definitely safer based on my experience.

amatecha 5y ago

Check out FreeBSD or OpenBSD. Worth looking into, many ppl use these as their daily driver desktop OS.

amatecha 5y ago
Not sure why someone decided to downvote my comment, as it's a completely valid suggestion made in good faith and not some kind of nag or offtopic. The BSD OSes are often overlooked as a desktop platform despite being very easy to run and configure. They have excellent built-in documentation that the rest of the community could take inspiration from. They are a complete OS built and maintained together, rather than a distribution of disparate software from various sources bundled around a kernel. Even this reason alone is enough to make them very cohesive, and easy to understand. Their default installations are minimal (perhaps even to a fault in some users' eyes) allowing you to be clearly aware of the software that gets installed. Managing and configuring services is, IMO, far easier than on Linux (depending on distribution). This introduction to OpenBSD is a good video to watch get a bit of an idea of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkDVKthufAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkDVKthufAM I understand that it's not for everyone, but I thought it's worth mentioning in case you hadn't looked at this family of OSes before, since I think they offer a huge amount of what Linux offers, but in a more cohesively-structured and simplified way. I'm definitely gradually becoming more invested myself (though still testing the waters hehe).
- NexRebular 5y ago
  Definitely worth looking at BSDs. For servers they are a no-brainer (as is illumos) but GhostBSD is also quite nice desktop ready edition of FreeBSD with GUI installer and all. Been trialing it at $work for general desktop use instead of linux and it seems to run pretty good on quite new hardware as well.