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>That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives. I would argue Linux is only superior from

>That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives. I would argue Linux is only superior from the IT software perspective. This is a very narrow perspective that is only inflated if you're in IT or on an IT related site like HN. From almost every other dimension Linux is inferior and therefore from an Overall perspective it is inferior. The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Average users are like this while hard core masochist programmers are willing to spend years decoding an interface

throwawayswede 5y ago
> From almost every other dimension Linux is inferior and therefore from an Overall perspective it is inferior. That's just preposterous. Linux user friendliness has not been slow or fragmented, it has come really far just in the last five years. Windows on the other hand has gotten relatively worse since the 'high' periods of early NT kernel OSes. > The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Incorrect. It is only "one" of the important dimensions, but to call it "the most" important one is at -at the very least- misguided and absurd. > The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Average users are like this while hard core masochist programmers are willing to spend years decoding an interface Your inability to use many of the user friendly distros available (like Mint or Elementary) cannot be generalized to the wider public. Do some research.
- cto_of_antifa 5y ago
  On the other hand, they wouldn’t have to do any additional research to boot a useable system if they weren’t on Linux.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  >Incorrect. It is only "one" of the important dimensions, but to call it "the most" important one is at -at the very least- misguided and absurd. It is the most important dimension and the only dimension most users care about. Fully correct. >Your inability to use many of the user friendly distros available (like Mint or Elementary) cannot be generalized to the wider public. Illogical statement and incorrect. I've used Mint and elementary and all the issues remain. But let's say you're right. Then this would STILL be a usability issues. Too many choices... a user has to dig and choose the right distro to be "easy" to use. >Do some research. You do the research. I'm more well informed than you.
gm 5y ago
LOL, so true. I often need to have online meetings with engineers that for some reason prefer Linux as their desktop OS. Guess which meeting participants _always_ delay the meetings because they can't get their audio/video working for routine meetings? If that happens to pretty tech savvy software engineers, the average user has zero chance of using Linux as a desktop effectively.
- throwawayswede 5y ago
  That's a poor argument. Usually this happens to "tech savvy" people when they like to tinker with their system on daily basis and use bleeding edge software (since you have unlimited customizability, unlike the competition), you're bound to have issues. Normal users can just use an LTS release and (for the average user) they won't even be able to tell the difference. Talk to anyone who installs beta iOS versions and ask them how much crap they have to deal with.
  - NhanH 5y ago
    There is a fairly high chance that beta iOS would smoke even Debian stable out of the window in term of stability for end users. I run Windows with Windows Insider enabled with Dev channel (basically the most beta Windows there is), and no Ubuntu version I've used came close to that Windows setup with regards to stability. I choose to use Linux despite the bad UX and bad stability for end user. Linux server (and packages) are supremely stable, but any package involving end-user stuffs (sounds, graphics, even Firefox) is an entirely different story altogether.
    - pessimizer 5y ago
      Not a chance. I resent greatly the huge amount of time I spend troubleshooting Apple product when I would never use it. The quality is fine, but not exceptionally good, and things that are trivial on other OSes are often impossible or forbidden on Apple product. Even to a further extent than Microsoft, who have the disadvantage of not owning the hardware.
    - d110af5ccf 5y ago
onli 5y ago
The common Linux interfaces are very easy to decipher and have a good usability. Usability is measurable property, so that's not a guess, just a fact. Add to that the higher task purpose you can get with Linux (partly boosted by not having annoying blockers to get work done, like Windows ads and forced reboots) and the infinitely higher customizablity (for the user's needs and wants) and for general computer usage, there is no question that usability of Linux is higher. Of course, usability always depends on the specific task you have to do in a given context. It's possible that for the specific software you have to run for that task, that Windows or Apple software has the better usability. But that's far from the norm. Compatibility Linux wins though in general, it supports way more hardware and software. If you think proprietary software is better there: Get out of your bubble :) To get a bit away from this OT discussion: The PinePhone is just a very early project. It's also cheap. Of course it has issues, and they should be made clear to potential buyers. But to try to use that to smear FOSS software in general is dishonest trolling.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  > The common Linux interfaces are very easy to decipher and have a good usability. I feel like this is true only sometimes and even then probably from a particular point of view. For example, i use XFCE for my desktop computers with DEB based distros. Most of the time, things just work, do so pretty fast and not in a too resource intensive way (which would be a different story with GNOME, Cinnamon or KDE, all of which come close to the Windows desktop resource usage in some cases). However, there is also a lot of software out there, that relies on configuration files instead of UI configuration to get things done. Take Redshift (a bit like f.lux) as an example, in which you can't edit the screen colors at the different times of day through the UI, but rather have to look up how and where to create a configuration file with the values that you need. Furthermore, there is also a lot of software out there for *nix that doesn't have GUI front ends in the first place (unless someone has written one) or need to be installed from PPAs and such, or even necessitate messing around with AppImage or Flatpak ways of installation - all of those have their own reasons for existing, be it historical reasons or having to support a variety of system configurations, unlike just packaging an .exe file with some sort of an installer, but the bottom line is that this hinders usability for the common folk out there. > Of course, usability always depends on the specific task you have to do in a given context. Of course, the situation with drivers can also be somewhat challenging at times, unless you use the proprietary ones and even then you sometimes have to rely on solutions such as Wine (or Proton, but only for select games) to be able to enjoy games and some other interactive content. There is the upside of being able to use Mono to also run some of the .NET software and honestly the cross-OS interoperability of at least some software feels amazing just because it even exists in the first place, but admittedly there is too much Windows centric software out there that people will have to give up when moving to Linux distros. This definitely cannot be ignored, since many workflows out there are built around particular tools and their interfaces as well, which won't always be ported, given that they're proprietary. Actually, if Linux had a bigger market share, it'd get more attention, but sadly it's only dominant in the server space and has largely gone under the radar for desktop software. It seems to be changing, but slowly. To sum up: in my opinion, there are definitely plenty of challenges and thorns that make Linux harder to use. Many are not due to any fault of its own, but rather the historic market conditions. That said, i'm glad that it's even a viable option for desktop computing nowadays and things do seem to be getting better!
superasn 5y ago
I used to feel the exact same way until 2 years ago. But my experience has been absolutely brilliant with Linux mint in the last 2 years. No driver issues, super nice UI and everything just works now! As a matter of fact the only use I have for Windows now is for playing games (also Photoshop). Otoh the amount of clutter and issues I have to deal in Win10 is just bad. I digress but thankfully there is a tool called "Shutup 10" that makes Windows much less annoying.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  For anyone interested, here's the homepage of Linux Mint: https://linuxmint.com/ https://linuxmint.com/ It is based on Ubuntu and uses the Cinnamon desktop by default, however personally i also rather enjoy the XFCE spin, for example: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4103 https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4103 To that end, i also enjoy smaller distributions like Xubuntu, which are just customized Ubuntu, should someone not necessarily want to use Mint in particular: https://xubuntu.org/ https://xubuntu.org/ Of course, the purists out there could also enjoy Debian because it relies more on free software instead of having proprietary drivers, but outside of the server space your experience might vary: https://www.debian.org/ https://www.debian.org/ Also, the Windows tool in question is O&O ShutUp10: https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 However, it's unfortunate to have to run it after the occasional update, because Windows is kind enough to enable its spyware functionality automatically sometimes. /s
  - stOneskull 5y ago
    i think if you are going to go with debian for the desktop, you may as well go with mx linux
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  I've used manjaro, ubuntu ,mint and even NixOS. I've hit numerous compatibility and usability issues that just doesn't happen in Windows or OSX. Also your post touches on the most important dimension. Gaming and graphics and cad. Have you tried doing this stuff on linux? The experience is clearly inferior. I think there's a psychological blocker here. You're aware Linux is shit for games and photoshop, but you still say linux is better because everything works! That's contradictory. Photoshop and games CLEARLY don't work according to your post which is the exact things I am talking about. Either way I've still had the Linux OS crash on me within the last month. Something that just doesn't happen ever with windows or OSX anymore.
matkoniecz 5y ago
> This is a very narrow perspective that is only inflated if you're in IT or on an IT related site like HN. And? I was responding to extremely overstated "open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones" Even if Linux would be worse for 99% of people who are less IT-centered than me then it would be still counterexample for "always". Open source project can be for 5 person worldwide without monetization plan. And beat commercial software for that people. If someone wants to make claim "for average person it is typical that..." then make it, but this hyperbole was clearly false.
- deltaonefour 5y ago
  My point is my point. Linux is generally inferior to windows from a usability standpoint. We can get rid of the word always if you want. Nobody cares for such semantics. Generalities exist and clearly that's what most people mean when they talk about this. Linux is generally much worse from a usability standpoint than windows. Your post made a claim Linux was the better OS, but not only is Linux not always better, it's not even generally better.

throwawayswede 5y ago

> From almost every other dimension Linux is inferior and therefore from an Overall perspective it is inferior. That's just preposterous. Linux user friendliness has not been slow or fragmented, it has come really far just in the last five years. Windows on the other hand has gotten relatively worse since the 'high' periods of early NT kernel OSes. > The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Incorrect. It is only "one" of the important dimensions, but to call it "the most" important one is at -at the very least- misguided and absurd. > The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Average users are like this while hard core masochist programmers are willing to spend years decoding an interface Your inability to use many of the user friendly distros available (like Mint or Elementary) cannot be generalized to the wider public. Do some research.

cto_of_antifa 5y ago
On the other hand, they wouldn’t have to do any additional research to boot a useable system if they weren’t on Linux.
deltaonefour 5y ago
>Incorrect. It is only "one" of the important dimensions, but to call it "the most" important one is at -at the very least- misguided and absurd. It is the most important dimension and the only dimension most users care about. Fully correct. >Your inability to use many of the user friendly distros available (like Mint or Elementary) cannot be generalized to the wider public. Illogical statement and incorrect. I've used Mint and elementary and all the issues remain. But let's say you're right. Then this would STILL be a usability issues. Too many choices... a user has to dig and choose the right distro to be "easy" to use. >Do some research. You do the research. I'm more well informed than you.

gm 5y ago

LOL, so true. I often need to have online meetings with engineers that for some reason prefer Linux as their desktop OS. Guess which meeting participants _always_ delay the meetings because they can't get their audio/video working for routine meetings? If that happens to pretty tech savvy software engineers, the average user has zero chance of using Linux as a desktop effectively.

throwawayswede 5y ago
That's a poor argument. Usually this happens to "tech savvy" people when they like to tinker with their system on daily basis and use bleeding edge software (since you have unlimited customizability, unlike the competition), you're bound to have issues. Normal users can just use an LTS release and (for the average user) they won't even be able to tell the difference. Talk to anyone who installs beta iOS versions and ask them how much crap they have to deal with.
- NhanH 5y ago
  There is a fairly high chance that beta iOS would smoke even Debian stable out of the window in term of stability for end users. I run Windows with Windows Insider enabled with Dev channel (basically the most beta Windows there is), and no Ubuntu version I've used came close to that Windows setup with regards to stability. I choose to use Linux despite the bad UX and bad stability for end user. Linux server (and packages) are supremely stable, but any package involving end-user stuffs (sounds, graphics, even Firefox) is an entirely different story altogether.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    Not a chance. I resent greatly the huge amount of time I spend troubleshooting Apple product when I would never use it. The quality is fine, but not exceptionally good, and things that are trivial on other OSes are often impossible or forbidden on Apple product. Even to a further extent than Microsoft, who have the disadvantage of not owning the hardware.
  - d110af5ccf 5y ago

onli 5y ago

The common Linux interfaces are very easy to decipher and have a good usability. Usability is measurable property, so that's not a guess, just a fact. Add to that the higher task purpose you can get with Linux (partly boosted by not having annoying blockers to get work done, like Windows ads and forced reboots) and the infinitely higher customizablity (for the user's needs and wants) and for general computer usage, there is no question that usability of Linux is higher. Of course, usability always depends on the specific task you have to do in a given context. It's possible that for the specific software you have to run for that task, that Windows or Apple software has the better usability. But that's far from the norm. Compatibility Linux wins though in general, it supports way more hardware and software. If you think proprietary software is better there: Get out of your bubble :) To get a bit away from this OT discussion: The PinePhone is just a very early project. It's also cheap. Of course it has issues, and they should be made clear to potential buyers. But to try to use that to smear FOSS software in general is dishonest trolling.

KronisLV 5y ago
> The common Linux interfaces are very easy to decipher and have a good usability. I feel like this is true only sometimes and even then probably from a particular point of view. For example, i use XFCE for my desktop computers with DEB based distros. Most of the time, things just work, do so pretty fast and not in a too resource intensive way (which would be a different story with GNOME, Cinnamon or KDE, all of which come close to the Windows desktop resource usage in some cases). However, there is also a lot of software out there, that relies on configuration files instead of UI configuration to get things done. Take Redshift (a bit like f.lux) as an example, in which you can't edit the screen colors at the different times of day through the UI, but rather have to look up how and where to create a configuration file with the values that you need. Furthermore, there is also a lot of software out there for *nix that doesn't have GUI front ends in the first place (unless someone has written one) or need to be installed from PPAs and such, or even necessitate messing around with AppImage or Flatpak ways of installation - all of those have their own reasons for existing, be it historical reasons or having to support a variety of system configurations, unlike just packaging an .exe file with some sort of an installer, but the bottom line is that this hinders usability for the common folk out there. > Of course, usability always depends on the specific task you have to do in a given context. Of course, the situation with drivers can also be somewhat challenging at times, unless you use the proprietary ones and even then you sometimes have to rely on solutions such as Wine (or Proton, but only for select games) to be able to enjoy games and some other interactive content. There is the upside of being able to use Mono to also run some of the .NET software and honestly the cross-OS interoperability of at least some software feels amazing just because it even exists in the first place, but admittedly there is too much Windows centric software out there that people will have to give up when moving to Linux distros. This definitely cannot be ignored, since many workflows out there are built around particular tools and their interfaces as well, which won't always be ported, given that they're proprietary. Actually, if Linux had a bigger market share, it'd get more attention, but sadly it's only dominant in the server space and has largely gone under the radar for desktop software. It seems to be changing, but slowly. To sum up: in my opinion, there are definitely plenty of challenges and thorns that make Linux harder to use. Many are not due to any fault of its own, but rather the historic market conditions. That said, i'm glad that it's even a viable option for desktop computing nowadays and things do seem to be getting better!

superasn 5y ago

I used to feel the exact same way until 2 years ago. But my experience has been absolutely brilliant with Linux mint in the last 2 years. No driver issues, super nice UI and everything just works now! As a matter of fact the only use I have for Windows now is for playing games (also Photoshop). Otoh the amount of clutter and issues I have to deal in Win10 is just bad. I digress but thankfully there is a tool called "Shutup 10" that makes Windows much less annoying.

KronisLV 5y ago
For anyone interested, here's the homepage of Linux Mint: https://linuxmint.com/ https://linuxmint.com/ It is based on Ubuntu and uses the Cinnamon desktop by default, however personally i also rather enjoy the XFCE spin, for example: https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4103 https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4103 To that end, i also enjoy smaller distributions like Xubuntu, which are just customized Ubuntu, should someone not necessarily want to use Mint in particular: https://xubuntu.org/ https://xubuntu.org/ Of course, the purists out there could also enjoy Debian because it relies more on free software instead of having proprietary drivers, but outside of the server space your experience might vary: https://www.debian.org/ https://www.debian.org/ Also, the Windows tool in question is O&O ShutUp10: https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10 However, it's unfortunate to have to run it after the occasional update, because Windows is kind enough to enable its spyware functionality automatically sometimes. /s
- stOneskull 5y ago
  i think if you are going to go with debian for the desktop, you may as well go with mx linux
deltaonefour 5y ago
I've used manjaro, ubuntu ,mint and even NixOS. I've hit numerous compatibility and usability issues that just doesn't happen in Windows or OSX. Also your post touches on the most important dimension. Gaming and graphics and cad. Have you tried doing this stuff on linux? The experience is clearly inferior. I think there's a psychological blocker here. You're aware Linux is shit for games and photoshop, but you still say linux is better because everything works! That's contradictory. Photoshop and games CLEARLY don't work according to your post which is the exact things I am talking about. Either way I've still had the Linux OS crash on me within the last month. Something that just doesn't happen ever with windows or OSX anymore.

matkoniecz 5y ago

> This is a very narrow perspective that is only inflated if you're in IT or on an IT related site like HN. And? I was responding to extremely overstated "open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones" Even if Linux would be worse for 99% of people who are less IT-centered than me then it would be still counterexample for "always". Open source project can be for 5 person worldwide without monetization plan. And beat commercial software for that people. If someone wants to make claim "for average person it is typical that..." then make it, but this hyperbole was clearly false.

deltaonefour 5y ago
My point is my point. Linux is generally inferior to windows from a usability standpoint. We can get rid of the word always if you want. Nobody cares for such semantics. Generalities exist and clearly that's what most people mean when they talk about this. Linux is generally much worse from a usability standpoint than windows. Your post made a claim Linux was the better OS, but not only is Linux not always better, it's not even generally better.