11 ms·

On the other hand, Linux is getting better and better. And with the prevalence of web apps, the main obstacle to running non (MS | Apple) systems is getting sma

On the other hand, Linux is getting better and better. And with the prevalence of web apps, the main obstacle to running non (MS | Apple) systems is getting smaller. With Linux, you can adjust the level of security you need and you keep the key. Security improvements appear also in BSDs, especially OpenBSD, but honestly I wouldn't recommend people used to macOS to switch to OpenBSD (yet).

robbyking 5y ago
It's the year of the Linux desktop!
- marricks 5y ago
  It always is! (in a good and bad way)
  - taylorfinley 5y ago
    That's the joke. It's been the 'Year of The Linux Desktop!' at least since my senior year of high school, which was all the way back in 2002.
    - pram 5y ago
      Although you could literally buy a desktop with Linux at Walmart in 2001 so, maybe that actually was the year.
      - IncRnd 5y ago
        Except, those quickly disappeared. That's the essence of the joke that was mentioned. Each year was called the year of the Linux Desktop, but it never happened.
        pram 5y ago
        I meant the 'year' had come and gone, 20 years ago.
        IncRnd 5y ago
        Gotcha! Thank you.
- motoboi 5y ago
  It has been Linux desktop year for at least 15 years now. The state of Linux Desktop has actually being getting worse, not better. From a top with Ubuntu in the first 5 years, to the sad state we see now.
  - kdtsh 5y ago
    Strongly disagree. The experience of Linux on desktop computers has never been better, and has been steadily improving for years. ‘Year of the Linux Desktop’ is of course a meme so it doesn’t really matter how long it has been current year, the fact is that every DE is improving and it has never been easier to be a Linux user. If there is any criticism that can be made, it’s that the amount of choice can be overwhelming - there are dozens of highly polished, functional distributions - but once you get past that there is no practical limit except the way that Microsoft products like Office are locked away (even this is improving, since you can use Office online).
  - thevagrant 5y ago
    Give KDE a try on Opensuse Tumbleweed or perhaps KDE Neon. Desktop on linux has improved a lot.
  - livinginfear 5y ago
    I understand that there are still some pain points for casual users. I first started using Linux on a daily basis in university in the mid 2000s. Back then, even distributions designed for casual users like Ubuntu had problems with everyday tasks like configuring multiple monitors. These days, I don't see any of those problems. I'm pretty confident I could give my parents a computer with Ubuntu 20 on it and they could probably figure out how to do their everyday tasks without any issues.
  - journey_16162 5y ago
    For a developer / power user Linux Desktop is years ahead of Mac OS. I recently bought a Macbook for testing and given how shiny it is, I had the thought to consider using it as a daily computer, but I could not switch because of the obstacles below and I continue being a happy Linux user: 1. Security. On Linux you can setup mandatory access control - i.e. AppArmor, SeLinux, and even if you don't want to fiddle with that, you can create mutliple users for multiple purposes to sandbox your data from untrusted apps. Running a program as another user is no problem on Linux - try it on Mac OS... (I did try it and it almost worked but things like select file dialog won't work, which makes it useless). By the way, Apple introduced some sandboxing capabilities in Catalina, but it's almost insulting because it only allows to restrict Desktop, Downloads and Trash directories, and not allowing the user to restrict other custom directories to certain apps only. And even for Desktop/Downloads it does not work reliably - i.e. I could not isolate a web browser from accessing desktop. 2. Privacy. I accidentally came upon article from a few years ago where it was revealed that Mac OS sends usage data to Apple or a third party on an unencrypted channel. Then there's the recent issue with client side scanning. 3. Desktop experience. This may be cosmetic but I don't like that Mac OS forces a slow 200ms fade animation when switching between desktops. You can't even switch back and forth too fast because the switching mechanism won't catch the hotkey if the slow fade animation is in progress. The hardware is good though. Really hoping M1 on Linux will become a thing.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  I can't even remember the last year desktop computing was relevant. Professionals absolutely use it, but the market share that has gone to phone, tablets, and chromebooks is incredible.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
Indeed. I switched to FreeBSD myself. Reasons were the excellent jails system, the ports collection, the ZFS on root (though Ubuntu is starting to offer that) and the great documentation. I also don't like the scale of corporate involvement in Linux development. In the end that leads to companies trying to insert their own IP with a view to monetisation (like Ubuntu with Mir, Upstart, now snaps). It's also the most suitable for a desktop system of all the BSDs I think. But it's not for everyone. For one the hardware support is limited. I didn't even bother trying to get the WiFi or bluetooth going (I run this on a pure desktop). For laptop use I'd use a flavour of Linux, though I'm not entirely sure which I'd use :) It also doesn't hold your hand as much as most Linux distros, though it's not nearly as barebones as arch either! I'd consider it something a bit in the middle like Manjaro. Overall I'm really happy with it though. I still use Macs for work though and I administered them for a long time. It's always a struggle if you need to do something that Apple doesn't really want you to do. You may get it working, but there's a good chance it'll get broken in whatever minor patch that's coming along without warning :) Unfortunately in a business with less than 1% Macs you can't always do things the Apple way.
- hackshack 5y ago
  A bit off-topic, but as a FreeBSD newbie: This summer I switched my ~6 home servers from CentOS to FreeBSD and absolutely love it. Trigger event was trying to set up a dedicated Linux VM for Ubiquiti's UniFi controller software. I was really fighting various dependencies in CentOS, then Ubuntu Server, then Debian... and saw that FreeBSD had an up-to-date package. Newbie FreeBSD user, from ISO install in a VM, to running Unifi Controller, took maybe 45 minutes. I was impressed and as I dug deeper, I began to appreciate its design. As a 20+ year Linux user and 10+ year paid Linux admin, BSD has really connected with me as a sysadmin. Besides the clean filesystem structure and updated docs, there's generally "one way to do something" (looking at you, Red Hat...) and surprisingly, the packages are more up to date than I'm used to in CentOS / Ubuntu Server, usually tracking the latest stable releases. For the core system, there appears to be no update churn as with Linux distros. After I discovered the FreeBSD images for the Raspberry Pi, it scratched my tinkerer itch and now... yeah. People joke about The Year of Linux on the Desktop, but I believe we've been there since ~2014, when Chromebooks started to really get good. Goes to show a full "desktop environment," as we know it, isn't always needed for a great experience.
smoldesu 5y ago
This, a million times. Now that Mojave is starting to get dropped, Linux is exactly what the doctor ordered for me. I feel a lot safer in a system where I can check the locks instead of being told "the door's closed, you're fine."
- bdamm 5y ago
  Make no mistake, there are back doors into Linux as well.
  - h4x0r12345 5y ago
    Back doors in the Linux kernel source code? No. Back doors in GNU/Linux distribution repositories? Maybe.
    - taylorfinley 5y ago
      You don't think, with all the resources available to them, the intelligence community would spend just about whatever it took to sneak a vulnerability or two into the most-run piece of code on the planet? The core devs don't even have to be corrupted--there are 28 million lines of code in the kernel, you don't think a motivated adversary could sneak something past the gate keepers?
      - h4x0r12345 5y ago
        It's well known that they've already tried to insert back doors many times. On the other side is a huge amount of resources auditing and reviewing the kernel. Many reviewers, auditors, security analysts.
        Hackbraten 5y ago
        Details about a few known attempts: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/54in5s/the_nsa_has_tried_to_backdoor_linux_three_times/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/54in5s/the_nsa_has_t...
breakfastduck 5y ago
You get that. And about a million tradeoffs in terms of usability. No thanks. Edit: To those downvoting. If you genueinly think running linux isn't a UIUX downgrade on macOS you are totally deluded. Its more open. Cool. It's also a UX nightmare.
- cosmic_quanta 5y ago
  For a new job I've switched to 100% Ubuntu from Windows and I'm not missing much.. What would you be giving up?
  - breakfastduck 5y ago
    You're not missing anything. Because we're talking about switching from two fundamentally different OS'es.
  - Pokepokalypse 5y ago
    office365 support? That's about it.
- salamandersauce 5y ago
  Nah. It's great. You can view hidden files in the file manager without memorizing a keyboard shortcut or terminal command. Most Window managers don't rely on track pad gestures and so the mouse feels like a first class citizen. Window management in the big DEs is better than macOS. MacOS is a frustrating mess to me.
  - rsfinn 5y ago
    To each their own, I guess; in case anyone else is wondering: "keyboard shortcut": Command-Shift-period "terminal command": defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles yes
  - breakfastduck 5y ago
    The vast majority of users (the U in UX) do not ever need to see a dotfile. In fact, you'd not want them anywhere near one.

robbyking 5y ago

It's the year of the Linux desktop!

marricks 5y ago
It always is! (in a good and bad way)
- taylorfinley 5y ago
  That's the joke. It's been the 'Year of The Linux Desktop!' at least since my senior year of high school, which was all the way back in 2002.
  - pram 5y ago
    Although you could literally buy a desktop with Linux at Walmart in 2001 so, maybe that actually was the year.
    - IncRnd 5y ago
      Except, those quickly disappeared. That's the essence of the joke that was mentioned. Each year was called the year of the Linux Desktop, but it never happened.
      - pram 5y ago
        I meant the 'year' had come and gone, 20 years ago.
        IncRnd 5y ago
        Gotcha! Thank you.
motoboi 5y ago
It has been Linux desktop year for at least 15 years now. The state of Linux Desktop has actually being getting worse, not better. From a top with Ubuntu in the first 5 years, to the sad state we see now.
- kdtsh 5y ago
  Strongly disagree. The experience of Linux on desktop computers has never been better, and has been steadily improving for years. ‘Year of the Linux Desktop’ is of course a meme so it doesn’t really matter how long it has been current year, the fact is that every DE is improving and it has never been easier to be a Linux user. If there is any criticism that can be made, it’s that the amount of choice can be overwhelming - there are dozens of highly polished, functional distributions - but once you get past that there is no practical limit except the way that Microsoft products like Office are locked away (even this is improving, since you can use Office online).
- thevagrant 5y ago
  Give KDE a try on Opensuse Tumbleweed or perhaps KDE Neon. Desktop on linux has improved a lot.
- livinginfear 5y ago
  I understand that there are still some pain points for casual users. I first started using Linux on a daily basis in university in the mid 2000s. Back then, even distributions designed for casual users like Ubuntu had problems with everyday tasks like configuring multiple monitors. These days, I don't see any of those problems. I'm pretty confident I could give my parents a computer with Ubuntu 20 on it and they could probably figure out how to do their everyday tasks without any issues.
- journey_16162 5y ago
  For a developer / power user Linux Desktop is years ahead of Mac OS. I recently bought a Macbook for testing and given how shiny it is, I had the thought to consider using it as a daily computer, but I could not switch because of the obstacles below and I continue being a happy Linux user: 1. Security. On Linux you can setup mandatory access control - i.e. AppArmor, SeLinux, and even if you don't want to fiddle with that, you can create mutliple users for multiple purposes to sandbox your data from untrusted apps. Running a program as another user is no problem on Linux - try it on Mac OS... (I did try it and it almost worked but things like select file dialog won't work, which makes it useless). By the way, Apple introduced some sandboxing capabilities in Catalina, but it's almost insulting because it only allows to restrict Desktop, Downloads and Trash directories, and not allowing the user to restrict other custom directories to certain apps only. And even for Desktop/Downloads it does not work reliably - i.e. I could not isolate a web browser from accessing desktop. 2. Privacy. I accidentally came upon article from a few years ago where it was revealed that Mac OS sends usage data to Apple or a third party on an unencrypted channel. Then there's the recent issue with client side scanning. 3. Desktop experience. This may be cosmetic but I don't like that Mac OS forces a slow 200ms fade animation when switching between desktops. You can't even switch back and forth too fast because the switching mechanism won't catch the hotkey if the slow fade animation is in progress. The hardware is good though. Really hoping M1 on Linux will become a thing.
dehrmann 5y ago
I can't even remember the last year desktop computing was relevant. Professionals absolutely use it, but the market share that has gone to phone, tablets, and chromebooks is incredible.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

Indeed. I switched to FreeBSD myself. Reasons were the excellent jails system, the ports collection, the ZFS on root (though Ubuntu is starting to offer that) and the great documentation. I also don't like the scale of corporate involvement in Linux development. In the end that leads to companies trying to insert their own IP with a view to monetisation (like Ubuntu with Mir, Upstart, now snaps). It's also the most suitable for a desktop system of all the BSDs I think. But it's not for everyone. For one the hardware support is limited. I didn't even bother trying to get the WiFi or bluetooth going (I run this on a pure desktop). For laptop use I'd use a flavour of Linux, though I'm not entirely sure which I'd use :) It also doesn't hold your hand as much as most Linux distros, though it's not nearly as barebones as arch either! I'd consider it something a bit in the middle like Manjaro. Overall I'm really happy with it though. I still use Macs for work though and I administered them for a long time. It's always a struggle if you need to do something that Apple doesn't really want you to do. You may get it working, but there's a good chance it'll get broken in whatever minor patch that's coming along without warning :) Unfortunately in a business with less than 1% Macs you can't always do things the Apple way.

hackshack 5y ago
A bit off-topic, but as a FreeBSD newbie: This summer I switched my ~6 home servers from CentOS to FreeBSD and absolutely love it. Trigger event was trying to set up a dedicated Linux VM for Ubiquiti's UniFi controller software. I was really fighting various dependencies in CentOS, then Ubuntu Server, then Debian... and saw that FreeBSD had an up-to-date package. Newbie FreeBSD user, from ISO install in a VM, to running Unifi Controller, took maybe 45 minutes. I was impressed and as I dug deeper, I began to appreciate its design. As a 20+ year Linux user and 10+ year paid Linux admin, BSD has really connected with me as a sysadmin. Besides the clean filesystem structure and updated docs, there's generally "one way to do something" (looking at you, Red Hat...) and surprisingly, the packages are more up to date than I'm used to in CentOS / Ubuntu Server, usually tracking the latest stable releases. For the core system, there appears to be no update churn as with Linux distros. After I discovered the FreeBSD images for the Raspberry Pi, it scratched my tinkerer itch and now... yeah. People joke about The Year of Linux on the Desktop, but I believe we've been there since ~2014, when Chromebooks started to really get good. Goes to show a full "desktop environment," as we know it, isn't always needed for a great experience.

smoldesu 5y ago

This, a million times. Now that Mojave is starting to get dropped, Linux is exactly what the doctor ordered for me. I feel a lot safer in a system where I can check the locks instead of being told "the door's closed, you're fine."

bdamm 5y ago
Make no mistake, there are back doors into Linux as well.
- h4x0r12345 5y ago
  Back doors in the Linux kernel source code? No. Back doors in GNU/Linux distribution repositories? Maybe.
  - taylorfinley 5y ago
    You don't think, with all the resources available to them, the intelligence community would spend just about whatever it took to sneak a vulnerability or two into the most-run piece of code on the planet? The core devs don't even have to be corrupted--there are 28 million lines of code in the kernel, you don't think a motivated adversary could sneak something past the gate keepers?
    - h4x0r12345 5y ago
      It's well known that they've already tried to insert back doors many times. On the other side is a huge amount of resources auditing and reviewing the kernel. Many reviewers, auditors, security analysts.
      - Hackbraten 5y ago
        Details about a few known attempts: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/54in5s/the_nsa_has_tried_to_backdoor_linux_three_times/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/54in5s/the_nsa_has_t...

breakfastduck 5y ago

You get that. And about a million tradeoffs in terms of usability. No thanks. Edit: To those downvoting. If you genueinly think running linux isn't a UIUX downgrade on macOS you are totally deluded. Its more open. Cool. It's also a UX nightmare.

cosmic_quanta 5y ago
For a new job I've switched to 100% Ubuntu from Windows and I'm not missing much.. What would you be giving up?
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  You're not missing anything. Because we're talking about switching from two fundamentally different OS'es.
- Pokepokalypse 5y ago
  office365 support? That's about it.
salamandersauce 5y ago
Nah. It's great. You can view hidden files in the file manager without memorizing a keyboard shortcut or terminal command. Most Window managers don't rely on track pad gestures and so the mouse feels like a first class citizen. Window management in the big DEs is better than macOS. MacOS is a frustrating mess to me.
- rsfinn 5y ago
  To each their own, I guess; in case anyone else is wondering: "keyboard shortcut": Command-Shift-period "terminal command": defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles yes
- breakfastduck 5y ago
  The vast majority of users (the U in UX) do not ever need to see a dotfile. In fact, you'd not want them anywhere near one.