4 ms·

After 30 years on Windows I switched this month to Linux, for pretty much the same reason. It's great. And it feels so fast. All my software exists natively on

by ArnoVW 5y ago

After 30 years on Windows I switched this month to Linux, for pretty much the same reason. It's great. And it feels so fast. All my software exists natively on Linux (minecraft and game emulators for the kids, KNIME, Intellij, and Blender is a lot faster on Linux). No Word or PowerPoint, but there's Libre Office and it's good enough. Who'd have thought that 2021 would be the year of Linux on the desktop. Not because it has gradually improved (it has), but because the alternative has declined so much.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
I've been saying something to that effect for years, actually. Here's an example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18150284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18150284 > As a vocal critic of the Linux Desktop, even I feel that soon Microsoft will have succeeded in making Windows so horrifically awful and user-hostile that the Linux Desktop will start to look good by comparison.
franczesko 5y ago
With Google Docs, Microsoft Office (maybe besides Excel) is pretty much redundant.
- zibzab 5y ago
  Only if you never work with other people, who use office for whatever reason. Also, not everyone wants their files in the cloud. Although that's getting harder and harder with Office too.
  - jacob019 5y ago
    LibreOffice reads and writes MSOffice files just fine. I do it every day. Maybe there are some edge cases that affect someone, but it's never been an issue for me.
- FourthProtocol 5y ago
  I will stick with MS Office. I can use it when disconnected from everything, and (note hyperbole, but the cynicism is real) I avoid the creepy feeling that Google is logging every mouse movement and keystoke I make for teh ads. In fact I welcome my evil Microsoft overlord any day before I use something from Google. I see MS as the lesser of two evils.
  - a5aAqU 5y ago
    > I avoid the creepy feeling that Google is logging every mouse movement and keystoke I make for teh ads. Microsoft is doing it too: https://www.pcworld.com/article/423165/how-to-turn-off-windows-10s-keylogger-yes-it-still-has-one.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/423165/how-to-turn-off-windo... There's still Linux.
    - FourthProtocol 5y ago
      Always with the Linux. I can't use Linux, I work in a Microsoft world. I can turn off the keylogger, and virtually anything else I don't want/like. I cannot (assuming I used their products) stop Google from storing my (MY!!) data on their infrastructure and having their way with it.
      - ranguna 5y ago
        Have you tried libre office? And if you really need offline editing, you can still have all the pros of Linux + office if you install a Windows VM escape hatch just for Word.
        FourthProtocol 5y ago
        Yes I've tried Libre. ODT files don't play well with MS Office. Pivot tables in Calc are... frustrating. No OneNote, no Outlook, no Visio. Linux doesn't work on my hardware, and Visual Studio doesn't work on Linux. The distribution fragmentation... I'm expected to install flavour X or Y of Linux not actually knowing before I start that my hardware even supports it? Brain = explode. Joining a community (Linux) that stomps all over people that have a dissenting view (I actually like Windows - have done since I started using it in 1990) is philosophically not a community I want part of (Stallman is an exception I have a lot of time and respect for). A VM adds complexity - why would I do that when native Windows is pain-free and just works? And no, I don't "need" offline editing, I just want it. After all the cloud is a computer just like mine - that happens to belong to someone else. The cloud introduces a risk of data theft and complete data loss. And yes, probability is low, but impact and exposure are both very VERY high. I don't run that risk at all using my own hardware.
- Blammar 5y ago
  Sadly, not for me. Google docs has a hard failure mode in that if your document is hundreds of megabytes in size, docs backs your document up every few keystrokes and everything slows down to a crawl. I couldn't figure out how to turn this auto backup off.
- AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
  At this point I think if you desperately need MS Office, MacOS is the way to go. I will never buy a Windows machine again, and being forced to use it in a work setting would be a deal-breaker. Fortunately at this point even MS isn't stupid enough to make that a requirement as far as I'm aware.
- api 5y ago
  ... unless you want to own your own data and not be data mined.
PretzelSweat 5y ago
What distro did you choose to run?
- ArnoVW 5y ago
  Ubuntu LTS. It also serves for my wife and (small) kids so something easy that works out of the box. It's great because it gives the kids a computer that's 'theirs' but I can manage their freedom to the level that they're ready for (access to internet etc). And the oldest one (9y) already started to meddle with shell scripts so the experiment seems to work =)
zibzab 5y ago
I use multiple platforms at work and that's really the biggest difference to me. Linux is much faster, like a lot! Specially on older hardware. And not only the filesystem and that stuff. With recent gnome versions the interface is much more fluid too.

by ArnoVW 5y ago

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

I've been saying something to that effect for years, actually. Here's an example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18150284 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18150284 > As a vocal critic of the Linux Desktop, even I feel that soon Microsoft will have succeeded in making Windows so horrifically awful and user-hostile that the Linux Desktop will start to look good by comparison.

franczesko 5y ago

With Google Docs, Microsoft Office (maybe besides Excel) is pretty much redundant.

zibzab 5y ago
Only if you never work with other people, who use office for whatever reason. Also, not everyone wants their files in the cloud. Although that's getting harder and harder with Office too.
- jacob019 5y ago
  LibreOffice reads and writes MSOffice files just fine. I do it every day. Maybe there are some edge cases that affect someone, but it's never been an issue for me.
FourthProtocol 5y ago
I will stick with MS Office. I can use it when disconnected from everything, and (note hyperbole, but the cynicism is real) I avoid the creepy feeling that Google is logging every mouse movement and keystoke I make for teh ads. In fact I welcome my evil Microsoft overlord any day before I use something from Google. I see MS as the lesser of two evils.
- a5aAqU 5y ago
  > I avoid the creepy feeling that Google is logging every mouse movement and keystoke I make for teh ads. Microsoft is doing it too: https://www.pcworld.com/article/423165/how-to-turn-off-windows-10s-keylogger-yes-it-still-has-one.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/423165/how-to-turn-off-windo... There's still Linux.
  - FourthProtocol 5y ago
    Always with the Linux. I can't use Linux, I work in a Microsoft world. I can turn off the keylogger, and virtually anything else I don't want/like. I cannot (assuming I used their products) stop Google from storing my (MY!!) data on their infrastructure and having their way with it.
    - ranguna 5y ago
      Have you tried libre office? And if you really need offline editing, you can still have all the pros of Linux + office if you install a Windows VM escape hatch just for Word.
      - FourthProtocol 5y ago
        Yes I've tried Libre. ODT files don't play well with MS Office. Pivot tables in Calc are... frustrating. No OneNote, no Outlook, no Visio. Linux doesn't work on my hardware, and Visual Studio doesn't work on Linux. The distribution fragmentation... I'm expected to install flavour X or Y of Linux not actually knowing before I start that my hardware even supports it? Brain = explode. Joining a community (Linux) that stomps all over people that have a dissenting view (I actually like Windows - have done since I started using it in 1990) is philosophically not a community I want part of (Stallman is an exception I have a lot of time and respect for). A VM adds complexity - why would I do that when native Windows is pain-free and just works? And no, I don't "need" offline editing, I just want it. After all the cloud is a computer just like mine - that happens to belong to someone else. The cloud introduces a risk of data theft and complete data loss. And yes, probability is low, but impact and exposure are both very VERY high. I don't run that risk at all using my own hardware.
Blammar 5y ago
Sadly, not for me. Google docs has a hard failure mode in that if your document is hundreds of megabytes in size, docs backs your document up every few keystrokes and everything slows down to a crawl. I couldn't figure out how to turn this auto backup off.
AstroDogCatcher 5y ago
At this point I think if you desperately need MS Office, MacOS is the way to go. I will never buy a Windows machine again, and being forced to use it in a work setting would be a deal-breaker. Fortunately at this point even MS isn't stupid enough to make that a requirement as far as I'm aware.
api 5y ago
... unless you want to own your own data and not be data mined.

PretzelSweat 5y ago

What distro did you choose to run?

ArnoVW 5y ago
Ubuntu LTS. It also serves for my wife and (small) kids so something easy that works out of the box. It's great because it gives the kids a computer that's 'theirs' but I can manage their freedom to the level that they're ready for (access to internet etc). And the oldest one (9y) already started to meddle with shell scripts so the experiment seems to work =)

zibzab 5y ago

I use multiple platforms at work and that's really the biggest difference to me. Linux is much faster, like a lot! Specially on older hardware. And not only the filesystem and that stuff. With recent gnome versions the interface is much more fluid too.