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I’ve always found that windows is free as in beer, but Linux is just some jerk handing you bunch of grain and hops and a vague diagram of what to do next. It’s

I’ve always found that windows is free as in beer, but Linux is just some jerk handing you bunch of grain and hops and a vague diagram of what to do next. It’s free, and it’ll make beer, but it might also make weird oatmeal instead.

tartoran 5y ago
Depends on distribution. Ubuntu works quite well out of the box for a lot of hardware. It’s great for basic usage like editing docs, browsing the web etc.
- zamalek 5y ago
  I found that Manjaro just works, which is super confounding: Arch is supposed to be one of the nerdier distros. I've thrown Manjaro (and now pure Arch) at my Linux-hostile laptop, and everything works. Provided you have access to good internet Arch is almost like off-cloud-SaaS on your machine, and that model makes tons of sense for desktop usage. Printers, the bloody cursed things, are far more reliable than Windows. In terms of hardware support, Ubuntu comes really close. The Linux desktop has come very far in the past few years.
  - tartoran 5y ago
    Good to know. I will give it a try too
  - mikro2nd 5y ago
    I very recently took a look at Manjaro to replace Kubuntu and the fucking trashfire that is snap, but got stuck on several apps that I use all the time not being available through their repo. And yes, I could go all Gentoo and `configure && make install` but really... I no longer have the time and patience for that. And sadly, no, I do not have good internet, so that's an interesting thing to note.
    - jdright 5y ago
      can you cite an example of missing app? my experience with Manjaro and Arch tells me you're doing somerhing wrong.
      - mikro2nd 5y ago
        Quite likely you're right; I didn't spend time digging deep. I may yet make the switch...
        zamalek 5y ago
        Enable AUR: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repository https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repository You could also try Fedora, I ran that for a while and it's also really good.
dqv 5y ago
Windows is free as in beer until it decides arbitrarily that you can’t output audio from certain applications on certain sound devices. Or how about arbitrarily deciding that the volume output on my headset should be 90% lower? Please go through a painful troubleshooting process that results in losing 15 minutes of your time and then having to reinstall the drivers anyway. By the way, did you need to change some audio settings? No not that audio control panel, the other one (changes in that audio control panel don’t actually have an effect)! Or that some wifi settings should just be hidden and inaccessible even from the command line (I mean who would need to set a static IP anyway). Or meh let’s not respect your selected times for scheduled updates and just do it whenever Windows wants (this will only take an hour or so ;). Oops, the start menu can’t search local applications anymore for some reason, but maybe bing search results will work. Did you want to pay $100 to upgrade this Windows 10 Home PC to Pro? Ok we charged your card. :( Something went wrong and we couldn’t complete the upgrade. Please proceed to spend 1 hour getting in touch with Microsoft support. Oh, we know it says you don’t need a license key and we didn’t send you one, but you actually need one so use this key. And honestly all of this would be acceptable except I have zero control over what it’s doing. You can get this exact same experience on Linux except you have full control over everything. So just give me the weird Linux oatmeal, at least I can pick what spices go in it.
- mikro2nd 5y ago
  +1 - I laughed. (Haven't used Windows in 20 years, but it's all just so much deja vu) BUT. I used to have full control. And then Ubuntu foisted snap on me and now I have to suffer the constant worry that snapd might choose to update some trivial piece of shit right when I need to be doing something actually important. So, yes, I just did `sudo apt purge snapd` but now I'm stuck with messing with the oatmeal for a couple of applications, and that's likely to increase as time goes by. I'm in the market for a new distro, but would prefer to stick with something based on Debian/apt because of the rich app ecosystem. Oh, and KDE.
  - dqv 5y ago
    I can’t say much about the KDE experience on Debian, but Debian with Gnome was my daily driver for many years and I didn’t have much trouble with it. I’m on more exotic distros as of late, but if something happens, I always have Debian to fall back on. My only problem with the Debian lineage is it holds me back on older software versions and their unstable is … unstable as advertised, haha.
teitoklien 5y ago
> Just some “jerk” handing you a vague diagram Seriously ? , You look at docs provided by stuff like archiwiki, gentoowiki, man pages, tldr tools, whole bunch of other cool blogs helping you around with setting things up, entire web forums, matrix rooms, irc chats, mailing lists, and all sorts of other places to get help from. And it is a jerk handing you a “vague” diagram?. ..... idk, if you can’t read a manual, then say so. A person doesn't become a jerk to provide you with one. I understand linux/bsd variants of open source operating systems can be unviable/hard to use for people. Doesn't mean the builders become a jerk just because you cant match it to your usecase.
- wwtrv 5y ago
  One might argue that you shouldn’t need a manual to do many of the things on Linux you definitely need a manual for.
  - teitoklien 5y ago
    Those who argue that , should not use the tools provided which definitely need a manual for. There are extensive manuals and documents for those tools, because of the flexibility and freedom they provide, its a lot harder on windows to code a script to change my display screen's color tone , depending on my mood, time of the day, or any way i want to, meanwhile with xrandr and a bash script, its just 3 lines away from me. To some people it might be unacceptable to even just operate with xrandr or similar such commandline tools, but then, why are you trying to use these tools in the first place ?, use mac, windows or a linux distro which is more hands free like Ubuntu, or Deepin or Pop_Os. My point was someone isn't a jerk, for providing that flexibility or freedom, no one likes to write huge manuals or documents, they do it out of kindness to help others use their tools, I just think it's wrong to call people like that jerks.
  - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
    And I'd argue that the need for manuals on Linux is greatly overstated.
- abakker 5y ago
  Man, I was making a joke. Obviously maintainers of documentation aren’t jerks. I’m usually good at reading documentation. I’ve run Ubuntu on a laptop for a year or two in the past, but the headaches of audio and Wi-Fi drivers were beyond documentation, and well into SO and google rabbit holes. Ultimately I gave up and reverted to Mac. If my choice was windows or Linux, I might choose Linux, but as long as I can keep Mac OS, I’ll probably not use either.
timeon 5y ago
> handing you bunch of grain and hops Which is still quite comfortable. Imagine you would have to wait one year for the grapes.

tartoran 5y ago

Depends on distribution. Ubuntu works quite well out of the box for a lot of hardware. It’s great for basic usage like editing docs, browsing the web etc.

zamalek 5y ago
I found that Manjaro just works, which is super confounding: Arch is supposed to be one of the nerdier distros. I've thrown Manjaro (and now pure Arch) at my Linux-hostile laptop, and everything works. Provided you have access to good internet Arch is almost like off-cloud-SaaS on your machine, and that model makes tons of sense for desktop usage. Printers, the bloody cursed things, are far more reliable than Windows. In terms of hardware support, Ubuntu comes really close. The Linux desktop has come very far in the past few years.
- tartoran 5y ago
  Good to know. I will give it a try too
- mikro2nd 5y ago
  I very recently took a look at Manjaro to replace Kubuntu and the fucking trashfire that is snap, but got stuck on several apps that I use all the time not being available through their repo. And yes, I could go all Gentoo and `configure && make install` but really... I no longer have the time and patience for that. And sadly, no, I do not have good internet, so that's an interesting thing to note.
  - jdright 5y ago
    can you cite an example of missing app? my experience with Manjaro and Arch tells me you're doing somerhing wrong.
    - mikro2nd 5y ago
      Quite likely you're right; I didn't spend time digging deep. I may yet make the switch...
      - zamalek 5y ago
        Enable AUR: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repository https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repository You could also try Fedora, I ran that for a while and it's also really good.

dqv 5y ago

Windows is free as in beer until it decides arbitrarily that you can’t output audio from certain applications on certain sound devices. Or how about arbitrarily deciding that the volume output on my headset should be 90% lower? Please go through a painful troubleshooting process that results in losing 15 minutes of your time and then having to reinstall the drivers anyway. By the way, did you need to change some audio settings? No not that audio control panel, the other one (changes in that audio control panel don’t actually have an effect)! Or that some wifi settings should just be hidden and inaccessible even from the command line (I mean who would need to set a static IP anyway). Or meh let’s not respect your selected times for scheduled updates and just do it whenever Windows wants (this will only take an hour or so ;). Oops, the start menu can’t search local applications anymore for some reason, but maybe bing search results will work. Did you want to pay $100 to upgrade this Windows 10 Home PC to Pro? Ok we charged your card. :( Something went wrong and we couldn’t complete the upgrade. Please proceed to spend 1 hour getting in touch with Microsoft support. Oh, we know it says you don’t need a license key and we didn’t send you one, but you actually need one so use this key. And honestly all of this would be acceptable except I have zero control over what it’s doing. You can get this exact same experience on Linux except you have full control over everything. So just give me the weird Linux oatmeal, at least I can pick what spices go in it.

mikro2nd 5y ago
+1 - I laughed. (Haven't used Windows in 20 years, but it's all just so much deja vu) BUT. I used to have full control. And then Ubuntu foisted snap on me and now I have to suffer the constant worry that snapd might choose to update some trivial piece of shit right when I need to be doing something actually important. So, yes, I just did `sudo apt purge snapd` but now I'm stuck with messing with the oatmeal for a couple of applications, and that's likely to increase as time goes by. I'm in the market for a new distro, but would prefer to stick with something based on Debian/apt because of the rich app ecosystem. Oh, and KDE.
- dqv 5y ago
  I can’t say much about the KDE experience on Debian, but Debian with Gnome was my daily driver for many years and I didn’t have much trouble with it. I’m on more exotic distros as of late, but if something happens, I always have Debian to fall back on. My only problem with the Debian lineage is it holds me back on older software versions and their unstable is … unstable as advertised, haha.

teitoklien 5y ago

> Just some “jerk” handing you a vague diagram Seriously ? , You look at docs provided by stuff like archiwiki, gentoowiki, man pages, tldr tools, whole bunch of other cool blogs helping you around with setting things up, entire web forums, matrix rooms, irc chats, mailing lists, and all sorts of other places to get help from. And it is a jerk handing you a “vague” diagram?. ..... idk, if you can’t read a manual, then say so. A person doesn't become a jerk to provide you with one. I understand linux/bsd variants of open source operating systems can be unviable/hard to use for people. Doesn't mean the builders become a jerk just because you cant match it to your usecase.

wwtrv 5y ago
One might argue that you shouldn’t need a manual to do many of the things on Linux you definitely need a manual for.
- teitoklien 5y ago
  Those who argue that , should not use the tools provided which definitely need a manual for. There are extensive manuals and documents for those tools, because of the flexibility and freedom they provide, its a lot harder on windows to code a script to change my display screen's color tone , depending on my mood, time of the day, or any way i want to, meanwhile with xrandr and a bash script, its just 3 lines away from me. To some people it might be unacceptable to even just operate with xrandr or similar such commandline tools, but then, why are you trying to use these tools in the first place ?, use mac, windows or a linux distro which is more hands free like Ubuntu, or Deepin or Pop_Os. My point was someone isn't a jerk, for providing that flexibility or freedom, no one likes to write huge manuals or documents, they do it out of kindness to help others use their tools, I just think it's wrong to call people like that jerks.
- BenjiWiebe 5y ago
  And I'd argue that the need for manuals on Linux is greatly overstated.
abakker 5y ago
Man, I was making a joke. Obviously maintainers of documentation aren’t jerks. I’m usually good at reading documentation. I’ve run Ubuntu on a laptop for a year or two in the past, but the headaches of audio and Wi-Fi drivers were beyond documentation, and well into SO and google rabbit holes. Ultimately I gave up and reverted to Mac. If my choice was windows or Linux, I might choose Linux, but as long as I can keep Mac OS, I’ll probably not use either.

timeon 5y ago

> handing you bunch of grain and hops Which is still quite comfortable. Imagine you would have to wait one year for the grapes.