55 ms·

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

by 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.
- emerongi 5y ago
  Use Flatpaks instead.
- chousuke 5y ago
  I've found Fedora to strike a good balance between working out-of-the-box and getting out of my way when I want to customize it. I can't say how well KDE works because I don't use it but it is supported. With the half-year release cycle it stays fresher than Debian and I prefer DNF over APT anyway. I've never had any issues with application support, but even in the worst case you can always run an Ubuntu container or something.
  - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
    KDE on Fedora works great. I'm one of those people that has a hard time figuring out why people are complaining about desktop Linux. My Fedora+KDE does have some problems occasionally, but they are problems of my own making, such as compiling the entire graphics stack and kernel myself so I can use the cutting edge development versions...
    - chousuke 5y ago
      Yeah, that's my experience too. Fedora generally just works unless I break it myself. This system has seen 5 or 6 major release upgrades and the only time I've had issues was when I let the root disk fill up mid-upgrade, and even then it was easy to fix without a reinstall thanks to dnf distro-sync. Granted, I specifically chose my hardware to be Linux-compatible, which meant no nvidia and a bit of googling when choosing the motherboard, but even Windows would have issues with a lot of the shoddy hardware that's out there.
      - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
        My hardware wasn't even selected for Linux compatibility. Also, I've done in-place upgrades on this PC for the last 6 years. I did skip some versions though. As far as I can remember, nothing actually broke when doing upgrades ever. I love Fedora's in-place system upgrade, and it just keeps getting better.
        grey_earthling 5y ago
        I persuaded my partner to switch to Linux, because Windows is increasingly hostile if you don't want online services, accounts and offers. We went with Silverblue, because it Just Works™, it's simple to upgrade, and it's difficult to break (and it's what I've used for years now). One of my criteria when recommending a distro is "if I leave them alone with it for 10 years, would it be EOL (or broken)?" and IMO Silverblue makes major version upgrades much simpler than Ubuntu.
- wazoox 5y ago
  If you want Ubuntu without snaps, run Pop_OS. I'm using it and it's really fine.
- toastal 5y ago
  NixOS has been pretty good for me, but I wanted to learn Nix. I can repair issues a lat faster than other options and rollbacks are native.
- scns 5y ago
  I'd recommend looking at openSUSE tumbleweed. Best KDE integration IMHO. Well tested rolling release, snapshots on upgrade.
- _y5hn 5y ago
  Mint w/Xfce works for me. They purge snap by default, and support debian/Ubuntu packages. Actually I went a bit further and use i3 as WM. Tiling windows as God meant it to be.
MikusR 5y ago
At least Windows has audio.
- dqv 5y ago
  Linux audio has been great IME. I’ve never had any of the weird problems I have using the Windows audio stack.

by dqv 5y ago

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.
emerongi 5y ago
Use Flatpaks instead.
chousuke 5y ago
I've found Fedora to strike a good balance between working out-of-the-box and getting out of my way when I want to customize it. I can't say how well KDE works because I don't use it but it is supported. With the half-year release cycle it stays fresher than Debian and I prefer DNF over APT anyway. I've never had any issues with application support, but even in the worst case you can always run an Ubuntu container or something.
- BenjiWiebe 5y ago
  KDE on Fedora works great. I'm one of those people that has a hard time figuring out why people are complaining about desktop Linux. My Fedora+KDE does have some problems occasionally, but they are problems of my own making, such as compiling the entire graphics stack and kernel myself so I can use the cutting edge development versions...
  - chousuke 5y ago
    Yeah, that's my experience too. Fedora generally just works unless I break it myself. This system has seen 5 or 6 major release upgrades and the only time I've had issues was when I let the root disk fill up mid-upgrade, and even then it was easy to fix without a reinstall thanks to dnf distro-sync. Granted, I specifically chose my hardware to be Linux-compatible, which meant no nvidia and a bit of googling when choosing the motherboard, but even Windows would have issues with a lot of the shoddy hardware that's out there.
    - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
      My hardware wasn't even selected for Linux compatibility. Also, I've done in-place upgrades on this PC for the last 6 years. I did skip some versions though. As far as I can remember, nothing actually broke when doing upgrades ever. I love Fedora's in-place system upgrade, and it just keeps getting better.
      - grey_earthling 5y ago
        I persuaded my partner to switch to Linux, because Windows is increasingly hostile if you don't want online services, accounts and offers. We went with Silverblue, because it Just Works™, it's simple to upgrade, and it's difficult to break (and it's what I've used for years now). One of my criteria when recommending a distro is "if I leave them alone with it for 10 years, would it be EOL (or broken)?" and IMO Silverblue makes major version upgrades much simpler than Ubuntu.
wazoox 5y ago
If you want Ubuntu without snaps, run Pop_OS. I'm using it and it's really fine.
toastal 5y ago
NixOS has been pretty good for me, but I wanted to learn Nix. I can repair issues a lat faster than other options and rollbacks are native.
scns 5y ago
I'd recommend looking at openSUSE tumbleweed. Best KDE integration IMHO. Well tested rolling release, snapshots on upgrade.
_y5hn 5y ago
Mint w/Xfce works for me. They purge snap by default, and support debian/Ubuntu packages. Actually I went a bit further and use i3 as WM. Tiling windows as God meant it to be.

MikusR 5y ago

At least Windows has audio.

dqv 5y ago
Linux audio has been great IME. I’ve never had any of the weird problems I have using the Windows audio stack.