10 ms·

I read a lot of comments here wanting to block the connections, but wouldn’t be easier/better to switch to an OS that doesn’t spy you? The answers possibly is n

I read a lot of comments here wanting to block the connections, but wouldn’t be easier/better to switch to an OS that doesn’t spy you? The answers possibly is no, because they might use X or Y that requires them to use Windows, so a better question is, what holds you back to switch to Linux? (macOS also talks to a lot of servers and collect telemetry as Windows, maybe in a different scale, so isn’t an alternative if you are worried about your data being collected). I personally prefer Linux, but what’s holding me are the streaming services (netflix, amazon, etc), I can only watch SD content if I’m on Linux, so my second opinion is macOS, I can watch at least in a decent resolution and also their notebooks are the best ones out there (the air is amazing between price, performance and battery life) for my use case, that’s also work.

rob_c 4y ago
> I personally prefer Linux, but what’s holding me are the streaming services Yes but then these turn off, drop the content you were watching with little/no warning and are unreliable. Buy physical media while you can at least then you have a licence to watch it when you please until the media degrades. (Or better in the territories which allow for backing up across media formats)
- indymike 4y ago
  I've never had a problem watching streaming stuff on Linux.
  - norman784 4y ago
    It might be changed? I remember back in 2020 when I wanted to watch something I was dual booting to windows, because Amazon was streaming at 720p and Netflix 1080p, so the only option to watch in a good resolution UHD was an OS that has a browser with a signed DRM system.
  - rob_c 4y ago
    True, it's a problem that money solves. But frankly I'd rather keep the money as I'm content rewatching my favourite shows off disk.
pmoriarty 4y ago
Another option to consider is FreeBSD, which can be especially attractive for those of us who want to avoid systemd.
- cowtools 4y ago
  There are non-systemd linux distros like alpine and gentoo. With elogind and such, you can run gnome and such without systemd.
  - pmoriarty 4y ago
    I've run Gentoo since 2004, and all the non-stop compiling has finally driven me away from that distro. It's just too much of a waste of time, a drain on my system's resources and wear on my disks. It used to be bearable back in the day, but now software has gotten so bloated that compiling it all constantly is just ridiculous... especially on older, slower systems.
    - cowtools 4y ago
      I agree. Gentoo ought to have better binpkgs support. Alpine is a nice alternative, albeit it doesn't have USE flags.
- Sentient-HN 4y ago
  why not just use another init system? I've had great experiences with runit, and they say s6 is good as well.
  - pmoriarty 4y ago
    It's not so easy to ditch systemd on a lot of distros, because it's tied so closely in to everything else. Also, I don't know about you but I don't want to waste my time writing init scripts for every application I run that needs them. I'd much rather just use a distro that has already written them for me.
- circularfoyers 4y ago
lelanthran 4y ago
> I personally prefer Linux, but what’s holding me are the streaming services (netflix, amazon, etc), I can only watch SD content if I’m on Linux, I hadn't noticed. Wife's 43" TV is connected to a linux box with firefox that is used for Amazon Prime, Netflix AND Disney+. I haven't noticed poor picture and assumed it ran at 1096x1080. I will certainly have to check this out.
- norman784 4y ago
  Back in 2020 I couldn't stream from Amazon at a higher res than 720p from linux (tried every browser), as soon as I dual booted to Windows the quality improved a lot. Could it be that you are using Plex, Kodi or similar that might allows you to stream at a good quality?
  - ridgered4 4y ago
    I'm guessing that (like myself) he probably just isn't that picky about it. The only IQ issues that I see that frequently bothers me is washed out dithering in dark scenes or low quality due to connection hiccups. I don't think UHD would improve either of those.
    - lelanthran 4y ago
      > I'm guessing that (like myself) he probably just isn't that picky about it. Correct, see my reply to myself upthread.
- qwertox 4y ago
  I just checked on Ubuntu Desktop in Firefox and yes, Full HD is not an option.
- nvrspyx 4y ago
  For at least Netflix, there's no way to stream above 720p since Widevine only allows security level 2 on Linux.
- lelanthran 4y ago
moonchrome 4y ago
I recently considered installing Linux on my desktop workstation. Then I decided I wanted to buy a wireless card for the machine - and any device I saw available locally had dubious issue/debugging threads online, people unable to get it to work, BT functionality missing, etc. I've used Linux desktop in the past and it looks like things haven't changed much. I don't like the idea of having to compile kernel modules just to get my machine to work (and then having to do it on each distro upgrade) - I have better things to do with my time.
- sph 4y ago
  There's just one brand of Wifi that's crap under linux and that's broadcom. Are you telling me you can't find an Intel wireless module anywhere? Also, if you use a modern distro instead of, say, gentoo, you don't have to compile anything yourself, there's packages and dkms available if you really have to go with broadcom. Do you not install drivers on Windows?
  - norman784 4y ago
    Indeed I bought a while ago one of those pci-e cards that comes with the same BT/wireless that Apple uses, it wasn't that hard to make it work but if it works out of the box, then better, also I think the intel wireless chips are one of the best ones out there.
  - moonchrome 4y ago
    All of the models I was looking into were Intel based - but I could't find any info if they are actually supported/tested - and just threads people complaining they can't get them to work on their distro or can't get BT to work.
- skepticalwaves 4y ago
  You can find and buy Intel AC series wifi cards meant for laptops on PCIe surfboards with external antennas. They're plug and play and fantasfic
  - 4y ago
baisq 4y ago
Sure, as soon as an operating system with a good Win32/DirectX/Windows HAL implementation appears, I will be the first one to switch. ReactOS perhaps?
- fsflover 4y ago
  Try Qubes OS: https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/windows/ https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/windows/.
- cowtools 4y ago
  I think it will be implemented by proton/wine first
kekebo 4y ago
It can come down to one program that doesn't have a good alternative on another OS, my version of that are the DAWs / music production tools I know and love. Wine solves a lot of this (but not all) for Windows programs, the macOS equivalent Darling[0] seems to still has some way to go until GUI programs are reliably supported. [0] https://github.com/darlinghq/darling https://github.com/darlinghq/darling
- Akepa 4y ago
  Bitwig is the best Linux DAW in my experience, although it isn't FOSS. Running third party VSTs is also much more of a pain if even possible. I'm also stuck with Logic... for now at least.
  - zambal 4y ago
    It guess it depends a lot on personal preferences and expectations, but I'm very content with my Bitwig setup on Linux. There are obviously a lot less native third party VST plugins available on Linux, so if you already own lots of them and want to make a switch that could be a problem, but if you're just starting out, there's more than enough available: https://www.kvraudio.com/plugins/linux/vst-plugins https://www.kvraudio.com/plugins/linux/vst-plugins
    - bodge5000 4y ago
      yeh plugins ended up being a big thing for me, but in the end I decided I'd rather be free to use whatever OS I want to use rather than keep valhalla shimmer. Can be a bit of a pain migrating from windows though if you have loads of previous projects, all expecting to find a specific vst in a specific place. Thats why I'm dual booting windows for now.
  - sph 4y ago
    IIRC Bitwig was founded by ex-Ableton developers. I haven't tried it yet, but that's good pedigree.
- sickcodebruh 4y ago
agent008t 4y ago
Linux still has horrible font rendering, which makes web browsing uncomfortable. It doesn't come close to Windows or Mac. Fonts often appear soapy, kerning is off etc.
- Dracophoenix 4y ago
  Firefox lets you set local fonts in place of webfonts. The bad font rendering on desktop may not be completely ameliorated, but you can play around with some of the more well-designed font families (Noto, Adobe Source, IBM Plex) to give it a better look.
- dijit 4y ago
  Linux can have crappy font rendering. I can also have gorgeous font rendering. I would mess around with some live distros to see what you prefer. This is how my comment looks to me (on linux): https://i.imgur.com/wvruFyX.png https://i.imgur.com/wvruFyX.png
  - sinsterizme 4y ago
    Hmm not sure if it’s the quality of the image or the font, but that might prove his point, that looks quite bad.
    - mongol 4y ago
      Is not subpixel rendering of fonts impossible to illustrate unless you sit down in front of the same monitor (or at least similar hardware)
      - deno 4y ago
        Yes, doesn't have to be the same monitor but it needs to have the same subpixel orientation and you need to have the same resolution or 2x resolution and scale 50% so it pixel aligns. If you look at those screenshots on a 4K display they're incredibly blurry because all you're looking at is your browser doing image scaling optimized for photographs.
acomjean 4y ago
I haven’t noticed or didn’t care that the content was in SD on Linux. I was pretty happy it worked. Use a Roku for streaming HD to the tv for the few things I watch there. There is a weird “wildvine” plugin thing that chrome and Firefox use for video drm for some services. I think that enables video. Linux seems to be the only OS that is respectful of the user. But desktop Linux has come really far. It my daily driver on my home machine and I’m switching to it at work (or cluster is Linux anyway). I’m hardly a sys admin type and it’s been working great for me the past few years. Even steam works on Linux now.
- ridgered4 4y ago
  Yeah, I see this repeated a lot but I haven't really noticed a difference. Maybe I'm just not picky on the topic. But my understanding was it was never traditional SD, but 720p. Regardless, I use firefox and Amazon, Disney+, Netflix, HBO Max all work reliably for me. I believe there was a period were a couple of them didn't work for a month or two on linux when they came out but I wasn't subscribed to them then and they've always worked for me.
  - formerly_proven 4y ago
    Quality on streaming services isn't good anyway, and depending on the exact hardware and devices you have connected you won't get "HD" on Windows, either.
MrMan 4y ago
I use ubuntu or mint on my computers and stream on a roku. MY DAW runs on a different computing running Mac OS.
dtx1 4y ago
Or just pay 5$ for a VPN instead of 20$ for netflix&co and pirate everything. Suddently the OS stops mattering. What was the point of netflix blocking HQ Streams for linux users? To prevent piracy? How ironic
- neoberg 4y ago
  There is always a way. But convenience is also important and time is valuable. So instead of just clicking on a title on Netflix, we should instal & maintain a server and search for content on torrents?
  - dtx1 4y ago
    There are fully integrated solutions for kodi. Sure there's some setup but the alternative is paying a lot more for low res content on linux.
    - neoberg 4y ago
      Yeah that and many more convenience reasons are why people like me don't prefer to use linux on desktop. Also even if you have your setup, not being able to view hdr content at all on linux is a big turn off for me personally.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
boondaburrah 4y ago
required to use windows for work (the software I produce must run on desktop windows machines), and only have my personal PC to do work with. I'd like to have money for a second machine but I don't. The thing with the linux community, is that once linux covers 90% of the perceived use-cases for a desktop/laptop/workstation computer, it really feels like it should be enough to see a big switch. We can relax, right? But that 10% of use cases where windows is the /only/ option is the other 90%.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Dual boot or have 2 devices. Also Wine?
wyager 4y ago
> I can only watch SD content if I’m on Linux Sounds like you have a good reason to get content from third-party sources that don't saddle you with annoying BS.
scoutt 4y ago
I work with Linux for compiling Android images (with VSCode on Windows through SSH), and I also customize the kernel (drivers and DT, mostly). I also do some Qt porting to Linux, but I used Windows my entire life (apart from DOS). And honestly, I won't boot my PC from Linux (at home or work) because I'm afraid it will break. I'll explain: I have some VMs with Ubuntu and, from time to time, I hit some problem that made the system unrecoverable. For instance, filesystem breaking or not mounting, I also remember Nvidia drivers updates that generated a black login screen (1), or strange error messages showing up before seeing the Ubuntu login screen (that I wonder myself what should I do with them?). Not to mention the times my SSH connections to development servers don't work, and I have to physically go there and reset the PCs. I don't want to be twiddling with my main PC, which puts food on my family table. The fear of coming to work (or from work at home) and turning on my PC just to find out that some partition isn't mounting, my printer is not working anymore or some other problem that would take me an hour to fix... is too much of a risk for me and my mental health. On the functional side... there are some things that I can't understand... It's been years already and I cannot control the scroll speed of the mouse wheel in Ubuntu without hacking with the xinput system. What does that tell me? And why asking my password every 5 minutes? I always said: if you want to remember a phrase, use it as your Ubuntu password. You'll be asked for it for every little thing and in a couple of hours you will remember the phrase forever. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1129516/black-screen-at-boot-after-nvidia-driver-installation-on-ubuntu-18-04-2-lts https://askubuntu.com/questions/1129516/black-screen-at-boot... PS: I love-hate Ubuntu, and I am not saying that these things don't happen on Windows, but from personal experience, Windows is much more stable since like the past 10 years.
- ace_hunter 4y ago
  I have been using ubuntu and flavors for well over 12 years. I gotta tell you, never has anything of what you describe happen to me. And I am a menacingly wild-user. I put my systems through a lot! I do a lot of full-stack development, arduino(and other iot stuff) coding, blender work (3d), inkscape, gimp, a lot of audacity for audio, a lot of kdenLive for video-editing.. and my laptops (although always being mediocore in spec) never broke a sweat. And I have never ever had to 'format' my PC cuz I'm locked out of it. So, maybe, it's you who doesn't understand how to use the system. Maybe!
quickthrower2 4y ago
I am working more on Linux these days because I am too tight to upgrade from 12Gb RAM, and that seems like not enough to do dev work in Windows, but an endless bounty to do the same on Linux. Also rm -rf being instant is a big win (I know it probably isn't under the hood but I don't care, as a user I can get on with my day). Also another nice suprise - I can get photos off my iPhone without it screwing up. Not possible on Windows. I can get the original DCIM images in the weird iPhone format (which is perfectly viewable in Linux too) and I can access all the hidden files to the extend iPhone makes them avilable. I am really liking the experience. I am not into 'hacking' and just want it to get out the way and make it easy for me to install stuff and use it, so I go with Ubuntu.
- formerly_proven 4y ago
  > Also rm -rf being instant is a big win (I know it probably isn't under the hood but I don't care, as a user I can get on with my day). Oh it actually is. It's just that Windows is dog slow at handling files (as opposed to their contents), for a multitude of reasons (I understand that there actually has been a little bit of work in recent years on some of these issues to improve performance for WSL and git).
gmadsen 4y ago
music production. 3d modeling, gaming. a lot of commercial software just doesn't have support for linux. for regular use and a lot of my personal programming, I use linux, but it just isn't feasible to be 100% depending what you need
mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
That's kind of bonkers to me that Netflix don't support HD/4K on Linux. Considering the number of random porn site players that play HD just fine... What's holding them up besides laziness?
- ntkachov 4y ago
  DRM and Content contracts. They can't just throw 4k into an unsecured environment because they need to make a best effort to enforce that their 4k content isn't pirated.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    I'm sure that is the reason, but I find it hard to believe that ripping content could possibly be that much harder just because you're on Windows. And Netflix exclusives regularly make it to pirate sites in 4K afaik?
    - jotm 4y ago
      It's not. If you can see it, you can copy it. It just makes life harder for a small number of legitimate users on Linux or rooted Android phones because their license/contract says they need to use DRM.
    - NoGravitas 4y ago
      > And Netflix exclusives regularly make it to pirate sites in 4K afaik? Yes, generally the day of release.
      - Mindwipe 4y ago
        Not really. No 4K versions of most shows from the last month.
    - 323 4y ago
      Windows/Apple have special APIs which allow video decrypting to be done on the GPU. And the GPU will not allow you to access the decrypted video surface. This is why you can't screenshot Netflix on Windows/Apple - the region where the video is will be black.
neoberg 4y ago
For work I use Macos because that is the only option I have for several reasons; and I also like it. For gaming and media consumption, there is no HDR support on Linux and there won't be in the foreseeable future. So, Windows there.
- ronjouch 4y ago
  Also: even if Linux gaming is getting better everyday thanks to lots of work by contributors and companies (Valve, Codeweavers, hey even Nvidia recently, etc), as a developer I get to do enough software spelunking at work, and I'm supremely happy to pay the small cost of periodically dealing with MS bullshit. The small cost of dealing with $ms_bullshit_du_jour is a periodical { 1. sigh, 2. find & run some PowerShell snippet to uninstall or disable the bullshit, 3. be done with it till next time } sequence, but the large benefit is the guarantee to be running games on the de-facto standard platform where they are end-to-end tested by the game devs/QA ! Games are complexity beasts by nature, and I have high fidelity & stability expectations; I don't want an extra source of trouble. (Yes, even if I would absolutely prefer to run games on Linux! All my other machines run Linux)! Until Steam{OS, Deck} gets enough usage to be routinely tested by 90% of the games shipping on Steam, both AAA & indies, for me Linux gaming is a case of "I would absolutely love to, but for now, thanks / no thanks" .
  - Zhyl 4y ago
    Sales of steam deck seem to imply another 1-2M units, which would increase Linux marketshare to more than 2%. It's not ridiculous to suggest that developers may test for Linux in the near to medium term.
GiorgioG 4y ago
I tried running Pop OS for the last 3 weeks on my desktop machine. It's got 90% of the polish I expect from a UI/IX - which I can live with. I sadly switched back to Windows yesterday because I couldn't solve the following problem: I use Remote Desktop to get into my work machine - I have a 4K monitor and I couldn't get the scaling to work the way I expected with Remmina or freerdp clients. I had hidpi scaling enabled (150%) in Pop OS, but whenever I would connect to a remote session it would connect at 2560x1440 which made text ever so slightly fuzzy. The only way I could get the behavior I expected was to disable hidpi in PopOS, but then everything is too small.
- schmuelio 4y ago
  I've found remote desktop a pain as well. On the occasion where I _have_ to use it I don't set it to fullscreen, just have it as a floating app at whatever resolution I care for. Then I just deal with the lower real-estate for however much time I need to be using it. Nearly all of my remote work is SSH or SSHfs-based now, which (if you're used to terminal stuff) is so much nicer than any equivalent I've found on Windows.
- redshirtrob 4y ago
  Disclaimer: I know nothing about Windows or RDP. I was just on a developer group call the other day where another developer from another organization was having weird scaling issues RDPing into the vendor's sandbox. The solution was to adjust some buried registry setting on the remote machine, not fiddle with the local machine. Unfortunately I paid little attention to the details as I rarely RDP and when I do I can tolerate display issues. I realize this is super vague, but it was so fresh in my brain I had to respond. Maybe someone who actually knows something can provide actual details.
  - GiorgioG 4y ago
    I've tried fiddling with host and remote, was unable to get a satisfactory result.
dgellow 4y ago
I already use a pi-hole for our local network, everything msn, windows, microsoft related is already blocked for all our devices, so it's really not a big task. It's also not a big task to maintain the list of domain to block, every few months I find a new one to add. I also don't mind some level of telemetry. And I personally like Windows as an operating system, NT is a very cool and well documented technology, and since WSL has been available it is also my favorite Linux desktop experience. For a while my main complaints where about the frustrating dev experience (mostly for web stuff, tooling often only consider a Unix environment), and the lack of package manager, but WSl + Windows Terminal + winget is just fantastic. And that's without talking about more niche things, such as the awesome Sysinternal Suite (so many hidden gem here!), the event system, powershell (looks ridiculous when you first read about it but it's such a ridiculously powerful shell once you discover that you can interact with .Net classes), Win32 APIs, etc. (Edit: I say this as a relatively recent convert to Windows, I started with Mac OS classic, then OS X, then ArchLinux for years, so the majority of my experience has been with Unix environments)
- cyberpunk 4y ago
  You're assuming they're not just going to start using their own DNS or DoH for these requests. Orwell got things slightly wrong in 1984; he never realized that we would be paying for the privilege of being spied on.
  - dgellow 4y ago
    My personal assumption is that Microsoft isn't a malicious actor, so yes I don't expect them to try to dodge domain blocking. I also don't see their telemetry as spying, everything I've seen so far tells me that they only use gathered data in aggregate as a replacement for QA, and without PII (unless you decide to report crashes, send feedbacks, or take part in their insider program) and they seem to respect user settings regarding personalized ads. But I don't like that you have so much advertising in the default Windows and Edge experience and understand the general frustration regarding telemetry, not everybody can control their network the way I do just to have a reasonable experience...
- 4y ago
innocenat 4y ago
I have been using Linux for several years, but I am going back to Windows myself. I vastly prefer Linux, but I need LINE (a messenger app popular in some Asia countries). Their Linux app (actually a Chrome extension) stopped getting new features 5 years ago. That's kinda THE deal-breaker for me. Another minor reason is Dropbox Smart Sync. I can use Selective Sync, but having smart sync is of course better. (I would rather Windows than macOS)
gwbas1c 4y ago
> what holds you back to switch to Linux? I occasionally need to do some development work in a Debian VM. I can't even remember the name of the window manager it came with; but I just can't figure it out. The equivalent of the dock / taskbar just isn't useful. I had to jump through hoops and hoops just to get Visual Studio Code to work, in part because it took awhile to figure out how to have root access to my own VM. Now, I obviously could use a different window manager; but that leads to the real problem: It's just too much work for me to figure out how to use Linux, and find a setup that I like. And, after I do that, it's quite a bit of work to "keep up" with the Linux community and the changes. And, then it's quite a bit of work to ensure that I can find good, compatible hardware. Finally: I'm very happy with Mac, and Windows 11 is "good enough" for me. I'd consider purchasing a laptop with a Linux-based distro pre-installed; but even then, that's a huge financial risk if I end up not liking it, or I hit compatibility issues. At least the Microsoft Surface has a 60-day return policy. Which leads to my final point: I use a computer as a tool. Linux on the desktop isn't a tool, it's a hobby. I could see myself using Linux if I wanted to develop an alternate shell / UI as a hobby, or using Linux on the desktop if it was common in my profession.
- DrBazza 4y ago
  Out of the box, KDE is very close to Windows - a start menu, a dock, and a task tray. I don't use Gnome, but I don't expect it's that dissimilar either. No idea why VSCode doesn't work "out of the box" for you. Again, I can only assume you've picked some odd window manager, possibly a tiling one or something like that? Gnome and KDE "just work". > Linux on the desktop isn't a tool, it's a hobby. That's fine. My opinion, is the opposite to yours. My vanilla KDE install has been fine and I use my linux desktop as my day-to-day tool for writing production, revenue earning, code. I've been running KDE full time for over 4 years now with no problems (or rather fewer problems than I had with Windows and Apple, but YMMV).
- ubermonkey 4y ago
  "It's just too much work for me to figure out how to use Linux" This is the crux, really. I'm adept at server administration, and have used Linux there for decades, but on the desktop it is, from my POV, pretty much a dumpster fire of bad usability. Had Apple not gone to OS X 20 years ago, I suspect desktop Linux would be materially further along, but with a well-designed and well-supported commercial *nix OS in the market that ships married to bespoke hardware, there's materially less motivation to make desktop Linux better for people who won't want to have to tinker to make things work.
nicce 4y ago
> I personally prefer Linux, but what’s holding me are the streaming services (netflix, amazon, etc), I can only watch SD content if I’m on Linux, so my second opinion is macOS, I can watch at least in a decent resolution and also their notebooks are the best ones out there (the air is amazing between price, performance and battery life) for my use case, that’s also work. I would not choose operating system based on this. Instead, if you can afford, you could buy for example Apple TV as separate box which is not too expensive, has great quality for video and audio. But I guess there might be a chance that you want to watch on higher quality on other places than your home as well. For that, I have personally just used Windows sandbox.
devinprater 4y ago
What's holding me back is accessibility. See [Linux Accessibility: an unmaintained mess](https://medium.com/@r.d.t.prater/linux-accessibility-an-unmaintained-mess-8fbf9decaf8a https://medium.com/@r.d.t.prater/linux-accessibility-an-unma...).
ubermonkey 4y ago
"I read a lot of comments here wanting to block the connections, but wouldn’t be easier/better to switch to an OS that doesn’t spy you?" I mean, in a perfect world, sure. But it's not always an option.
bodge5000 4y ago
> macOS also talks to a lot of servers and collect telemetry as Windows, maybe in a different scale, so isn’t an alternative if you are worried about your data being collected Sorry to go off topic, but can anyone expand on this? I don't use MacOS but have been thinking about it, I always thought they were a significant improvement over windows (even if not quite as good as linux)
AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
> what holds you back to switch to Linux? Currently Linux has reached a state where I could tolerate most of the things I hate about it and would be willing to do so to be rid of Microsoft's bullshit, except for the following: VR in Linux is a garbage fire, DCS is hit and miss, and my 1080ti will likely be an endless source of problems.
heywoodlh 4y ago
I use Linux (primarily NixOS and Arch) for most things. I like MacOS for work, too, though. The one thing I keep Windows for is gaming. More specifically for game streaming. Steam Link works okay (and is cross platform), but I haven't seen anything as performant and meets my needs as much as Nvidia Gamestream (Windows-only for server-side streaming). I use Moonlight to connect to it. I haven't found any alternatives that work as well that are also available for Linux. I wish there were a game streaming application (open source preferably) as performant as Gamestream that worked as well on Linux.
hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
I "solved" this issue by connecting a macbook to my TV so that I can use all streaming platforms without any problem, and I use a separate machine for work. And I prefer to keep it this way.

rob_c 4y ago

> I personally prefer Linux, but what’s holding me are the streaming services Yes but then these turn off, drop the content you were watching with little/no warning and are unreliable. Buy physical media while you can at least then you have a licence to watch it when you please until the media degrades. (Or better in the territories which allow for backing up across media formats)

indymike 4y ago
I've never had a problem watching streaming stuff on Linux.
- norman784 4y ago
  It might be changed? I remember back in 2020 when I wanted to watch something I was dual booting to windows, because Amazon was streaming at 720p and Netflix 1080p, so the only option to watch in a good resolution UHD was an OS that has a browser with a signed DRM system.
- rob_c 4y ago
  True, it's a problem that money solves. But frankly I'd rather keep the money as I'm content rewatching my favourite shows off disk.

pmoriarty 4y ago

Another option to consider is FreeBSD, which can be especially attractive for those of us who want to avoid systemd.

cowtools 4y ago
There are non-systemd linux distros like alpine and gentoo. With elogind and such, you can run gnome and such without systemd.
- pmoriarty 4y ago
  I've run Gentoo since 2004, and all the non-stop compiling has finally driven me away from that distro. It's just too much of a waste of time, a drain on my system's resources and wear on my disks. It used to be bearable back in the day, but now software has gotten so bloated that compiling it all constantly is just ridiculous... especially on older, slower systems.
  - cowtools 4y ago
    I agree. Gentoo ought to have better binpkgs support. Alpine is a nice alternative, albeit it doesn't have USE flags.
Sentient-HN 4y ago
why not just use another init system? I've had great experiences with runit, and they say s6 is good as well.
- pmoriarty 4y ago
  It's not so easy to ditch systemd on a lot of distros, because it's tied so closely in to everything else. Also, I don't know about you but I don't want to waste my time writing init scripts for every application I run that needs them. I'd much rather just use a distro that has already written them for me.
circularfoyers 4y ago

lelanthran 4y ago

> I personally prefer Linux, but what’s holding me are the streaming services (netflix, amazon, etc), I can only watch SD content if I’m on Linux, I hadn't noticed. Wife's 43" TV is connected to a linux box with firefox that is used for Amazon Prime, Netflix AND Disney+. I haven't noticed poor picture and assumed it ran at 1096x1080. I will certainly have to check this out.

norman784 4y ago
Back in 2020 I couldn't stream from Amazon at a higher res than 720p from linux (tried every browser), as soon as I dual booted to Windows the quality improved a lot. Could it be that you are using Plex, Kodi or similar that might allows you to stream at a good quality?
- ridgered4 4y ago
  I'm guessing that (like myself) he probably just isn't that picky about it. The only IQ issues that I see that frequently bothers me is washed out dithering in dark scenes or low quality due to connection hiccups. I don't think UHD would improve either of those.
  - lelanthran 4y ago
    > I'm guessing that (like myself) he probably just isn't that picky about it. Correct, see my reply to myself upthread.
qwertox 4y ago
I just checked on Ubuntu Desktop in Firefox and yes, Full HD is not an option.
nvrspyx 4y ago
For at least Netflix, there's no way to stream above 720p since Widevine only allows security level 2 on Linux.
lelanthran 4y ago

moonchrome 4y ago

I recently considered installing Linux on my desktop workstation. Then I decided I wanted to buy a wireless card for the machine - and any device I saw available locally had dubious issue/debugging threads online, people unable to get it to work, BT functionality missing, etc. I've used Linux desktop in the past and it looks like things haven't changed much. I don't like the idea of having to compile kernel modules just to get my machine to work (and then having to do it on each distro upgrade) - I have better things to do with my time.

sph 4y ago
There's just one brand of Wifi that's crap under linux and that's broadcom. Are you telling me you can't find an Intel wireless module anywhere? Also, if you use a modern distro instead of, say, gentoo, you don't have to compile anything yourself, there's packages and dkms available if you really have to go with broadcom. Do you not install drivers on Windows?
- norman784 4y ago
  Indeed I bought a while ago one of those pci-e cards that comes with the same BT/wireless that Apple uses, it wasn't that hard to make it work but if it works out of the box, then better, also I think the intel wireless chips are one of the best ones out there.
- moonchrome 4y ago
  All of the models I was looking into were Intel based - but I could't find any info if they are actually supported/tested - and just threads people complaining they can't get them to work on their distro or can't get BT to work.
skepticalwaves 4y ago
You can find and buy Intel AC series wifi cards meant for laptops on PCIe surfboards with external antennas. They're plug and play and fantasfic
- 4y ago

baisq 4y ago

Sure, as soon as an operating system with a good Win32/DirectX/Windows HAL implementation appears, I will be the first one to switch. ReactOS perhaps?

fsflover 4y ago
Try Qubes OS: https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/windows/ https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/windows/.
cowtools 4y ago
I think it will be implemented by proton/wine first

kekebo 4y ago

It can come down to one program that doesn't have a good alternative on another OS, my version of that are the DAWs / music production tools I know and love. Wine solves a lot of this (but not all) for Windows programs, the macOS equivalent Darling[0] seems to still has some way to go until GUI programs are reliably supported. [0] https://github.com/darlinghq/darling https://github.com/darlinghq/darling

Akepa 4y ago
Bitwig is the best Linux DAW in my experience, although it isn't FOSS. Running third party VSTs is also much more of a pain if even possible. I'm also stuck with Logic... for now at least.
- zambal 4y ago
  It guess it depends a lot on personal preferences and expectations, but I'm very content with my Bitwig setup on Linux. There are obviously a lot less native third party VST plugins available on Linux, so if you already own lots of them and want to make a switch that could be a problem, but if you're just starting out, there's more than enough available: https://www.kvraudio.com/plugins/linux/vst-plugins https://www.kvraudio.com/plugins/linux/vst-plugins
  - bodge5000 4y ago
    yeh plugins ended up being a big thing for me, but in the end I decided I'd rather be free to use whatever OS I want to use rather than keep valhalla shimmer. Can be a bit of a pain migrating from windows though if you have loads of previous projects, all expecting to find a specific vst in a specific place. Thats why I'm dual booting windows for now.
- sph 4y ago
  IIRC Bitwig was founded by ex-Ableton developers. I haven't tried it yet, but that's good pedigree.
sickcodebruh 4y ago

agent008t 4y ago

Linux still has horrible font rendering, which makes web browsing uncomfortable. It doesn't come close to Windows or Mac. Fonts often appear soapy, kerning is off etc.

Dracophoenix 4y ago
Firefox lets you set local fonts in place of webfonts. The bad font rendering on desktop may not be completely ameliorated, but you can play around with some of the more well-designed font families (Noto, Adobe Source, IBM Plex) to give it a better look.
dijit 4y ago
Linux can have crappy font rendering. I can also have gorgeous font rendering. I would mess around with some live distros to see what you prefer. This is how my comment looks to me (on linux): https://i.imgur.com/wvruFyX.png https://i.imgur.com/wvruFyX.png
- sinsterizme 4y ago
  Hmm not sure if it’s the quality of the image or the font, but that might prove his point, that looks quite bad.
  - mongol 4y ago
    Is not subpixel rendering of fonts impossible to illustrate unless you sit down in front of the same monitor (or at least similar hardware)
    - deno 4y ago
      Yes, doesn't have to be the same monitor but it needs to have the same subpixel orientation and you need to have the same resolution or 2x resolution and scale 50% so it pixel aligns. If you look at those screenshots on a 4K display they're incredibly blurry because all you're looking at is your browser doing image scaling optimized for photographs.

acomjean 4y ago

I haven’t noticed or didn’t care that the content was in SD on Linux. I was pretty happy it worked. Use a Roku for streaming HD to the tv for the few things I watch there. There is a weird “wildvine” plugin thing that chrome and Firefox use for video drm for some services. I think that enables video. Linux seems to be the only OS that is respectful of the user. But desktop Linux has come really far. It my daily driver on my home machine and I’m switching to it at work (or cluster is Linux anyway). I’m hardly a sys admin type and it’s been working great for me the past few years. Even steam works on Linux now.

ridgered4 4y ago
Yeah, I see this repeated a lot but I haven't really noticed a difference. Maybe I'm just not picky on the topic. But my understanding was it was never traditional SD, but 720p. Regardless, I use firefox and Amazon, Disney+, Netflix, HBO Max all work reliably for me. I believe there was a period were a couple of them didn't work for a month or two on linux when they came out but I wasn't subscribed to them then and they've always worked for me.
- formerly_proven 4y ago
  Quality on streaming services isn't good anyway, and depending on the exact hardware and devices you have connected you won't get "HD" on Windows, either.

MrMan 4y ago

I use ubuntu or mint on my computers and stream on a roku. MY DAW runs on a different computing running Mac OS.

dtx1 4y ago

Or just pay 5$ for a VPN instead of 20$ for netflix&co and pirate everything. Suddently the OS stops mattering. What was the point of netflix blocking HQ Streams for linux users? To prevent piracy? How ironic

neoberg 4y ago
There is always a way. But convenience is also important and time is valuable. So instead of just clicking on a title on Netflix, we should instal & maintain a server and search for content on torrents?
- dtx1 4y ago
  There are fully integrated solutions for kodi. Sure there's some setup but the alternative is paying a lot more for low res content on linux.
  - neoberg 4y ago
    Yeah that and many more convenience reasons are why people like me don't prefer to use linux on desktop. Also even if you have your setup, not being able to view hdr content at all on linux is a big turn off for me personally.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

boondaburrah 4y ago

required to use windows for work (the software I produce must run on desktop windows machines), and only have my personal PC to do work with. I'd like to have money for a second machine but I don't. The thing with the linux community, is that once linux covers 90% of the perceived use-cases for a desktop/laptop/workstation computer, it really feels like it should be enough to see a big switch. We can relax, right? But that 10% of use cases where windows is the /only/ option is the other 90%.

quickthrower2 4y ago
Dual boot or have 2 devices. Also Wine?

wyager 4y ago

> I can only watch SD content if I’m on Linux Sounds like you have a good reason to get content from third-party sources that don't saddle you with annoying BS.

scoutt 4y ago

I work with Linux for compiling Android images (with VSCode on Windows through SSH), and I also customize the kernel (drivers and DT, mostly). I also do some Qt porting to Linux, but I used Windows my entire life (apart from DOS). And honestly, I won't boot my PC from Linux (at home or work) because I'm afraid it will break. I'll explain: I have some VMs with Ubuntu and, from time to time, I hit some problem that made the system unrecoverable. For instance, filesystem breaking or not mounting, I also remember Nvidia drivers updates that generated a black login screen (1), or strange error messages showing up before seeing the Ubuntu login screen (that I wonder myself what should I do with them?). Not to mention the times my SSH connections to development servers don't work, and I have to physically go there and reset the PCs. I don't want to be twiddling with my main PC, which puts food on my family table. The fear of coming to work (or from work at home) and turning on my PC just to find out that some partition isn't mounting, my printer is not working anymore or some other problem that would take me an hour to fix... is too much of a risk for me and my mental health. On the functional side... there are some things that I can't understand... It's been years already and I cannot control the scroll speed of the mouse wheel in Ubuntu without hacking with the xinput system. What does that tell me? And why asking my password every 5 minutes? I always said: if you want to remember a phrase, use it as your Ubuntu password. You'll be asked for it for every little thing and in a couple of hours you will remember the phrase forever. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1129516/black-screen-at-boot-after-nvidia-driver-installation-on-ubuntu-18-04-2-lts https://askubuntu.com/questions/1129516/black-screen-at-boot... PS: I love-hate Ubuntu, and I am not saying that these things don't happen on Windows, but from personal experience, Windows is much more stable since like the past 10 years.

ace_hunter 4y ago
I have been using ubuntu and flavors for well over 12 years. I gotta tell you, never has anything of what you describe happen to me. And I am a menacingly wild-user. I put my systems through a lot! I do a lot of full-stack development, arduino(and other iot stuff) coding, blender work (3d), inkscape, gimp, a lot of audacity for audio, a lot of kdenLive for video-editing.. and my laptops (although always being mediocore in spec) never broke a sweat. And I have never ever had to 'format' my PC cuz I'm locked out of it. So, maybe, it's you who doesn't understand how to use the system. Maybe!

quickthrower2 4y ago

I am working more on Linux these days because I am too tight to upgrade from 12Gb RAM, and that seems like not enough to do dev work in Windows, but an endless bounty to do the same on Linux. Also rm -rf being instant is a big win (I know it probably isn't under the hood but I don't care, as a user I can get on with my day). Also another nice suprise - I can get photos off my iPhone without it screwing up. Not possible on Windows. I can get the original DCIM images in the weird iPhone format (which is perfectly viewable in Linux too) and I can access all the hidden files to the extend iPhone makes them avilable. I am really liking the experience. I am not into 'hacking' and just want it to get out the way and make it easy for me to install stuff and use it, so I go with Ubuntu.

formerly_proven 4y ago
> Also rm -rf being instant is a big win (I know it probably isn't under the hood but I don't care, as a user I can get on with my day). Oh it actually is. It's just that Windows is dog slow at handling files (as opposed to their contents), for a multitude of reasons (I understand that there actually has been a little bit of work in recent years on some of these issues to improve performance for WSL and git).

gmadsen 4y ago

music production. 3d modeling, gaming. a lot of commercial software just doesn't have support for linux. for regular use and a lot of my personal programming, I use linux, but it just isn't feasible to be 100% depending what you need

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago

That's kind of bonkers to me that Netflix don't support HD/4K on Linux. Considering the number of random porn site players that play HD just fine... What's holding them up besides laziness?

ntkachov 4y ago
DRM and Content contracts. They can't just throw 4k into an unsecured environment because they need to make a best effort to enforce that their 4k content isn't pirated.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  I'm sure that is the reason, but I find it hard to believe that ripping content could possibly be that much harder just because you're on Windows. And Netflix exclusives regularly make it to pirate sites in 4K afaik?
  - jotm 4y ago
    It's not. If you can see it, you can copy it. It just makes life harder for a small number of legitimate users on Linux or rooted Android phones because their license/contract says they need to use DRM.
  - NoGravitas 4y ago
    > And Netflix exclusives regularly make it to pirate sites in 4K afaik? Yes, generally the day of release.
    - Mindwipe 4y ago
      Not really. No 4K versions of most shows from the last month.
  - 323 4y ago
    Windows/Apple have special APIs which allow video decrypting to be done on the GPU. And the GPU will not allow you to access the decrypted video surface. This is why you can't screenshot Netflix on Windows/Apple - the region where the video is will be black.

neoberg 4y ago

For work I use Macos because that is the only option I have for several reasons; and I also like it. For gaming and media consumption, there is no HDR support on Linux and there won't be in the foreseeable future. So, Windows there.

ronjouch 4y ago
Also: even if Linux gaming is getting better everyday thanks to lots of work by contributors and companies (Valve, Codeweavers, hey even Nvidia recently, etc), as a developer I get to do enough software spelunking at work, and I'm supremely happy to pay the small cost of periodically dealing with MS bullshit. The small cost of dealing with $ms_bullshit_du_jour is a periodical { 1. sigh, 2. find & run some PowerShell snippet to uninstall or disable the bullshit, 3. be done with it till next time } sequence, but the large benefit is the guarantee to be running games on the de-facto standard platform where they are end-to-end tested by the game devs/QA ! Games are complexity beasts by nature, and I have high fidelity & stability expectations; I don't want an extra source of trouble. (Yes, even if I would absolutely prefer to run games on Linux! All my other machines run Linux)! Until Steam{OS, Deck} gets enough usage to be routinely tested by 90% of the games shipping on Steam, both AAA & indies, for me Linux gaming is a case of "I would absolutely love to, but for now, thanks / no thanks" .
- Zhyl 4y ago
  Sales of steam deck seem to imply another 1-2M units, which would increase Linux marketshare to more than 2%. It's not ridiculous to suggest that developers may test for Linux in the near to medium term.

GiorgioG 4y ago

I tried running Pop OS for the last 3 weeks on my desktop machine. It's got 90% of the polish I expect from a UI/IX - which I can live with. I sadly switched back to Windows yesterday because I couldn't solve the following problem: I use Remote Desktop to get into my work machine - I have a 4K monitor and I couldn't get the scaling to work the way I expected with Remmina or freerdp clients. I had hidpi scaling enabled (150%) in Pop OS, but whenever I would connect to a remote session it would connect at 2560x1440 which made text ever so slightly fuzzy. The only way I could get the behavior I expected was to disable hidpi in PopOS, but then everything is too small.

schmuelio 4y ago
I've found remote desktop a pain as well. On the occasion where I _have_ to use it I don't set it to fullscreen, just have it as a floating app at whatever resolution I care for. Then I just deal with the lower real-estate for however much time I need to be using it. Nearly all of my remote work is SSH or SSHfs-based now, which (if you're used to terminal stuff) is so much nicer than any equivalent I've found on Windows.
redshirtrob 4y ago
Disclaimer: I know nothing about Windows or RDP. I was just on a developer group call the other day where another developer from another organization was having weird scaling issues RDPing into the vendor's sandbox. The solution was to adjust some buried registry setting on the remote machine, not fiddle with the local machine. Unfortunately I paid little attention to the details as I rarely RDP and when I do I can tolerate display issues. I realize this is super vague, but it was so fresh in my brain I had to respond. Maybe someone who actually knows something can provide actual details.
- GiorgioG 4y ago
  I've tried fiddling with host and remote, was unable to get a satisfactory result.

dgellow 4y ago

I already use a pi-hole for our local network, everything msn, windows, microsoft related is already blocked for all our devices, so it's really not a big task. It's also not a big task to maintain the list of domain to block, every few months I find a new one to add. I also don't mind some level of telemetry. And I personally like Windows as an operating system, NT is a very cool and well documented technology, and since WSL has been available it is also my favorite Linux desktop experience. For a while my main complaints where about the frustrating dev experience (mostly for web stuff, tooling often only consider a Unix environment), and the lack of package manager, but WSl + Windows Terminal + winget is just fantastic. And that's without talking about more niche things, such as the awesome Sysinternal Suite (so many hidden gem here!), the event system, powershell (looks ridiculous when you first read about it but it's such a ridiculously powerful shell once you discover that you can interact with .Net classes), Win32 APIs, etc. (Edit: I say this as a relatively recent convert to Windows, I started with Mac OS classic, then OS X, then ArchLinux for years, so the majority of my experience has been with Unix environments)

cyberpunk 4y ago
You're assuming they're not just going to start using their own DNS or DoH for these requests. Orwell got things slightly wrong in 1984; he never realized that we would be paying for the privilege of being spied on.
- dgellow 4y ago
  My personal assumption is that Microsoft isn't a malicious actor, so yes I don't expect them to try to dodge domain blocking. I also don't see their telemetry as spying, everything I've seen so far tells me that they only use gathered data in aggregate as a replacement for QA, and without PII (unless you decide to report crashes, send feedbacks, or take part in their insider program) and they seem to respect user settings regarding personalized ads. But I don't like that you have so much advertising in the default Windows and Edge experience and understand the general frustration regarding telemetry, not everybody can control their network the way I do just to have a reasonable experience...
4y ago

innocenat 4y ago

I have been using Linux for several years, but I am going back to Windows myself. I vastly prefer Linux, but I need LINE (a messenger app popular in some Asia countries). Their Linux app (actually a Chrome extension) stopped getting new features 5 years ago. That's kinda THE deal-breaker for me. Another minor reason is Dropbox Smart Sync. I can use Selective Sync, but having smart sync is of course better. (I would rather Windows than macOS)

gwbas1c 4y ago

> what holds you back to switch to Linux? I occasionally need to do some development work in a Debian VM. I can't even remember the name of the window manager it came with; but I just can't figure it out. The equivalent of the dock / taskbar just isn't useful. I had to jump through hoops and hoops just to get Visual Studio Code to work, in part because it took awhile to figure out how to have root access to my own VM. Now, I obviously could use a different window manager; but that leads to the real problem: It's just too much work for me to figure out how to use Linux, and find a setup that I like. And, after I do that, it's quite a bit of work to "keep up" with the Linux community and the changes. And, then it's quite a bit of work to ensure that I can find good, compatible hardware. Finally: I'm very happy with Mac, and Windows 11 is "good enough" for me. I'd consider purchasing a laptop with a Linux-based distro pre-installed; but even then, that's a huge financial risk if I end up not liking it, or I hit compatibility issues. At least the Microsoft Surface has a 60-day return policy. Which leads to my final point: I use a computer as a tool. Linux on the desktop isn't a tool, it's a hobby. I could see myself using Linux if I wanted to develop an alternate shell / UI as a hobby, or using Linux on the desktop if it was common in my profession.

DrBazza 4y ago
Out of the box, KDE is very close to Windows - a start menu, a dock, and a task tray. I don't use Gnome, but I don't expect it's that dissimilar either. No idea why VSCode doesn't work "out of the box" for you. Again, I can only assume you've picked some odd window manager, possibly a tiling one or something like that? Gnome and KDE "just work". > Linux on the desktop isn't a tool, it's a hobby. That's fine. My opinion, is the opposite to yours. My vanilla KDE install has been fine and I use my linux desktop as my day-to-day tool for writing production, revenue earning, code. I've been running KDE full time for over 4 years now with no problems (or rather fewer problems than I had with Windows and Apple, but YMMV).
ubermonkey 4y ago
"It's just too much work for me to figure out how to use Linux" This is the crux, really. I'm adept at server administration, and have used Linux there for decades, but on the desktop it is, from my POV, pretty much a dumpster fire of bad usability. Had Apple not gone to OS X 20 years ago, I suspect desktop Linux would be materially further along, but with a well-designed and well-supported commercial *nix OS in the market that ships married to bespoke hardware, there's materially less motivation to make desktop Linux better for people who won't want to have to tinker to make things work.

nicce 4y ago

> I personally prefer Linux, but what’s holding me are the streaming services (netflix, amazon, etc), I can only watch SD content if I’m on Linux, so my second opinion is macOS, I can watch at least in a decent resolution and also their notebooks are the best ones out there (the air is amazing between price, performance and battery life) for my use case, that’s also work. I would not choose operating system based on this. Instead, if you can afford, you could buy for example Apple TV as separate box which is not too expensive, has great quality for video and audio. But I guess there might be a chance that you want to watch on higher quality on other places than your home as well. For that, I have personally just used Windows sandbox.

devinprater 4y ago

What's holding me back is accessibility. See [Linux Accessibility: an unmaintained mess](https://medium.com/@r.d.t.prater/linux-accessibility-an-unmaintained-mess-8fbf9decaf8a https://medium.com/@r.d.t.prater/linux-accessibility-an-unma...).

ubermonkey 4y ago

"I read a lot of comments here wanting to block the connections, but wouldn’t be easier/better to switch to an OS that doesn’t spy you?" I mean, in a perfect world, sure. But it's not always an option.

bodge5000 4y ago

> macOS also talks to a lot of servers and collect telemetry as Windows, maybe in a different scale, so isn’t an alternative if you are worried about your data being collected Sorry to go off topic, but can anyone expand on this? I don't use MacOS but have been thinking about it, I always thought they were a significant improvement over windows (even if not quite as good as linux)

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago

> what holds you back to switch to Linux? Currently Linux has reached a state where I could tolerate most of the things I hate about it and would be willing to do so to be rid of Microsoft's bullshit, except for the following: VR in Linux is a garbage fire, DCS is hit and miss, and my 1080ti will likely be an endless source of problems.

heywoodlh 4y ago

I use Linux (primarily NixOS and Arch) for most things. I like MacOS for work, too, though. The one thing I keep Windows for is gaming. More specifically for game streaming. Steam Link works okay (and is cross platform), but I haven't seen anything as performant and meets my needs as much as Nvidia Gamestream (Windows-only for server-side streaming). I use Moonlight to connect to it. I haven't found any alternatives that work as well that are also available for Linux. I wish there were a game streaming application (open source preferably) as performant as Gamestream that worked as well on Linux.

hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago

I "solved" this issue by connecting a macbook to my TV so that I can use all streaming platforms without any problem, and I use a separate machine for work. And I prefer to keep it this way.