6 ms·

Does WSL2 on Windows count? Because 2 years ago I moved back to Windows from MacOS for my daily driver because of WSL2. I get the same "modern GUI on top, Uni

by sbarre 4y ago

Does WSL2 on Windows count? Because 2 years ago I moved back to Windows from MacOS for my daily driver because of WSL2. I get the same "modern GUI on top, Unix-like shell underneath" experience that I had with MacOS but now I have a 24-core machine with 32GB of RAM for a third (or less) the price of what a similar Mac would have cost me.

dotancohen 4y ago
I hope to not start a flame war, but for "modern GUI on top, Unix-like shell underneath" I am extremely happy with KDE 5. I run it on Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu with stock KDE. It perfectly handles multiple monitors and desktops, I can move windows from one monitor to another via keyboard shortcut, Window-on-Top, and the killer feature highlight-to-copy and middle-click-to-paste which is about the only thing I do with the mouse. The only thing I've had to add to it is an addon called Owl for accessing MS Exchange with Thunderbird at my previous employer. But stock Thunderbird is good enough for accessing Office 365 where I work now.
- pxc 4y ago
  That's what I ran at my old job and I definitely miss it at my new one, where what I have is Windows with MSYS2 and WSL. Plasma feels more predictable to me than Windows does, and I really like what it builds into the desktop environment itself. The essentials— window management, the volume mixer, global keyboard shortcut configuration, the panels, the desktop, compose key support, the default terminal emulator, the network management applet, display configuration, the default GUI text editor, the file manager, etc.— all feel just right to me, with very little tweaking required. What configuration is required is straightforward in the GUI and super easy to automate or save in my dotfiles. Some of this is my own habituation to Plasma's quirks over the years, and some of it is my usage patterns not intersecting with open issues that Windows users would likely find strange. But I do think it's genuinely a wildly underrated desktop that a lot of developers would quickly come to love if they gave it a chance.
- sbarre 4y ago
  I'm honestly glad to hear that KDE and Linux are so viable as daily driver desktop environments now. I haven't looked at KDE in a long time...
mijoharas 4y ago
Genuine question, why don't you just use desktop linux? I'm curious as to what pain points make you avoid it. Do you prefer the windows GUI interface? do you not want to deal with with updates breaking your system or having to manage things yourself? or are there programs that you use on windows that aren't available on linux? (or something else). I want to stress that this is a good faith question. (since it seems flame-war territory adjacent, which I'm not interested in getting into).
- bmitc 4y ago
  Desktop Linux does not run many, many useful apps, and I don't want to continually struggle with drivers and more. If apps do run on Linux, they can often be terrible. I think the other question is, why would one want to use desktop Linux? With Windows 11 and WSL2, I get both. I can run all my normal apps on Windows 11, and if I really want to run GUI apps on WSL2, I can do that too. Honestly, Windows plus WSL is the most "just works" platform out there right now. macOS is far too brittle and a compromise between high-level OS and a Unix-like environment. Linux does Linux, obviously, but it struggles as a low-friction, high-level OS.
  - ISV_Damocles 4y ago
    Will have to "agree to disagree" on your conclusion here. GNOME 4 is superior to Windows and MacOS as low-friction, high-level OS in my experience. Control panel is clear, if spartan, three finger gestures stolen from MacOS "just work", and the desktop just stays out of the way so I can focus on the applications that I really care about. I have not had a "struggle with drivers" for over a decade with Ubuntu, Fedora, and Manjaro (YMMV in other distros of course, but it's much more uniform these days), and Windows has become even worse with doing unnecessary BS work in the background slowing down the GUI such that heavyweight desktops like GNOME and KDE feel as svelte as LXDE in comparison. I honestly can't stand any time I have to use a Windows machine due to how inconsistent the settings are, how many ~200-300ms pauses happen randomly, especially when I'm trying to type, and applications that don't "just work" but only because of the high marketshare I can google a solution. (MacOS is less viscerally disgusting to me, but more disappointing due to all of the "small" bugs that have creeped in despite having 100% control of the hardware in question. Wake-from-sleep shouldn't screw up the Wifi, unplugging and plugging back in an external monitor shouldn't shuffle the window locations, etc.)
zakki 4y ago
What machine do you use?
- sbarre 4y ago
  I built it myself, it's based around an AMD 5900x CPU.
sys_64738 4y ago
Absolutely. Windows is the most popular desktop Linux distro.
- _joel 4y ago
  I LOL'd but then was a bit depressed when it dawned on me you could well be right.

by sbarre 4y ago

dotancohen 4y ago

I hope to not start a flame war, but for "modern GUI on top, Unix-like shell underneath" I am extremely happy with KDE 5. I run it on Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu with stock KDE. It perfectly handles multiple monitors and desktops, I can move windows from one monitor to another via keyboard shortcut, Window-on-Top, and the killer feature highlight-to-copy and middle-click-to-paste which is about the only thing I do with the mouse. The only thing I've had to add to it is an addon called Owl for accessing MS Exchange with Thunderbird at my previous employer. But stock Thunderbird is good enough for accessing Office 365 where I work now.

pxc 4y ago
That's what I ran at my old job and I definitely miss it at my new one, where what I have is Windows with MSYS2 and WSL. Plasma feels more predictable to me than Windows does, and I really like what it builds into the desktop environment itself. The essentials— window management, the volume mixer, global keyboard shortcut configuration, the panels, the desktop, compose key support, the default terminal emulator, the network management applet, display configuration, the default GUI text editor, the file manager, etc.— all feel just right to me, with very little tweaking required. What configuration is required is straightforward in the GUI and super easy to automate or save in my dotfiles. Some of this is my own habituation to Plasma's quirks over the years, and some of it is my usage patterns not intersecting with open issues that Windows users would likely find strange. But I do think it's genuinely a wildly underrated desktop that a lot of developers would quickly come to love if they gave it a chance.
sbarre 4y ago
I'm honestly glad to hear that KDE and Linux are so viable as daily driver desktop environments now. I haven't looked at KDE in a long time...

mijoharas 4y ago

Genuine question, why don't you just use desktop linux? I'm curious as to what pain points make you avoid it. Do you prefer the windows GUI interface? do you not want to deal with with updates breaking your system or having to manage things yourself? or are there programs that you use on windows that aren't available on linux? (or something else). I want to stress that this is a good faith question. (since it seems flame-war territory adjacent, which I'm not interested in getting into).

bmitc 4y ago
Desktop Linux does not run many, many useful apps, and I don't want to continually struggle with drivers and more. If apps do run on Linux, they can often be terrible. I think the other question is, why would one want to use desktop Linux? With Windows 11 and WSL2, I get both. I can run all my normal apps on Windows 11, and if I really want to run GUI apps on WSL2, I can do that too. Honestly, Windows plus WSL is the most "just works" platform out there right now. macOS is far too brittle and a compromise between high-level OS and a Unix-like environment. Linux does Linux, obviously, but it struggles as a low-friction, high-level OS.
- ISV_Damocles 4y ago
  Will have to "agree to disagree" on your conclusion here. GNOME 4 is superior to Windows and MacOS as low-friction, high-level OS in my experience. Control panel is clear, if spartan, three finger gestures stolen from MacOS "just work", and the desktop just stays out of the way so I can focus on the applications that I really care about. I have not had a "struggle with drivers" for over a decade with Ubuntu, Fedora, and Manjaro (YMMV in other distros of course, but it's much more uniform these days), and Windows has become even worse with doing unnecessary BS work in the background slowing down the GUI such that heavyweight desktops like GNOME and KDE feel as svelte as LXDE in comparison. I honestly can't stand any time I have to use a Windows machine due to how inconsistent the settings are, how many ~200-300ms pauses happen randomly, especially when I'm trying to type, and applications that don't "just work" but only because of the high marketshare I can google a solution. (MacOS is less viscerally disgusting to me, but more disappointing due to all of the "small" bugs that have creeped in despite having 100% control of the hardware in question. Wake-from-sleep shouldn't screw up the Wifi, unplugging and plugging back in an external monitor shouldn't shuffle the window locations, etc.)

zakki 4y ago

What machine do you use?

sbarre 4y ago
I built it myself, it's based around an AMD 5900x CPU.

sys_64738 4y ago

Absolutely. Windows is the most popular desktop Linux distro.

_joel 4y ago
I LOL'd but then was a bit depressed when it dawned on me you could well be right.