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Phew. After being a Windows user for literally almost two decades I've happily migrated to Linux and couldn't be happier. Yep, it took some time to prepare but

Phew. After being a Windows user for literally almost two decades I've happily migrated to Linux and couldn't be happier. Yep, it took some time to prepare but let's be frank, developers already use quite a lot of Linux/Unix tools already so why not cut the middleman and just work directly with what we need most?

gumballindie 3y ago
Exactly. I made the switch from MacOS and couldn't be happier. The fun thing is that with Linux these days you have the option of a powerful workstation that you can upgrade be it laptop or desktop, can do gaming, and is private. The next thing for me is to "decloud" - meaning remove any and all online services that are not mission critical.
- nateb2022 3y ago
  > The next thing for me is to "decloud" - meaning remove any and all online services that are not mission critical. These are often useful, so the better option is to host your own privacy-respecting versions of these tools.
  - gumballindie 3y ago
    I should have phrased it better, indeed what I meant is self hosting by "declouding" from public clouds. My only concern is realiable self hosted backups. But I already have my own setup for newsfeeds, document storage, even for calling friends and relatives, and at the fraction of the cost (I factor in the value of my privacy as part of overall cost). I think there is good potential for self hosted products out there. A major pain point though is self hosting emails, since that requires a lot of work around spam protection and availability.
- dagw 3y ago
  Yup, same here. And the sad things is that Windows was getting so close. Between WSL2, the new terminal and ssh, all the support for VSCode and better dev tools and open source language support, I was becoming a bit of Windows 'fan' and this close to seriously considering Windows 10 a fully usable developer desktop. Then they released Windows 11 and completely shit the bed.
  - Corsome 3y ago
    Personally I think there are multiple forces acting on Windows at the same time. Some of them push it to a good direction (cases you mentioned) some of them less so. We live in a times that are good for developers: we not only have free access to powerful tools that other professionals need to pay big bucks but it goes even further: with open source we can co-shape these tools and in the extreme cases fork and create our own derivatives. Why not take advantage of this and just avoid proprietary solutions as much as possible?
- trustingtrust 3y ago
  I use an iPhone and other than that I hope to not use anything else that’s so cloud reliable. Maybe an AppleTV if I get one, but I only watch sports so a few cable channels are more than enough for me I think.
  - gumballindie 3y ago
    The nasty issue is that even tvs are turning into covert spies and are starting to show ads. So even if all you do is watch cable channels, the TV itself might still be spying on you. You perhaps need a "filter" such as a raspberry pi or a device that can transfer content via HDMI and have the tv completely cutoff from the internet. Really dubious times we are in.
    - trustingtrust 3y ago
      Just don't use wifi or connect your TV to the internet. That works for me. My TV is online only during firmware updates which almost never happen cause its become old and those stopped long time ago.
- Corsome 3y ago
  Well said. > The next thing for me is to "decloud" - meaning remove any and all online services that are not mission critical. For me there are multiple parallel "side quests" and decloud is definitely one of them (I strive to minimize cloud and select solutions that can be self hosted and that are E2EE. Then I pay for hosting anyway but I always have an option of rolling my own. Example: etesync for calendars and contacts). Other side quests: instead of Gnome use Sway, this requires manually picking wifi/Bluetooth connection managers (iwctl and bluetoothctl work well) and other tooling. Yet another: convert my entire family to use Linux. Sadly this is harder since schools teach Windows but Gnome looks very similar to what they use. These are just some examples. The good thing is that all of these are small steps that can be taken in any order to improve the situation in small increments.
artemonster 3y ago
how do you deal with absence of working task manager? any random hang-up is a forced restart, no way to kill offending process as EVERYTHING just freezes up. Tried forcing myself to migrate to Linux, even after forcing no updates, a lot of things magically stop working or break, forcing me to spend hours on google to fix some crap by copypasting random nonsense into terminal. I just want to use my PC, not be a debugger non stop.
- asddubs 3y ago
  I never have the problem of everything hanging except on an old laptop with only 4gb memory, in OOM conditions. If a program hangs I can just use the KDE task manager or kill -9 to make it compliant
- majewsky 3y ago
  Both KDE and Gnome have task manager apps as far as I'm aware. And even then, in my experience it's very rare to observe any kind of hang-up that requires restarting the entire PC. Might be because I use a different set of applications. What applications do you observe these hang-ups with?
- gavinhoward 3y ago
  htop is a good task manager. At least for me.
  - blooalien 3y ago
    On the terminal, all the various "modern" replacements for `top` (btop, htop, bottom [mentioned in an earlier comment], etc.) are all really great. Many are almost on-par with their graphical counterparts these days.
  - artemonster 3y ago
    what do you do if you cannot launch it? because everything is frozen
    - no_time 3y ago

gumballindie 3y ago

Exactly. I made the switch from MacOS and couldn't be happier. The fun thing is that with Linux these days you have the option of a powerful workstation that you can upgrade be it laptop or desktop, can do gaming, and is private. The next thing for me is to "decloud" - meaning remove any and all online services that are not mission critical.

nateb2022 3y ago
> The next thing for me is to "decloud" - meaning remove any and all online services that are not mission critical. These are often useful, so the better option is to host your own privacy-respecting versions of these tools.
- gumballindie 3y ago
  I should have phrased it better, indeed what I meant is self hosting by "declouding" from public clouds. My only concern is realiable self hosted backups. But I already have my own setup for newsfeeds, document storage, even for calling friends and relatives, and at the fraction of the cost (I factor in the value of my privacy as part of overall cost). I think there is good potential for self hosted products out there. A major pain point though is self hosting emails, since that requires a lot of work around spam protection and availability.
dagw 3y ago
Yup, same here. And the sad things is that Windows was getting so close. Between WSL2, the new terminal and ssh, all the support for VSCode and better dev tools and open source language support, I was becoming a bit of Windows 'fan' and this close to seriously considering Windows 10 a fully usable developer desktop. Then they released Windows 11 and completely shit the bed.
- Corsome 3y ago
  Personally I think there are multiple forces acting on Windows at the same time. Some of them push it to a good direction (cases you mentioned) some of them less so. We live in a times that are good for developers: we not only have free access to powerful tools that other professionals need to pay big bucks but it goes even further: with open source we can co-shape these tools and in the extreme cases fork and create our own derivatives. Why not take advantage of this and just avoid proprietary solutions as much as possible?
trustingtrust 3y ago
I use an iPhone and other than that I hope to not use anything else that’s so cloud reliable. Maybe an AppleTV if I get one, but I only watch sports so a few cable channels are more than enough for me I think.
- gumballindie 3y ago
  The nasty issue is that even tvs are turning into covert spies and are starting to show ads. So even if all you do is watch cable channels, the TV itself might still be spying on you. You perhaps need a "filter" such as a raspberry pi or a device that can transfer content via HDMI and have the tv completely cutoff from the internet. Really dubious times we are in.
  - trustingtrust 3y ago
    Just don't use wifi or connect your TV to the internet. That works for me. My TV is online only during firmware updates which almost never happen cause its become old and those stopped long time ago.
Corsome 3y ago
Well said. > The next thing for me is to "decloud" - meaning remove any and all online services that are not mission critical. For me there are multiple parallel "side quests" and decloud is definitely one of them (I strive to minimize cloud and select solutions that can be self hosted and that are E2EE. Then I pay for hosting anyway but I always have an option of rolling my own. Example: etesync for calendars and contacts). Other side quests: instead of Gnome use Sway, this requires manually picking wifi/Bluetooth connection managers (iwctl and bluetoothctl work well) and other tooling. Yet another: convert my entire family to use Linux. Sadly this is harder since schools teach Windows but Gnome looks very similar to what they use. These are just some examples. The good thing is that all of these are small steps that can be taken in any order to improve the situation in small increments.

artemonster 3y ago

how do you deal with absence of working task manager? any random hang-up is a forced restart, no way to kill offending process as EVERYTHING just freezes up. Tried forcing myself to migrate to Linux, even after forcing no updates, a lot of things magically stop working or break, forcing me to spend hours on google to fix some crap by copypasting random nonsense into terminal. I just want to use my PC, not be a debugger non stop.

asddubs 3y ago
I never have the problem of everything hanging except on an old laptop with only 4gb memory, in OOM conditions. If a program hangs I can just use the KDE task manager or kill -9 to make it compliant
majewsky 3y ago
Both KDE and Gnome have task manager apps as far as I'm aware. And even then, in my experience it's very rare to observe any kind of hang-up that requires restarting the entire PC. Might be because I use a different set of applications. What applications do you observe these hang-ups with?
gavinhoward 3y ago
htop is a good task manager. At least for me.
- blooalien 3y ago
  On the terminal, all the various "modern" replacements for `top` (btop, htop, bottom [mentioned in an earlier comment], etc.) are all really great. Many are almost on-par with their graphical counterparts these days.
- artemonster 3y ago
  what do you do if you cannot launch it? because everything is frozen
  - no_time 3y ago