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Linux desktop is more viable than ever. Zigbee/Matter/... are widely adopted open standards without vendor lock in. Things like Home Assistant are getting ser

• hkt 3y ago
  I can confirm: I've been using Linux on the desktop since I was 15, nearly 20 years ago now. Be not afraid, fellow nerds!
  • leansensei 3y ago
    Since 1997 here -- still my OS of choice, for desktops, laptops, and servers. I enjoy FreeBSD and NetBSD too, but Debian feels like "home". No surprises, no gotchas, no telemetry, no nonsense. Every time I have to use my Windows 10 corporate laptop, I become even more bewildered that people actually tolerate such a farce as their daily computing environment.
    • omgmajk 3y ago
      You and I are quite alike it seems, Linux always on some device, server, laptop since 1997 - Debian is home. I do tolerate Windows to some extent however, it doesn't bother me too much. But that might be the gaming nerd inside talking.
      • vladislavv 3y ago
        With steam and proton why bother?
        • omgmajk 3y ago
          Most of my games don't really work with Proton very well. Also nvidia gpu which is very weird to fix. On this particular computer I run windows with an MX VM where I do most of my work. On other computers I run Debian or MX.
      • NegativeK 3y ago
        Fellow Debianer that visits Windows. It's fine when I'm derping around in Photoshop or something, but it's infuriating for actual work. Debian is home.
        • seabass-labrax 3y ago
          Are you aware of Photopea? It's FOSS and a very capable alternative to Photoshop. It evens runs smoothly on my old Android 5 tablet. https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/
          • omgmajk 3y ago
            I am very averse to online only tools. I don't really like using them in the browser at all. I don't get this trend. If I do graphics I mainly use Gimp or InkScape but I don't do any of that very often. Mostly I just code or game.
          • NegativeK 3y ago
            I've tried a few of the FLOSS photography tools. I'm impressed with them, but I prefer the Adobe suite for how I work. There's also a few other tools like Fusion 360, games, etc. that I prefer having Windows around for.
            • seabass-labrax 3y ago
              I used to keep a Windows installation to hand on a disk, but after I realised that I hadn't booted into it for over two years I started using FLOSS operating systems exclusively. Re. photography, do any specific features of Photoshop come to mind that you miss in free alternatives?
• pawelmurias 3y ago
  > Linux desktop is more viable than ever. Other then in most stuff migrating to the browser how so? Browser + terminal has been a good combo for a long time, the desktop enviornment only have suffered enshittification due to a push to touch screen oriented UI conventions.
  • jeltz 3y ago
    PipeWire made sound finally work flawlessly for me on Linux, Proton made it possible to play a ton of games, graphics drivers being stable, especially for Vulcan and Firefox enabling hardware acceleration. Some things are worse as you note, but there have been som important improvements.
    • oblio 3y ago
      Is there a mainstream laptop on which Linux runs as well as Windows? I'd really want one that doesn't cost 3k+.
      • MaKey 3y ago
        The Linux support for ThinkPads is pretty good I think. I've been using a T14 AMD Gen 1 for three years now with Ubuntu. The hardware is supported by the LVFS too. I'm upgrading to a T14 AMD Gen 4 shortly and will be running Linux (Ubuntu) again.
      • erwincoumans 3y ago
        ASUS - ROG Zephyrus M16 16" 240Hz Gaming Laptop runs Ubuntu 22.04 very well in my opinion: CUDA, Vulkan, Wifi, bluetooth, sleep etc. I installed Linux on a second SSD next to Windows on the original SSD. The version with NVIDIA RTX 4070 costs 1700 USD at Best Buy (the one with RTX 4090 may exceed your budget)
      • NegativeK 3y ago
        Dell XPS 13. Framework.
      • gilcot 3y ago
• Pannoniae 3y ago
  The Linux desktop is better than ever (in fact, I am switching to it the first time in a few days! I just need to setup some things first) Sadly, the enshittification has also taken over parts of the Linux desktop as well though. For example, the mobile-first, flat-everything user-hostile design. (like gnome) Dark themes were not common while skeuomorphism was mainstream, they are only in demand right now because viewing an extremely low-contrast white flat theme is an eyesore. Luckily, KDE and the similar still exists and you can theme it:)
  • jraph 3y ago
    I don't like Gnome so much, but enshittification is quite a strong word to qualify it. I'd prefer we reserved this word for when stuff gets worse because of money / investors, with incentives at odds with the user needs. I don't believe Gnome suffers from decisions that are bad because of financial incentives.
    • Pannoniae 3y ago
      Well, I am open to changing my mind. What do you think, what's the reason then? From an outsider perspective, 10 years ago I've seen all those beautiful, perfectly usable UIs, and they have almost all disappeared by today. What happened? Why do you think GNOME does that?
      • jraph 3y ago
        I believe its maintainers truly believe they are taking the right decisions that are good for the project. They limit the feature set so they can stabilize on a smaller basis. They take UI/UX decisions they think are right. That's what I think. I also think they managed to build a beautiful UI that works quite well and that pleases many people. I also think they removed useful features, lagged on important features (thumbnails in the file picker, which I always found bad anyway, including in the Gnome 2 days). I also think they believe they know better than their users on what they need when they really don't, that they should be more understanding of users trying to work around the flaws instead of despising them, and that they shouldn't both reduce the feature set to a minimum and break extensions in each release. And I do indeed think they made UI like it would be used on tablets, degrading the experience desktop, way too early when they didn't work well on tablet anyway for many reasons and KDE was the only bearable option on tablets at the time. So I really believe they truly do what they think is best, but I also like the KDE approach way better: listening to the users, trying to polish things while not removing too many features, being humble in their decision, and acknowledging their users might have different needs / taste. (for instance, in Plasma 6, they are reverting to double click by default - many KDE devs prefer simple click and think it's objectively better, but they recognize many users are disturbed by this default.)
• b800h 3y ago
  "You mean GNU/Linux." :-)
  • lima 3y ago
    Indeed, though Android/Linux, ChromeOS/Linux and others are doing fine also!