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Just switch to Linux already. It's really there. Some compromises required, sure, but they are already far and between. Keep it for gaming if you need. But giv

Just switch to Linux already. It's really there. Some compromises required, sure, but they are already far and between. Keep it for gaming if you need. But give Proton a try first. My almost 75yo dad switched recently. I swear I'm telling the truth: his main complaint was, after buying a new printer, he couldn't find the matching drivers. I told him just to print, and that was that.

Farbklex 3y ago
I only use Windows on my gaming desktop and would go Linux first next time I upgrade. Only a few games I play still need Windows and I could still use dual boot for them.
runjake 3y ago
> Just switch to Linux already. I did this. Again. After running Linux as my main desktop OS from about 1992 - 1999, and some years since then. > It's really there. Some compromises required, sure, but they are already far and between. I'm not sure about that, and borderline disagree. There are a lot of compromises: - The Linux desktop is far flakier and far less elegant than Windows and especially macOS. KDE's a little less flakey than GNOME, I suppose. - A lot of the apps you love don't exist on Linux. - The Linux replacements for the apps you love are way less functional. - Keyboard shortcuts are chaotic unless you spend a lot of time deep diving on how to configure them coherently across applications. - Odd behaviors with snap/flatpak apps, but those will get worked out with time. Pluses: - The underlying Linux OS is rock stable with compatible hardware. - You can customize your desktop pretty much infinitely, if that's your thing. - Everything is free. - Logging is, compared to macOS and Windows, excellent. - If you're a developer, everything is more compatible on Linux. Anyways, after a year, I went crawling back to my Mac. I still have a Linux desktop SSD in the PC, ready to go, but I rarely pop in anymore. That said, if you live the terminals plus browser lifestyle, you won't miss much switching to Linux desktop. Edit: for context, I used UNIX and Linux way before I ever used Windows or DOS. I have, in the past, done deep dives on Windows, Windows kernel, Windows and .net programming, etc. I just prefer *NIX.
- firebaze 3y ago
  Let's just agree to disagree. I grew up with Windows, learnt programming on it, was C++ proficient, COM, COM+, switched to C#, .NET, WinForms, WPF ... and that was when it got too much. If you know Windows, you probably can at least feel why. I earned quite a lot of money with Windows. I had tons of apps on Windows, and all alternatives on Linux are better to me (IntelliJ vs. Visual Studio, VS Code the same, CodeLion). I had a MacOS stint in the middle of the transition, so maybe that's a difference. But still: I'm not you, you are not me, and that's okay. I'm just proof that it is probably subjective, and not objective, what you describe. And regarding the desktop OS experience: couldn't disagree more. But, as already said, probably taste :)
  - lstamour 3y ago
    If Adobe or Serif announced Linux support, I’d switch in a heartbeat. I was about to add DaVinci Resolve to that list, but they actually released official Linux support, so I can cross some video editing off my list. And one presumes all web-based tools such as Figma also work well on Linux these days, so… the list of tools that aren’t Linux compatible might be vanishingly small now. But not zero, sadly.
    - firebaze 3y ago
      Figma works perfectly on Linux¹. If you don't believe me, let's privately talk. E-Mail me at glitch@qygge.com, if you like. ¹ our (sub-orga-wide) UX crew uses MacOS, almost all Devs use Linux, and both of them use Figma
    - init2null 3y ago
      Too many dev commenters will hand-wave away complaints about graphics work on Linux. Bitmap and vector graphics are terrible, and I have tried the options. RAW photo editing is mediocre. Font rendering and color management has always been behind. When I switched to a Mac, it wasn't that MacOS got vastly better. It was that Windows has been getting dramatically worse. I that being said, Resolve and Blender on Linux can nicely serve subsets of the creative community. We just need more.
abdusco 3y ago
> it's really there Battery life, display scaling, sleep & wake up issues, trackpad gestures, sound output, GPU-accelerated video playback... Just to name a couple of problems I hope not to encounter every time I decide to give Linux another chance, but I still do. To fix them, you need to run some arcane commands, edit some config files, compile your own kernel, ... I don't know. I'll have something that "just works". I'll keep using Linux headless on a server, where it really shines.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  On bleeding edge hardware: possibly. On anything that is a couple of years old Linux runs out of the box, usually is rock solid. It's a bit less flashy and in your face though, but I personally prefer that.
  - Marsymars 3y ago
    > On anything that is a couple of years old Linux runs out of the box YMMV. Just yesterday, I discovered that the Debian installer doesn't include support for UFS drives, which have been available in laptops for 3+ years now. (Explaining to my wife why I was returning the laptop I'd just bought wouldn't have been a great endorsement for "Linux runs out of the box".) Coincidental bug report from mail list last week: https://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org/msg1935862.html https://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.o...
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Interesting, UFS probably means something different to me than it means to you, for me it spells Unix File System, the bug report lists it as some hardware variation that I'd never even heard of today. Did you see the follow up comments by the way? Compared to trying to get support from a commercial vendor the FOSS world never ceases to amaze me with the degree of effort people are willing to make to get other people on the way again. So, let's strike 'a couple of years old' and add 'anything mainstream that is a couple of years old'. We're going to end up with a very long definition if we have to add all of the possible exceptions but I suspect there are more devices capable of running Linux by now than there are of running Windows!
baz00 3y ago
Oh god no. This is just not the solution for most people unless you want to own their computing infrastructure until they drop dead and have to micromanage their differences galore. And for myself, I'd rather pay for O365 than use Linux on the desktop. It is just so so so broken. High DPI is a mess, half the apps are only 60% complete, weird ass bugs (LibreOffice won't open spreadsheets it created half the time for example) and on top of that things break all the time on routine upgrades from power management to GPU drivers. I say this as someone who actually spends most of the day SSH'ed into Linux boxes. I've been trying for 25 years to get it on my desktop and it's nowhere near any commercial product in any way.
- firebaze 3y ago
  You seem to really have bad luck. High DPI works without a glitch¹ on all of our developer machines², most of them using two 4k monitors in parallel. ¹ both on Wayland and X11, so maybe we're really being lucky. ² mostly Dell Laptops, but also Lenovo
  - baz00 3y ago
    Can you do 150% fractional scaling on a 27" 4K monitor in any Gnome based desktop? Dell? I have a cupboard full of ones I've murdered and a limping one. No thanks.
magicalhippo 3y ago
If only there existed a viable Remote Desktop alternative for Linux. I use Remote Desktop to log into my home PC when I'm at work or away. No need to have a powerful laptop and no need to worry about laptop getting stolen. Tried all the Linux alternatives (latest round was last year). Yes there are functional remote desktop solutions, where functional means it actually works. But they're not really usable on a day-to-day basis and none of them are anywhere near the RDP experience. I see some developments on the horizon which make me a bit hopeful though.
- dist-epoch 3y ago
  What about TeamViewer.
  - magicalhippo 3y ago
    Performance is passable, though again not as great as RDP. Though I really don't like the idea of having my private machine open to a corporation.
frankjr 3y ago
> Just switch to Linux already. It's really there. Is it though? A friend of mine bought AMD RX 7800. He went with AMD specifically to make sure Linux compatibility is top notch given that AMD drivers are included in the kernel and developed by AMD developers. The result is that he cannot boot his Arch machine with it until he disconnects his monitor. Seriously. It just hangs forever [0]. Everything is up to date. Tried with NixOS and got same result. That's on top of other performance related problems he's encountered (mostly in Blender). Tried Windows to make sure the card is not at fault and voilà everything works correctly with no issues. [0] https://i.imgur.com/t6mXPm5.jpg https://i.imgur.com/t6mXPm5.jpg

Farbklex 3y ago

I only use Windows on my gaming desktop and would go Linux first next time I upgrade. Only a few games I play still need Windows and I could still use dual boot for them.

runjake 3y ago

> Just switch to Linux already. I did this. Again. After running Linux as my main desktop OS from about 1992 - 1999, and some years since then. > It's really there. Some compromises required, sure, but they are already far and between. I'm not sure about that, and borderline disagree. There are a lot of compromises: - The Linux desktop is far flakier and far less elegant than Windows and especially macOS. KDE's a little less flakey than GNOME, I suppose. - A lot of the apps you love don't exist on Linux. - The Linux replacements for the apps you love are way less functional. - Keyboard shortcuts are chaotic unless you spend a lot of time deep diving on how to configure them coherently across applications. - Odd behaviors with snap/flatpak apps, but those will get worked out with time. Pluses: - The underlying Linux OS is rock stable with compatible hardware. - You can customize your desktop pretty much infinitely, if that's your thing. - Everything is free. - Logging is, compared to macOS and Windows, excellent. - If you're a developer, everything is more compatible on Linux. Anyways, after a year, I went crawling back to my Mac. I still have a Linux desktop SSD in the PC, ready to go, but I rarely pop in anymore. That said, if you live the terminals plus browser lifestyle, you won't miss much switching to Linux desktop. Edit: for context, I used UNIX and Linux way before I ever used Windows or DOS. I have, in the past, done deep dives on Windows, Windows kernel, Windows and .net programming, etc. I just prefer *NIX.

firebaze 3y ago
Let's just agree to disagree. I grew up with Windows, learnt programming on it, was C++ proficient, COM, COM+, switched to C#, .NET, WinForms, WPF ... and that was when it got too much. If you know Windows, you probably can at least feel why. I earned quite a lot of money with Windows. I had tons of apps on Windows, and all alternatives on Linux are better to me (IntelliJ vs. Visual Studio, VS Code the same, CodeLion). I had a MacOS stint in the middle of the transition, so maybe that's a difference. But still: I'm not you, you are not me, and that's okay. I'm just proof that it is probably subjective, and not objective, what you describe. And regarding the desktop OS experience: couldn't disagree more. But, as already said, probably taste :)
- lstamour 3y ago
  If Adobe or Serif announced Linux support, I’d switch in a heartbeat. I was about to add DaVinci Resolve to that list, but they actually released official Linux support, so I can cross some video editing off my list. And one presumes all web-based tools such as Figma also work well on Linux these days, so… the list of tools that aren’t Linux compatible might be vanishingly small now. But not zero, sadly.
  - firebaze 3y ago
    Figma works perfectly on Linux¹. If you don't believe me, let's privately talk. E-Mail me at glitch@qygge.com, if you like. ¹ our (sub-orga-wide) UX crew uses MacOS, almost all Devs use Linux, and both of them use Figma
  - init2null 3y ago
    Too many dev commenters will hand-wave away complaints about graphics work on Linux. Bitmap and vector graphics are terrible, and I have tried the options. RAW photo editing is mediocre. Font rendering and color management has always been behind. When I switched to a Mac, it wasn't that MacOS got vastly better. It was that Windows has been getting dramatically worse. I that being said, Resolve and Blender on Linux can nicely serve subsets of the creative community. We just need more.

abdusco 3y ago

> it's really there Battery life, display scaling, sleep & wake up issues, trackpad gestures, sound output, GPU-accelerated video playback... Just to name a couple of problems I hope not to encounter every time I decide to give Linux another chance, but I still do. To fix them, you need to run some arcane commands, edit some config files, compile your own kernel, ... I don't know. I'll have something that "just works". I'll keep using Linux headless on a server, where it really shines.

jacquesm 3y ago
On bleeding edge hardware: possibly. On anything that is a couple of years old Linux runs out of the box, usually is rock solid. It's a bit less flashy and in your face though, but I personally prefer that.
- Marsymars 3y ago
  > On anything that is a couple of years old Linux runs out of the box YMMV. Just yesterday, I discovered that the Debian installer doesn't include support for UFS drives, which have been available in laptops for 3+ years now. (Explaining to my wife why I was returning the laptop I'd just bought wouldn't have been a great endorsement for "Linux runs out of the box".) Coincidental bug report from mail list last week: https://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org/msg1935862.html https://www.mail-archive.com/debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.o...
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Interesting, UFS probably means something different to me than it means to you, for me it spells Unix File System, the bug report lists it as some hardware variation that I'd never even heard of today. Did you see the follow up comments by the way? Compared to trying to get support from a commercial vendor the FOSS world never ceases to amaze me with the degree of effort people are willing to make to get other people on the way again. So, let's strike 'a couple of years old' and add 'anything mainstream that is a couple of years old'. We're going to end up with a very long definition if we have to add all of the possible exceptions but I suspect there are more devices capable of running Linux by now than there are of running Windows!

baz00 3y ago

Oh god no. This is just not the solution for most people unless you want to own their computing infrastructure until they drop dead and have to micromanage their differences galore. And for myself, I'd rather pay for O365 than use Linux on the desktop. It is just so so so broken. High DPI is a mess, half the apps are only 60% complete, weird ass bugs (LibreOffice won't open spreadsheets it created half the time for example) and on top of that things break all the time on routine upgrades from power management to GPU drivers. I say this as someone who actually spends most of the day SSH'ed into Linux boxes. I've been trying for 25 years to get it on my desktop and it's nowhere near any commercial product in any way.

firebaze 3y ago
You seem to really have bad luck. High DPI works without a glitch¹ on all of our developer machines², most of them using two 4k monitors in parallel. ¹ both on Wayland and X11, so maybe we're really being lucky. ² mostly Dell Laptops, but also Lenovo
- baz00 3y ago
  Can you do 150% fractional scaling on a 27" 4K monitor in any Gnome based desktop? Dell? I have a cupboard full of ones I've murdered and a limping one. No thanks.

magicalhippo 3y ago

If only there existed a viable Remote Desktop alternative for Linux. I use Remote Desktop to log into my home PC when I'm at work or away. No need to have a powerful laptop and no need to worry about laptop getting stolen. Tried all the Linux alternatives (latest round was last year). Yes there are functional remote desktop solutions, where functional means it actually works. But they're not really usable on a day-to-day basis and none of them are anywhere near the RDP experience. I see some developments on the horizon which make me a bit hopeful though.

dist-epoch 3y ago
What about TeamViewer.
- magicalhippo 3y ago
  Performance is passable, though again not as great as RDP. Though I really don't like the idea of having my private machine open to a corporation.

frankjr 3y ago

> Just switch to Linux already. It's really there. Is it though? A friend of mine bought AMD RX 7800. He went with AMD specifically to make sure Linux compatibility is top notch given that AMD drivers are included in the kernel and developed by AMD developers. The result is that he cannot boot his Arch machine with it until he disconnects his monitor. Seriously. It just hangs forever [0]. Everything is up to date. Tried with NixOS and got same result. That's on top of other performance related problems he's encountered (mostly in Blender). Tried Windows to make sure the card is not at fault and voilà everything works correctly with no issues. [0] https://i.imgur.com/t6mXPm5.jpg https://i.imgur.com/t6mXPm5.jpg