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> I hope that more people switch It's reached a point where it no longer really matters. Linux is good enough, usable enough, and supported enough, that gett

by tux1968 3y ago

> I hope that more people switch It's reached a point where it no longer really matters. Linux is good enough, usable enough, and supported enough, that getting more users won't change much. It might actually be worse if a lot more users, with a lot of wide-ranging needs and demands, switch to Linux. At least, I am happy with the current state of Linux usability, and no longer care to evangelize the benefits of being free of a walled garden and adware platform.

whatshisface 3y ago
I have a hard time imagining a world where Linux is used in a more diverse set of operating environments than it already is.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  The answer is stuff like ChromeBooks and Steam Decks. The classic desktop open source/free software ecosystem that people are thinking of when they say “Linux” is driven by a technical community, so the types of problems that will be solved are the ones that bother technical people, not non-technical ones. There’s some overlap of course, (everyone wants the fonts and colors in their terminals to look nice, right?) but it is just a side effect of the fact that technical people are also people.
zeroCalories 3y ago
Linux is good enough, but in terms of stability and performance for user applications, it sucks compared to Windows and MacOS. There really isn't a company or organization that focuses on that, besides maybe Valve. We need more attention on it, for our own sanity, but most of the money is in enterprise servers.
- tux1968 3y ago
  > it sucks compared to Windows and MacOS There are tradeoffs. Linux's advantage is that it's not an adware platform, or a walled garden. For my money, I don't care about extra performance or stability, it all works well enough for me. Of course, that doesn't help if your particular application doesn't work on Linux, you're out of luck. I just don't think it's a worthwhile goal, to try to attract those people to Linux. If they want to fight for it themselves, great! But there's not much benefit for those of us who are already happy on Linux, to work to attract anyone else.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- rstuart4133 3y ago
  > Linux is good enough, but in terms of stability and performance for user applications, it sucks compared to Windows and MacOS. /me shakes head in disbelief. How can one persons experience be so different to mine? Everything is faster / small under Linux - the file system, the graphics, the size of a base OS install with GUI and brower is literally 1/10th of Windows. Windows taking seconds to respond to a click on the start button (I presume so it can fetch the ads) was the final straw for me. As for stability, I watched co-workers come in in the morning and find their dev environment was broken due an overnight Microsoft update, and just accept the 30 delay while they fixed it as routine, unavoidable, "it's just how things are". But for one, an update that broke things so badly he needed an OS reinstall to drive him to having a "fuck it, I'm going to Debian" moment. That is rare though. Meanwhile, I've never experienced unwanted downtime from any Debian security patch. OS upgrades are a different matter, but they only happen once in two years, and you have at least another 2 years to get around to it. Or you can do it once every 4 years. Which isn't surprising. Debian is used by a lot of servers around the globe. Stable is the name of the game, uptimes in years aren't uncommon.
Sayrus 3y ago
My own experience doesn't reflect that. I've been using Linux for work for years and tried to switch from Windows to Linux for games. NVIDIA drivers and game support on Linux is not an experience I'd recommend to anyone without experience. On laptop it's awesome, unless you have both an iGPU and dedicated GPU, then switching properly is a pain. WiFi drivers are a hit or miss: some cards are great, some others are not well supported. Knowing which is which before buying requires reading extensive documentation. Even Dell on their XPS 9310 fucked up Linux support so bad they dediced to quietly remove the option to buy Ubuntu laptop and communication about supporting Linux. My personal laptop recovers all screen when waking up from sleep, my work laptop doesn't and I need to unplug and plug them again. One thing that works awesomely well for me is Printer supports (scanners are another pair of hands though). Anywhere I tried, discovery works great out of the box, even for USB printers it works without having to download a driver from a strange website. When using snap (default on Ubuntu) Firefox crashes often if it updates in background. Libre office is far from the Office experience, which I tend to forget as I use Google Workspace apps instead. Having tried working on Windows, Linux and MacOS, I wouldn't move to another environment. The pros greatly outweigh the cons for my own use-case. But I will still keep a Windows for gaming and cannot recommend it to relatives.
- tux1968 3y ago
  I think most people eventually figure out hardware that works fine under Linux. Granted, nvidia is still a sore point, and it doesn't really have a viable alternative for some important scenarios. But in the end, it's usually not that hard to make work, many (millions?) people do it. It might not be slick, but it's fine. And Intel iGPU support is basically flawless if you have more modest needs. Can't comment on the problems you have had. My own experience has been almost without issue for many years now, using Fedora. YMMV.
- jonathanstrange 3y ago
  Gaming and pro audio plugins are the reasons for me to keep Windows bootable. However, recently Windows started to take more than 15 minutes for booting (except for sometimes, when it takes only 3 seconds as if to mock me), and none of the 30 suggestions or so I've tried could fix this big. Since the advice in such cases is always to re-install everything (nevermind 100+ audio plugins with proprietary DRM I'd need to re-install), I'm thinking more than twice before booting into Windows these days. I don't have much time for gaming anyway, and will probably just give up my audio plugins at some point.
firecall 3y ago
But I don’t think Linux is good enough, usable enough or supported enough! The out of the box experience on Ubuntu doesn’t even come close to modern macOS or Windows 11. Sure, if all you need to do is use a web browser then you’d be fine with a Linux GUI most of the time. But then a Chrome Book is better at that point.
- tux1968 3y ago
  Yeah, i'm not a fan of Ubuntu either. But if Linux isn't for you, that's great. I don't think any of us should work to convince you otherwise. We're fine. You're fine. No problem. P.S. Chromebook is Linux under the hood.
  - firecall 3y ago
    Indeed, it's all good :-) And I agree, you cant really have a back and forth about it, trying to score points. The requirements are too myriad these days. Hence my Chromebook comment - because for someone that just needs a device that gives them access to a web browser environment and some apps, it's a good choice. I was aware Chromebooks are Linux, which is good :-) I do like Linux - and do use it as my desktop dev environment from time to time. When I feel like a change from macOS.
- Zardoz84 3y ago
  Try Kubuntu. It's far better than Windows. I can't say anything compared against OSX, as I don't touch it.
- DoItToMe81 3y ago
  How not? I have used it on about 5 devices in the last few years and it has worked out of the box every time.

whatshisface 3y ago

I have a hard time imagining a world where Linux is used in a more diverse set of operating environments than it already is.

bee_rider 3y ago
The answer is stuff like ChromeBooks and Steam Decks. The classic desktop open source/free software ecosystem that people are thinking of when they say “Linux” is driven by a technical community, so the types of problems that will be solved are the ones that bother technical people, not non-technical ones. There’s some overlap of course, (everyone wants the fonts and colors in their terminals to look nice, right?) but it is just a side effect of the fact that technical people are also people.

zeroCalories 3y ago

Linux is good enough, but in terms of stability and performance for user applications, it sucks compared to Windows and MacOS. There really isn't a company or organization that focuses on that, besides maybe Valve. We need more attention on it, for our own sanity, but most of the money is in enterprise servers.

tux1968 3y ago
> it sucks compared to Windows and MacOS There are tradeoffs. Linux's advantage is that it's not an adware platform, or a walled garden. For my money, I don't care about extra performance or stability, it all works well enough for me. Of course, that doesn't help if your particular application doesn't work on Linux, you're out of luck. I just don't think it's a worthwhile goal, to try to attract those people to Linux. If they want to fight for it themselves, great! But there's not much benefit for those of us who are already happy on Linux, to work to attract anyone else.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
rstuart4133 3y ago
> Linux is good enough, but in terms of stability and performance for user applications, it sucks compared to Windows and MacOS. /me shakes head in disbelief. How can one persons experience be so different to mine? Everything is faster / small under Linux - the file system, the graphics, the size of a base OS install with GUI and brower is literally 1/10th of Windows. Windows taking seconds to respond to a click on the start button (I presume so it can fetch the ads) was the final straw for me. As for stability, I watched co-workers come in in the morning and find their dev environment was broken due an overnight Microsoft update, and just accept the 30 delay while they fixed it as routine, unavoidable, "it's just how things are". But for one, an update that broke things so badly he needed an OS reinstall to drive him to having a "fuck it, I'm going to Debian" moment. That is rare though. Meanwhile, I've never experienced unwanted downtime from any Debian security patch. OS upgrades are a different matter, but they only happen once in two years, and you have at least another 2 years to get around to it. Or you can do it once every 4 years. Which isn't surprising. Debian is used by a lot of servers around the globe. Stable is the name of the game, uptimes in years aren't uncommon.

Sayrus 3y ago

My own experience doesn't reflect that. I've been using Linux for work for years and tried to switch from Windows to Linux for games. NVIDIA drivers and game support on Linux is not an experience I'd recommend to anyone without experience. On laptop it's awesome, unless you have both an iGPU and dedicated GPU, then switching properly is a pain. WiFi drivers are a hit or miss: some cards are great, some others are not well supported. Knowing which is which before buying requires reading extensive documentation. Even Dell on their XPS 9310 fucked up Linux support so bad they dediced to quietly remove the option to buy Ubuntu laptop and communication about supporting Linux. My personal laptop recovers all screen when waking up from sleep, my work laptop doesn't and I need to unplug and plug them again. One thing that works awesomely well for me is Printer supports (scanners are another pair of hands though). Anywhere I tried, discovery works great out of the box, even for USB printers it works without having to download a driver from a strange website. When using snap (default on Ubuntu) Firefox crashes often if it updates in background. Libre office is far from the Office experience, which I tend to forget as I use Google Workspace apps instead. Having tried working on Windows, Linux and MacOS, I wouldn't move to another environment. The pros greatly outweigh the cons for my own use-case. But I will still keep a Windows for gaming and cannot recommend it to relatives.

tux1968 3y ago
I think most people eventually figure out hardware that works fine under Linux. Granted, nvidia is still a sore point, and it doesn't really have a viable alternative for some important scenarios. But in the end, it's usually not that hard to make work, many (millions?) people do it. It might not be slick, but it's fine. And Intel iGPU support is basically flawless if you have more modest needs. Can't comment on the problems you have had. My own experience has been almost without issue for many years now, using Fedora. YMMV.
jonathanstrange 3y ago
Gaming and pro audio plugins are the reasons for me to keep Windows bootable. However, recently Windows started to take more than 15 minutes for booting (except for sometimes, when it takes only 3 seconds as if to mock me), and none of the 30 suggestions or so I've tried could fix this big. Since the advice in such cases is always to re-install everything (nevermind 100+ audio plugins with proprietary DRM I'd need to re-install), I'm thinking more than twice before booting into Windows these days. I don't have much time for gaming anyway, and will probably just give up my audio plugins at some point.

firecall 3y ago

But I don’t think Linux is good enough, usable enough or supported enough! The out of the box experience on Ubuntu doesn’t even come close to modern macOS or Windows 11. Sure, if all you need to do is use a web browser then you’d be fine with a Linux GUI most of the time. But then a Chrome Book is better at that point.

tux1968 3y ago
Yeah, i'm not a fan of Ubuntu either. But if Linux isn't for you, that's great. I don't think any of us should work to convince you otherwise. We're fine. You're fine. No problem. P.S. Chromebook is Linux under the hood.
- firecall 3y ago
  Indeed, it's all good :-) And I agree, you cant really have a back and forth about it, trying to score points. The requirements are too myriad these days. Hence my Chromebook comment - because for someone that just needs a device that gives them access to a web browser environment and some apps, it's a good choice. I was aware Chromebooks are Linux, which is good :-) I do like Linux - and do use it as my desktop dev environment from time to time. When I feel like a change from macOS.
Zardoz84 3y ago
Try Kubuntu. It's far better than Windows. I can't say anything compared against OSX, as I don't touch it.
DoItToMe81 3y ago
How not? I have used it on about 5 devices in the last few years and it has worked out of the box every time.