6 ms·

> The only thing holding me from Linux I've spent the last 25 years using linux and seeing this statement. There's always something.

by ta1243 2y ago

darkwater 2y ago
And to give a more Linux-positive spin "there is always something that holds you... which is actually not that vital in the end once you lose it"
- bishbosh 2y ago
  It really has come a long way. Obviously this is one users needs, and other folks will find other things that are missing or not 100%. But the fact that in this case the conversation as moved from gaming more generally, to vendor specific overclocking is quite a sign of the times.
eptcyka 2y ago
It might be different people saying that, and with time, some blockers are removed, some people migrate, and a new set of would be linux users get bumped up in the queue where they are now at their last obstacle to using linux.
- account42 2y ago
  A lot of these "blockers" are, to put it bluntly, merely excuses. Like ggp here didn't mention why he thinks ThrottleStop and MSI Afterburner are a must for him but but I doubt that they are truly irreplacable. More likely they provide some non-essential utility which would make this more about tradeoffs, or about just taking the plunge to feel the grass on the other side of the fence with your own feet.
baq 2y ago
Let's be honest here, the something is 99% drivers. It was printers, then it was wifi, now it's gpus. DNNs and LLMs at least made the compute part of the gpu driver Linux-native (from the vendors' perspective), one would hope the graphics part of the graphics processor would come next, but alas making big iron do work is done from macos and windows laptops.
- advael 2y ago
  Weird I haven't had a graphics issue since like the 8000 series of cards for like, the normal driving graphics right off the card use case. Optimus is definitely a little fucky with multiple GPUs and sometimes new CUDA versions break libs if you're keeping it bleeding edge updated, but most ML workflows use environment management to get around the clusterfuck that is the python ML ANN ecosystem anyway. Nvidia does a lot of work to make it hard to work with their cards but since GPGPU started taking off in the 2010s this sounds like a blast from the past, as a lot of the need for getting good performance out of cards on compute servers - which inevitably run linux because it has any kind of reasonable headless userspace and is easier to write reliable software for - has driven better driver support in general In discussions between people who don't use linux, their notions of what the pain points even are seem to lag by sometimes over a decade I find myself equally ill-informed on the pitfalls of windows ecosystems of late, except the ones that make the news for how insane they sound, but in my defense I also don't go around claiming I intermittently try to use it but just can't make the jump As microsoft continues to tighten the screws, I just hope all these reluctant users can get out before it's too late
  - baq 2y ago
    The GPU market forces are: - gaming: Windows with a sprinkle of Steam Deck (yay!) - compute: Linux - video decode: Windows (DRM on Linux... yeah) - video encode: mixed (Windows for consumers and smbs, Linux for cloud transcode) Of these, the Steam Deck is the closest to a laptop that we got to. This is actually great, but it didn't result in a noticeable shift in anything, because LLMs took it all.
    - advael 2y ago
      I am not sure what point you're trying to make with this collection of non-sequiturs and false statements -The vast overwhelming majority of games are now effectively cross-platform. Work done mostly by valve benefits the entire ecosystem of linux-based OSes, and the sliver of incompatible games that still exist take vast resources to prevent from being made compatible, and thus can only be pulled off by well-resourced studios, most of whom Microsoft either has a deep relationship with or has bought. -I'm glad we at least agree that computers running linux can be used for doing computation, as is true of any computer I would hope -Most video decoding is effectively done on browsers, which are, with the exception of the garbage ones OS vendors keep trying to lock users into despite this being deeply unpopular, run on every platform. DRM is supported by most browsers with some opt-out consent options, and remaining incompatibility with streaming platforms is largely driven by those platforms being able to detect what operating system you're on and specifically trying to prevent playback on that basis. There is no popular codec I am aware of that isn't supported by FFMPEG, let alone by any free software whatsoever -At this point are you just talking about platform adoption? People can encode stuff on whatever system they want. The only market forces are increasingly futile efforts to enforce platform control on the part of content aggregating corporations -Is the thing about laptops referring to the fact that laptops are, through corporate deals, mostly sold with windows as a default operating system on them? There are now several whole OEMs that don't, but the last time I encountered a laptop for which a routine and standard linux install process ran into any issue whatsoever was like 2012, and it felt like a weird edge case then. Maybe I would have if I used fingerprint scanners or some other creepy spyware nonsense? I'm not even looking up laptops before I buy them. One time I had a boss who just bought the most expensive thing he could find at best buy on short notice. I heard it was kinda hard to get new Apple silicon models up and running for a while? For the most part, computers are just computers. It's weird that so much marketing pretends otherwise. The market for GPUs in laptops by and large does not care what operating system they are running, because people are buying the hardware for any of a number of general purposes for which one might use a general purpose computer. If you've done any statistical analysis to support these claims of "market forces", are you sure you're not claiming every laptop sold with windows installed by default in your models, despite that everyone running linux on a laptop also has to buy the laptop, but will probably only boot up windows if it forces them to by trying to prevent people from booting into a BIOS menu, and then only to do that? This kind of fuckery will also affect statistics for things like counting browser agents, because every time Netflix does some fuckery to try to gate high-quality streams by OS, someone will write a script or a plugin to spoof the agent of another OS to get around it I find it pretty futile to try to understand "market forces" in any sort of factual sense, because the metrics are nebulous, easy to manipulate, and everyone involved has lots of incentives to lie about all of them. But I still don't have any clue what this has to do with whether drivers work, since most people on every operating system just use the same stupid blob of drivers nvidia dutifully provides every platform for every GPU they make, as they have for the last 10 of the roughly 15 years I've had any reason to care about GPU drivers
walteweiss 2y ago
15 years ago, that was Photoshop that kept me back. I switched to macOS a couple of years later. Now, I switched to Linux, ditching Photoshop. So far so good. I can stand the life without Photoshop, but tolerating macOS or Windows is above me.
djaychela 2y ago
For me, the something is the DAW i use (Cubase). I know it intimately, I make a living with it, and despite trying other alternatives, there isn't a DAW which runs on Linux which would cut it for me, in terms of overall features. If Cubase ran on linux (and all my current plugins could work), then I'd drop it in a heartbeat. I've been running Linux in various guises and roles since (I think) 1998, but it's never made it to the 'daily use, I can do everything in it' stage, despite quite a few attempts on my part to make it happen.
- vjulian 2y ago
  I’m curious, how did you settle on PC vs Mac? I’m a PC user (Cubase), but there are certain unique advantages to Mac as a platform of course when it comes to music. I’m not wedded to brand personally but use PC as I find it more versatile in non-music tasks (and in music I am more a hobbyist these days).
  - NikkiA 2y ago
    I suspect > and all my current plugins could work holds the key, there are an immense amount of plugins that are PC-only, as I'm sure you're aware. The list of mac-only plugins is pretty tiny.
  - djaychela 2y ago
    I actually use both, but my main DAW is on Windows because of cost of storage and processor at the time I built it. It's now due for replacement, and I'm still pretty confident I can build a more performant Windows system for less money than buying anything macOS based - even if I buy a mac Studio I'd need to go for 64GB RAM, and that would be £2500 for just the system unit with 512GB of storage. I can build a faster windows-based i9 system for that, complete with 64GB of RAM and probably 4TB of storage (if not more). I've got an M1 max macbook Pro as I've used macbooks for a few years now and despite trying Windows-based laptops out, I've not found any where the keyboard, trackpad, build quality and screen match up to a mac, and I (for the most part) like macOS more than Windows. As for some other replies about plug-ins and instruments, I used to find that Windows was far more popular and available, but now nearly everything I've bought is available cross platform, so it's nowhere near the issue it used to be.
deaddodo 2y ago
I've been using Linux for a similar time. To be fair to those people, there were massive roadblocks for ages. 802.11b (then G, A, N, etc) support, Flash while it ruled the roost, DRM-video playback, GPU-acceleration, Bluetooth device support, proper sleep, functional multihead, application support, etc, etc, etc. It's not fair to say "there's always something" in a sarcastic tone, when there legitimately has always been something holding people back. Especially on laptops. Is it easier than ever to use? Definitely. Does it support a significant chunk of hardware these days? Yup. Are there actual proprietary/commercial pieces of software on it? Yeah. Does it game now? Sure does. Are there still reasons people might not be able to use it? Definitely.
M95D 2y ago
How long does it take in linux for the context menu to open? In fact, is there a context menu at all?
- veqz 2y ago
  Not sure if the question was asked with sarcasm or not, but, me being me, I actually tested it here as soon as I read it: It's instant. OnMouseDown event, if you will. Using KDE Plasma 6.
  - deaddodo 2y ago
    I don't even know what a "context menu" is in this context. Are we just talking about a general right-click menu? If so, it's instant in both Windows 11 and KDE6 for me (desktop, toolbars, etc). Or do we specifically mean a context-filled context menu, such as the ones used in the file managers? If so, Dolphin definitely performs better than Windows Explorer, but that's a pretty useless micro-benchmark. The thumbnail and live preview processes are far more processor intensive/laggy in Dolphin/KDE, does that mean KDE is overall worse? No.
  - soraminazuki 2y ago
    It's funny because it's the latest version of Windows that requires two clicks to get a non-broken context menu. It's either that or registry hacks that Microsoft hasn't disabled yet. https://superuser.com/questions/1674122/how-can-i-revert-to-the-old-context-menu-in-windows-11 https://superuser.com/questions/1674122/how-can-i-revert-to-...
- bishbosh 2y ago
  It does have the advantage of context menus that contain all of the context, rather than a button to revert to an older version of the context menu that has what you actually want!
Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
On the steam deck that statement is gone!

> The only thing holding me from Linux I've spent the last 25 years using linux and seeing this statement. There's always something.

by ta1243 2y ago

> The only thing holding me from Linux I've spent the last 25 years using linux and seeing this statement. There's always something.

darkwater 2y ago

And to give a more Linux-positive spin "there is always something that holds you... which is actually not that vital in the end once you lose it"

bishbosh 2y ago
It really has come a long way. Obviously this is one users needs, and other folks will find other things that are missing or not 100%. But the fact that in this case the conversation as moved from gaming more generally, to vendor specific overclocking is quite a sign of the times.

eptcyka 2y ago

It might be different people saying that, and with time, some blockers are removed, some people migrate, and a new set of would be linux users get bumped up in the queue where they are now at their last obstacle to using linux.

account42 2y ago
A lot of these "blockers" are, to put it bluntly, merely excuses. Like ggp here didn't mention why he thinks ThrottleStop and MSI Afterburner are a must for him but but I doubt that they are truly irreplacable. More likely they provide some non-essential utility which would make this more about tradeoffs, or about just taking the plunge to feel the grass on the other side of the fence with your own feet.

baq 2y ago

Let's be honest here, the something is 99% drivers. It was printers, then it was wifi, now it's gpus. DNNs and LLMs at least made the compute part of the gpu driver Linux-native (from the vendors' perspective), one would hope the graphics part of the graphics processor would come next, but alas making big iron do work is done from macos and windows laptops.

advael 2y ago
Weird I haven't had a graphics issue since like the 8000 series of cards for like, the normal driving graphics right off the card use case. Optimus is definitely a little fucky with multiple GPUs and sometimes new CUDA versions break libs if you're keeping it bleeding edge updated, but most ML workflows use environment management to get around the clusterfuck that is the python ML ANN ecosystem anyway. Nvidia does a lot of work to make it hard to work with their cards but since GPGPU started taking off in the 2010s this sounds like a blast from the past, as a lot of the need for getting good performance out of cards on compute servers - which inevitably run linux because it has any kind of reasonable headless userspace and is easier to write reliable software for - has driven better driver support in general In discussions between people who don't use linux, their notions of what the pain points even are seem to lag by sometimes over a decade I find myself equally ill-informed on the pitfalls of windows ecosystems of late, except the ones that make the news for how insane they sound, but in my defense I also don't go around claiming I intermittently try to use it but just can't make the jump As microsoft continues to tighten the screws, I just hope all these reluctant users can get out before it's too late
- baq 2y ago
  The GPU market forces are: - gaming: Windows with a sprinkle of Steam Deck (yay!) - compute: Linux - video decode: Windows (DRM on Linux... yeah) - video encode: mixed (Windows for consumers and smbs, Linux for cloud transcode) Of these, the Steam Deck is the closest to a laptop that we got to. This is actually great, but it didn't result in a noticeable shift in anything, because LLMs took it all.
  - advael 2y ago
    I am not sure what point you're trying to make with this collection of non-sequiturs and false statements -The vast overwhelming majority of games are now effectively cross-platform. Work done mostly by valve benefits the entire ecosystem of linux-based OSes, and the sliver of incompatible games that still exist take vast resources to prevent from being made compatible, and thus can only be pulled off by well-resourced studios, most of whom Microsoft either has a deep relationship with or has bought. -I'm glad we at least agree that computers running linux can be used for doing computation, as is true of any computer I would hope -Most video decoding is effectively done on browsers, which are, with the exception of the garbage ones OS vendors keep trying to lock users into despite this being deeply unpopular, run on every platform. DRM is supported by most browsers with some opt-out consent options, and remaining incompatibility with streaming platforms is largely driven by those platforms being able to detect what operating system you're on and specifically trying to prevent playback on that basis. There is no popular codec I am aware of that isn't supported by FFMPEG, let alone by any free software whatsoever -At this point are you just talking about platform adoption? People can encode stuff on whatever system they want. The only market forces are increasingly futile efforts to enforce platform control on the part of content aggregating corporations -Is the thing about laptops referring to the fact that laptops are, through corporate deals, mostly sold with windows as a default operating system on them? There are now several whole OEMs that don't, but the last time I encountered a laptop for which a routine and standard linux install process ran into any issue whatsoever was like 2012, and it felt like a weird edge case then. Maybe I would have if I used fingerprint scanners or some other creepy spyware nonsense? I'm not even looking up laptops before I buy them. One time I had a boss who just bought the most expensive thing he could find at best buy on short notice. I heard it was kinda hard to get new Apple silicon models up and running for a while? For the most part, computers are just computers. It's weird that so much marketing pretends otherwise. The market for GPUs in laptops by and large does not care what operating system they are running, because people are buying the hardware for any of a number of general purposes for which one might use a general purpose computer. If you've done any statistical analysis to support these claims of "market forces", are you sure you're not claiming every laptop sold with windows installed by default in your models, despite that everyone running linux on a laptop also has to buy the laptop, but will probably only boot up windows if it forces them to by trying to prevent people from booting into a BIOS menu, and then only to do that? This kind of fuckery will also affect statistics for things like counting browser agents, because every time Netflix does some fuckery to try to gate high-quality streams by OS, someone will write a script or a plugin to spoof the agent of another OS to get around it I find it pretty futile to try to understand "market forces" in any sort of factual sense, because the metrics are nebulous, easy to manipulate, and everyone involved has lots of incentives to lie about all of them. But I still don't have any clue what this has to do with whether drivers work, since most people on every operating system just use the same stupid blob of drivers nvidia dutifully provides every platform for every GPU they make, as they have for the last 10 of the roughly 15 years I've had any reason to care about GPU drivers

walteweiss 2y ago

15 years ago, that was Photoshop that kept me back. I switched to macOS a couple of years later. Now, I switched to Linux, ditching Photoshop. So far so good. I can stand the life without Photoshop, but tolerating macOS or Windows is above me.

djaychela 2y ago

For me, the something is the DAW i use (Cubase). I know it intimately, I make a living with it, and despite trying other alternatives, there isn't a DAW which runs on Linux which would cut it for me, in terms of overall features. If Cubase ran on linux (and all my current plugins could work), then I'd drop it in a heartbeat. I've been running Linux in various guises and roles since (I think) 1998, but it's never made it to the 'daily use, I can do everything in it' stage, despite quite a few attempts on my part to make it happen.

vjulian 2y ago
I’m curious, how did you settle on PC vs Mac? I’m a PC user (Cubase), but there are certain unique advantages to Mac as a platform of course when it comes to music. I’m not wedded to brand personally but use PC as I find it more versatile in non-music tasks (and in music I am more a hobbyist these days).
- NikkiA 2y ago
  I suspect > and all my current plugins could work holds the key, there are an immense amount of plugins that are PC-only, as I'm sure you're aware. The list of mac-only plugins is pretty tiny.
- djaychela 2y ago
  I actually use both, but my main DAW is on Windows because of cost of storage and processor at the time I built it. It's now due for replacement, and I'm still pretty confident I can build a more performant Windows system for less money than buying anything macOS based - even if I buy a mac Studio I'd need to go for 64GB RAM, and that would be £2500 for just the system unit with 512GB of storage. I can build a faster windows-based i9 system for that, complete with 64GB of RAM and probably 4TB of storage (if not more). I've got an M1 max macbook Pro as I've used macbooks for a few years now and despite trying Windows-based laptops out, I've not found any where the keyboard, trackpad, build quality and screen match up to a mac, and I (for the most part) like macOS more than Windows. As for some other replies about plug-ins and instruments, I used to find that Windows was far more popular and available, but now nearly everything I've bought is available cross platform, so it's nowhere near the issue it used to be.

deaddodo 2y ago

I've been using Linux for a similar time. To be fair to those people, there were massive roadblocks for ages. 802.11b (then G, A, N, etc) support, Flash while it ruled the roost, DRM-video playback, GPU-acceleration, Bluetooth device support, proper sleep, functional multihead, application support, etc, etc, etc. It's not fair to say "there's always something" in a sarcastic tone, when there legitimately has always been something holding people back. Especially on laptops. Is it easier than ever to use? Definitely. Does it support a significant chunk of hardware these days? Yup. Are there actual proprietary/commercial pieces of software on it? Yeah. Does it game now? Sure does. Are there still reasons people might not be able to use it? Definitely.

M95D 2y ago

How long does it take in linux for the context menu to open? In fact, is there a context menu at all?

veqz 2y ago
Not sure if the question was asked with sarcasm or not, but, me being me, I actually tested it here as soon as I read it: It's instant. OnMouseDown event, if you will. Using KDE Plasma 6.
- deaddodo 2y ago
  I don't even know what a "context menu" is in this context. Are we just talking about a general right-click menu? If so, it's instant in both Windows 11 and KDE6 for me (desktop, toolbars, etc). Or do we specifically mean a context-filled context menu, such as the ones used in the file managers? If so, Dolphin definitely performs better than Windows Explorer, but that's a pretty useless micro-benchmark. The thumbnail and live preview processes are far more processor intensive/laggy in Dolphin/KDE, does that mean KDE is overall worse? No.
- soraminazuki 2y ago
  It's funny because it's the latest version of Windows that requires two clicks to get a non-broken context menu. It's either that or registry hacks that Microsoft hasn't disabled yet. https://superuser.com/questions/1674122/how-can-i-revert-to-the-old-context-menu-in-windows-11 https://superuser.com/questions/1674122/how-can-i-revert-to-...
bishbosh 2y ago
It does have the advantage of context menus that contain all of the context, rather than a button to revert to an older version of the context menu that has what you actually want!

Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago

On the steam deck that statement is gone!