3 ms·

> This sort of routine breakage is pretty common. Yes, the free OS is occasionally worse than the trillion dollar companies product.

nehal3m 2y ago
For this audience these are inconveniences. For others it’s unusable.
- prmoustache 2y ago
  OTOH windows OSes autosuicide themselves. On my works laptop I had initially kept the corporate windows install on the original drive and installed Fedora on a second non drive. I would fire up the windows machine once every other week for a few hours so it gets its updates. But every single time I would enter the firmware settings or boot Fedora the OS bootlocker would lock itself and force me to go to https://aka.ms/recoverykey https://aka.ms/recoverykey to get a recovery key the next time I booted windows. Until one day it started not booting even after giving the correct key. Bitlocker basically bricked itself. So don't tell me that windows is more usable. And this is even without tackling the non functionning parts of windows when it accepts to boot, like the broken keyboard for anyone not using english language that Microsoft never even tried to fix in more than 30 years. People used to laugh about a sliding date for linux to be "read for thr desktop" but windows has never been ready either.
legends2k 2y ago
I agree with your sentiment and I use Linux religiously too. Respect it for what it has accomplished and continues to. Most of my friends don't care. They're into productivity more than passion for computing in general. They don't care one way or another. Tomorrow if there's another proprietary OS that makes their work easier they'll easily pay for that OS and move on. Just saying that our sentiment isn't shared by everyone.
jahnu 2y ago
It’s not free when it’s costing me time.
- bob1029 2y ago
  A licensed copy of the most feature-packed Windows Server Datacenter edition will run you ~$6k (16 core license). Now, assume your hourly consulting rate is $200. You would only have to spend about 40 hours of time tinkering on linux before windows would have made more sense for the time/money equation. Frustration is another economy that I think is even more important for getting things done. How badly do you actually want to build? Maintaining morale through the hard bits of the target problem domain is usually already a struggle. Why do you want to be fighting with boot loaders, drivers and arguments on various forums on top of all of that?
  - snozolli 2y ago
    A licensed copy of the most feature-packed Windows Server Datacenter edition will run you ~$6k (16 core license). Kind of a weird basis for comparison when everyone seems to be talking about the desktop experience. I love Linux for servers, but not for the desktop.
    - TheNewsIsHere 2y ago
      I agree. But to continue the point - even if I wanted to spend 40 gross hours of billable time at $200/hr for a single installation of a server OS, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the right OS for the goal I'm trying to accomplish, no matter how bad or excellent the configuration experience happens to be. Conversations about the utility, costs, and feature sets of Windows vs. Linux. vs. macOS tend to ignore the reality that business conditions often dictate that you must use one or the other for a given use case. Sometimes you do have the option, and if you've already got an appreciable investment in one, then you tend to select for that one almost by default.
- kylebenzle 2y ago
  That's not how "free" works at all... Free just means it did not cost you any money, a free hammer does not also imply a free new roof or whatever you want to build with it. Linux is a tool, men use tools, be a man and use Linux.

nehal3m 2y ago

For this audience these are inconveniences. For others it’s unusable.

prmoustache 2y ago
OTOH windows OSes autosuicide themselves. On my works laptop I had initially kept the corporate windows install on the original drive and installed Fedora on a second non drive. I would fire up the windows machine once every other week for a few hours so it gets its updates. But every single time I would enter the firmware settings or boot Fedora the OS bootlocker would lock itself and force me to go to https://aka.ms/recoverykey https://aka.ms/recoverykey to get a recovery key the next time I booted windows. Until one day it started not booting even after giving the correct key. Bitlocker basically bricked itself. So don't tell me that windows is more usable. And this is even without tackling the non functionning parts of windows when it accepts to boot, like the broken keyboard for anyone not using english language that Microsoft never even tried to fix in more than 30 years. People used to laugh about a sliding date for linux to be "read for thr desktop" but windows has never been ready either.

legends2k 2y ago

I agree with your sentiment and I use Linux religiously too. Respect it for what it has accomplished and continues to. Most of my friends don't care. They're into productivity more than passion for computing in general. They don't care one way or another. Tomorrow if there's another proprietary OS that makes their work easier they'll easily pay for that OS and move on. Just saying that our sentiment isn't shared by everyone.

jahnu 2y ago

It’s not free when it’s costing me time.

bob1029 2y ago
A licensed copy of the most feature-packed Windows Server Datacenter edition will run you ~$6k (16 core license). Now, assume your hourly consulting rate is $200. You would only have to spend about 40 hours of time tinkering on linux before windows would have made more sense for the time/money equation. Frustration is another economy that I think is even more important for getting things done. How badly do you actually want to build? Maintaining morale through the hard bits of the target problem domain is usually already a struggle. Why do you want to be fighting with boot loaders, drivers and arguments on various forums on top of all of that?
- snozolli 2y ago
  A licensed copy of the most feature-packed Windows Server Datacenter edition will run you ~$6k (16 core license). Kind of a weird basis for comparison when everyone seems to be talking about the desktop experience. I love Linux for servers, but not for the desktop.
  - TheNewsIsHere 2y ago
    I agree. But to continue the point - even if I wanted to spend 40 gross hours of billable time at $200/hr for a single installation of a server OS, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the right OS for the goal I'm trying to accomplish, no matter how bad or excellent the configuration experience happens to be. Conversations about the utility, costs, and feature sets of Windows vs. Linux. vs. macOS tend to ignore the reality that business conditions often dictate that you must use one or the other for a given use case. Sometimes you do have the option, and if you've already got an appreciable investment in one, then you tend to select for that one almost by default.
kylebenzle 2y ago
That's not how "free" works at all... Free just means it did not cost you any money, a free hammer does not also imply a free new roof or whatever you want to build with it. Linux is a tool, men use tools, be a man and use Linux.