10 ms·

Looking back at my transition from Windows to Linux

126 points by trinsic2 1y ago

SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
I feel it. If I had control to wipe all machines as start over today, the SMB I work for would have to strongly consider all machines on Linux. What is it our users do? Word, Excel, PowerPoint, browsers. So right off the bat, I’ve either shuttered the idea, or need to commit my users to be software social pariahs whenever we need to work with another company. I suggest the battle isn’t the OS. But, rather Microsoft Office.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Google Office docs are pretty acceptable these days unless you need really specific Excel functionality.
  - roscas 1y ago
    Don't want anyone to use that but that is good to prove that almost everybody can use a spreedsheat that is not Excel. Including LibreCalc. And many others. The same situation is for email. Who needs Outlook? Nobody! You can do almost everything with Thunderbird. So does Outlook have some "special" things? Maybe, never used it! I even had my email on clawsmail and it was amazing.
- zdw 1y ago
  Trapping user's data in their roach motel formats (the data goes in, but can never leave with full fidelity) is the longest running objection I have to using any Microsoft software. This is also why they fought so hard against the XML standardization of docs formats, and still to this day docs created by their own apps don't even validate against the schemas they created.
- globalnode 1y ago
  And games.
  - adamors 1y ago
    Gaming has actually seen the biggest improvement on Linux in the last couple of years, check out https://www.protondb.com/ https://www.protondb.com/ for just how many titles are playable.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
    I figured that one is mostly solved now between Steam, Bazzite or even just VM Windows ( if you really have to go that route ).
    - mvdtnz 1y ago
      It definitely isn't solved.
      - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
        Hmm. I might be speaking from a perspective of a more.. restrained gamer ( my last bigger indulgence was BG3 and, while there were issues after updates, drivers tended to solve those eventually ). Any particular titles you have a problem with? If you are thinking of permanently online games that effectively put malware on your system, I am ok with that not being solved ( but even for those there are ways to go around those restrictions -- which should not be surprise given the nature of cat and mouse game ).
        mvdtnz 1y ago
        Battlefield 2024 (and the upcoming 6) and all recent Call of Duty games are the obvious ones. And if you're interested in sim racing then device compatibility is a major problem even before you get to launch the game. > I am ok with that not being solved Great, good for you? You can't claim a problem is solved and then say "well I don't care" when shown it's not solved.
        A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
        << You can't claim a problem is solved and then say "well I don't care" when shown it's not solved. It is a fair point in that sense so you get full points for argument counter. That said, I personally think gamers, as a demographic, has some responsibility to say.. 'yeah, no. stop being dicks'. It is not that I don't care exactly. It is that I care too much to allow this crap on my computer.
- bawolff 1y ago
  Maybe it depends on what you work on, but i havent seen powerpoint or .docx file in like a decade. Everyone i know uses google docs. I'm sure there are users with specialized needs who need something more complex, but i dont think microsoft office is quite the moat it used to be.
  - ejiblabahaba 1y ago
    My employer blocks access to Google Docs as part of our confidential information protection policy. They're certainly not the only ones. I'd hesitate to call on-premises file management "specialized needs" - rather, it's (still) the default, particularly if you take a peek outside of the software bubble.
    - bawolff 1y ago
      I suspect that that is more an anti-shadow IT measure than an anti-google docs measure.
  - SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
    Trade one devil for another? I’ve never looked to see the compatibility of Office to Gsuite. So unless it is 110% perfect it is a non-starter. The second we have a supplier send an excel with some goofball formula in it and we don’t see some data or can’t open it - it’s over. This isn’t even getting to the next devil… Adobe.
- n3storm 1y ago
  Please consider checking LibreOffice periodically, every 4 - 6 months Ms compatibility increases at steady pace, it may have solved that issue that was keeping you back from using it (25 years using linux and staroffice)
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    Functionality is pretty good but the UI is from the 1990s.
    - bigstrat2003 1y ago
      That's a good thing. UI design peaked around that era and has been going downhill ever since.
      - zaruvi 1y ago
        These days you can choose between different UIs, some of which will have the "ribbon" style. I do agree though that it feels a bit dated if you're used to MS' office, but you get used to it quite quickly.
      - uncircle 1y ago
        GP probably wanted to say that LibreOffice’s UI is 90s era Linux quality, rather than the beauty of Office 97 and such. Mismatched, not native, terrible stock icons, clunky and frankly ugly.
    - n3storm 1y ago
      You haven't checked in a lon time ;)
  - trinsic2 1y ago
    Libre office has some annoyances though. I cannot for the life of me disable the document recovery model that always pops up on every launch regardless if a document needs to be recovered or not. Also I cant seem to get printing to default to 8 1/2x11 formatting.
- BrenBarn 1y ago
  The weird thing is that to a significant extent that battle is really just about the words "Microsoft Office". LibreOffice has some awkwardness and annoyances, but it's quite adequate for probably 90% of mundane office tasks people need to do (and MS Office has its own pain points). A major barrier is just a specific insistence that Word be used, without any reference to functional requirements of the actual document.
  - jamiek88 1y ago
    People always say this but the 90% doesn’t count. The 90% is easy. It’s the other bit that people hit and compatibility issues mean any non standard approach whether it’s fair or not will always, always get the blame. Plus I dispute that libreoffice has even close to 90% of what excel can do.
    - roscas 1y ago
      Let's not compare the advanced options of Excel or how Excel bugs annoy me. There are loads of them. Let's just compare what people do when they need a tool like Excel. That's when the 90 or maybe more % of people will do. That is what I do. Everything I do in Excel can be done on LibreCalc. So it is true that LibreCalc can replace 90% or more, because not everybody needs those advanced topics. Same for the other LibreOffice apps, Writer is good for almost everybody. As LibreDraw and others.
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    I’ve never met a document an office document that wouldn’t have been better as a wiki (if it is intended to be impermanent), or as a something like a LaTeX document (if it is not).
    - SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
      Doesn’t matter what you think (or I). The real world runs on MS Office.
  - upboundspiral 1y ago
- rahkiin 1y ago
  Would the Office 365 in browser work for you?
  - roscas 1y ago
    I've used it for very simple things but I don't thing it even has 1% of the installed Excel program does. It is too simple and buggy. Few days ago wife opened an excel file on the browser and something was right away wrong, she noticed, can't remember what it was. Had to download and execute local.
    - p_ing 1y ago
      I wouldn’t call it simple. It does have Python scripting. Obviously not the functionality she needed, but that’s fairly advanced in the Excel world. And that’s the issue with every alternative, it lacks 1:1 features/bugs so what’s usable for one isn’t for another.
BrenBarn 1y ago
Sounds very similar to my situation. I switched to Linux around the same time and for basically the same reasons. I had looked at Linux at various times in the past, and attempted to switch around 10 years ago, but wound up going back to Windows. The horrors of Windows 10/11 made me more determined this time, and also the Linux desktop experience has improved slowly but steadily. I hope that Linux continues to improve as a viable solution for average nontechnical users. The level of evil that's being pushed by mainstream for-profit software vendors is becoming outrageous.
- jppittma 1y ago
  Still a ways to go. I found out part of the reason for my linux bluetooth woes is that a settings in bluetooth called “JustWorks” and “FastConnect” default to off. Like. Why? As if most linux users who enable bluetooth want it to connect slowly and not work. Being a bit hyperbolic intentionally but the point still stands
  - uncircle 1y ago
    Funny, I had issues with my adapter where I had to turn BT fast connect off. In computing there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Windows has its own share of idiosyncrasies. You're just used to them. Bluetooth hardware is terrible, often proprietary and vendors write drivers only for Windows and macOS. What is Linux supposed to do about that? EDIT: By the way, JustWorks and FastConnect are the official names of two Bluetooth connection techniques. The name is stupid because that's what the marketing people decided to call it, Linux is being consistent so you know what's going on when they're active, and I assume they have their downsides.
    - godelski 1y ago
      > Windows has its own share of idiosyncrasies. Using all 3 main OSes frequently (Windows the least) I think this is the key point I've noticed. There's tons of frustrations on each of them. But at least for me, the reason why I like Linux so much is that I am far more likely to be able to fix things and move on. With Windows and OSX a fix usually involves some super hacky method that comes with costs, often invisibly so. It reminds me of an argument I had with a friend. I was saying <FAANG Company> should add an option to change some (very minor) attributes. My ask was literally about text size and location. He just came back and said that I like to fiddle with things and am out of touch because most people want things to "just work." He's not wrong, I like to fiddle. But the problem was that something was broken. Things weren't "just working". I was asking for that feature because the options were "clicking 3 buttons worth of fiddling" and "not using the product." If it is broken it is broken ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. If people are willing to fiddle to repair, great! They'll continue using the product. People that won't? Well it's broken so they weren't going to anyways. At least with the capacity for fiddling you maintain some. These days, I find myself having fewer problems on Linux than either Windows or OSX. I expect most people to be surprised by that comment because I am too. A decade ago it was the exact opposite situation. But things change. > The name is stupid "2 hard things in Computer Science" but it isn't a off-by-one error! Though these names are just objectively stupid and confusing. At least an incomprehensible name wouldn't be misleading.
roscas 1y ago
This blog post deserves a good reading. Thank you Scott for sharing this experience.
- lproven 1y ago
  How interesting. I thought it was very poor, myself.
neilv 1y ago
Seeing posts like this upvoted on HN restores some of my faith that we can still be a field of the smart and the professional.
bawolff 1y ago
Its kind of interesting that in the end its RMS style "freedom" that is still winning the day, and not price or even better software.
- worik 1y ago
  RMS as a Cassandra?
  - SlowTao 1y ago
    Absolutely. RMS ultimately is completely right, its just the conditions for it to work are nowhere near right. If anything we seem to be slipping further all the time despite the uptake in users.
time0ut 1y ago
I always seem to end up dual booting Windows to play games. I’ve made it quite a while without installing Windows now. Mostly because I haven’t had the desire to game much, but also because of how good gaming on Linux is now. I will hold out until there is some big multiplayer game with anticheat that my friends get me into.
riazrizvi 1y ago
That’s one way to frame it: Encroaching corporations are a front, trying to subdue the public, and we need to unite and fight back for ourselves. Myself I’ve moved away from this. Now, I frame it all as just people with the same fundamental nature, that I understand through little rules. Like ‘In the absence of a better more personal and mutually rewarding relationship we end up commoditizing each other which becomes more and more exploitative over time’. Or ‘We choose comfortable, pandering stories that make us feel better about ourselves, avoid situations to better understand others if they challenge our aspirational truths’.
- trinsic2 1y ago
  I'm wondering if promoting better relationship with each other has the same effect as fighting back against something that is actually harming us?
  - riazrizvi 1y ago
    There’s overlap - I think mostly we harm ourselves, then we harm each other inadvertently, and lastly we harm each other intentionally. So promoting better relationships is a piece of it, but helping each other not harm ourselves (ie reach enlightenment) has the biggest effect. The hard thing is to balance it with our need to make a living, and to also not trigger some landmine of aspirational truth that others are determined to hold onto when we share our perspective.
- trinsic2 1y ago
  Im confused as to how this looks in practice. Are you saying you embody making the right choices in a relationship as setting an example? or convincing others that this is a good want to go? How do we stop the exploitation of each other in relationships? It seems like its burned into our genetic make up that started a long time ago. We sort of use each other to get what we want. I know there is a higher path, but as you said I don't see how thats possible in commerce as it appears like its exploitable by nature.
  - riazrizvi 1y ago
runjake 1y ago
An option if you don't want to deal with dual boot: buy something like a Bee-link SER8 for $499 and use that for Linux. It's tiny and performs well. Use a KVM or swap cables between computers. (I only game on the weekends so I just cable swap, because my KVM is Mac <--> Gaming PC/SER8.)
- 3eb7988a1663 1y ago
  Computers are so stupidly fast now, it does seem like this is the future. Thanks to the laptop market, the tiny desktop models have more then sufficient oomph to do everything that 99% of users require. Keep the bulky tower for gaming or workstation loads. Hypocrite because my daily driver is a uATX where I mostly just browser the internet and watch movies.
- Seattle3503 1y ago
  Finding a good KVM switch at a good price can be hard. Usually the video output isnt great. what I found works isnusing a USB switch with a monitor that supports two inputs. Switching machines is two operations. First, switch monitors, then switch USB.
- rs186 1y ago
  Not a bad idea in principle but I can't justify purchasing separate hardware just for this purpose -- I have an almost perfectly running machine, and I don't want to spend a few hundred dollars on a separate one. If I have files that need to be shared, that makes things more complicated.
- smackeyacky 1y ago
  Too hard. Just take your original windows license and run up a VM in QEMU. Perfect for dealing with windows only things
psyclobe 1y ago
I made the switch a few years ago mostly because the only thing I do on computers is write software for the companies I work for; I don’t game, I try but idk just feels like work. Everything is mostly fine on Linux, minus things like display drivers (pick the wrong nvidia driver and you’ll have crashes), power management (honestly I just use a remote switch to turn off my displays), and random stuff like my gnome classic shell will nearly always crash the moment I try to resume working after a few hours (just kicks me back to the login screen). But sometimes I go back to windows and I am taken aback as the sheer completeness of the user experience. Also Linux always hangs hard if I run it out of ram. Windows never does that. Not going back anytime soon either way.
- beeflet 1y ago
  >Also Linux always hangs hard if I run it out of ram disable swap. Programs will crash instead, which may be more useful.
  - malfist 1y ago
    Programs, including the kernel
    - beeflet 1y ago
      I've never had that happen. It usually just kills user-space programs
  - justsomehnguy 1y ago
    Uhm, no. Anything what would request memory would just outright die, including even the most basic services. Source: actually had a system without swap what would just die running `dnf update`. Or quietly die in a week or so if left unattended.
    - SoftTalker 1y ago
      Swap isn’t unlimited, it just delays the inevitable and makes everything slow while doing it. A 4GB swap partition isn’t going to save you if you run your 32GB computer out of memory.
rossdavidh 1y ago
The last time my wife's laptop died, I convinced her to give a Linux laptop from System76 a try. Then, when her store's Windows box died, I convinced her (and her business partner) to give Linux a try there. My daughter, 20, has a Linux laptop as well (although in order to get Adobe Creative Suite for school she still has to own a Windows desktop, thanks Adobe). None of these people were interested in software freedom, so their patience for problems during the switch was pretty minimal, and they all switched, and stayed switched. If you buy something like System76 that has Linux pre-installed, and help out with something like Spotify that is possible to install on Linux but not completely trivial, it is not so difficult to convince people anymore.
- beeflet 1y ago
  what's wrong with the web app
  - LPisGood 1y ago
    In my experience web apps are almost always worse than native apps unless the native app is just a wrapper around a web app.
    - mathiaspoint 1y ago
      The native Spotify app is just a wrapper around the web app though.
      - sneak 1y ago
        This is decidedly untrue.
      - bigstrat2003 1y ago
        Even for apps where that is true, sometimes the wrapper adds some features that it doesn't have running in a browser tab. For example, the Discord electron app can get hotkeys when it's not focused (useful for push to talk/mute when playing a game), but not when you run it in a browser.
k__ 1y ago
I used Xubuntu and LMDE until Windows 7, because it came with my laptop and I could use Linux on a cloud IDE anyway. But with the end of life for windows 10 in October, I switched back to Linux and I'm quite happy. I'm running Manjaro with Xfce on my 4 year old LG Gram and it's really snappy while only using 900MB idle memory.
- estimator7292 1y ago
  I run manjaro on a 12 year old Thinkpad and it's the best computer I've ever had. It needed a CPU upgrade, but now I can do all my development work on this ancient beast.
Venn1 1y ago
Windows will keep dominating the desktop PC market as long as manufacturers ship it by default. Convincing someone to install an operating system from scratch is a fantastically large ask.
- greazy 1y ago
  I ah haven't looked very hard but Lenovo is the only company I've seen offer Linux (Ubuntu) machines, limited for a very small number or devices though. Do any other companies do the same?
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    Dell does (or did, haven’t looked in a few years).
  - esseph 1y ago
    The bigger players like Dell and Lenovo do and have for a very long time. Maybe HPE? Not sure Then there are more bespoke vendors that cater specifically to Linux. System76 is probably the most well known, but there are many others. I'm speaking mainly for laptops/desktops. For servers it's always been you just put whatever on. Linux gets the most time on servers and containers but the desktop base continues to grow, so expect most problems to be there (bluetooth, wifi, etc.). Accessibility is getting much better.
    - dontlaugh 1y ago
      It depends on your region and models.
  - lproven 1y ago
    > Do any other companies do the same? Important relevant note: Some companies offer "DOS" or "FreeDOS" computers. This is notably common in poorer countries. These commonly do not really run DOS. They run a very old version of FreeDOS in a VM under Linux. HP uses Debian. https://blog.tmm.cx/2022/05/15/the-very-weird-hewlett-packard-freedos-option/ https://blog.tmm.cx/2022/05/15/the-very-weird-hewlett-packar... 1. When you look for Linux machines, look in other countries than your own. 2. Include machines described as DOS machines. They are really Linux machines and will run Linux fine because they in fact ship with it.
skinkestek 1y ago
At my last two workplaces Linux has been an alternative for those who wanted it, along with Mac (unlike Linux you have to ask for Mac, but you usually get it if you have a good reason or a couple of years experience it seems) and Windows (the standard). Personally I have found Linux to be ready for (some) desktops (including mine and several friends) since around 2005 and I have even worked for a company that mandated Linux for everyone who couldn't document a need for Windows only software.
fdsf111 1y ago
I dual boot windows with linux, but I haven't used windows in over a year. The thing that stuck me about windows (windows 11) was how slow the right mouse button click feels. On the main screen, between right clicking and seeing the modal pop up, there is a ~150-200 ms delay that wasn't there on Windows XP and Windows 7. Those were the last major version of Windows I used as my daily drivers. In windows 11, I was also annoyed by all the bloat on my home screen that I had to turn off manually, like the news feed or the weather or the stock market tracker. Oh -- and here is a good one -- my system clock resets every time I restart. I easily spent 2-3 hours trying to figure out why, and I eventually I gave up. Yes, there is a setting for "synchronize time automatically", but it doesn't work for me. Every time I log into windows, I have to go into the clock settings and manually force a resync with the correct time zone. To me this is just wild. I transitioned to using Linux full time around 2018-ish, when I stopped playing MMOs. I still keep a version of Windows on my PC, but single-player gaming is a first-class citizen on Linux now, so I haven't logged into windows for some time.
- estimator7292 1y ago
  The clock problem is actually a Linux issue. Linux sets the hardware system clock to UTC and only applies time zones when displaying the time. Windows sets the hardware clock to local time. Every time one or the other updates the clock, it's now in the wrong format for the other OS. The fix is to tell Linux to use local time. There are no side effects as far as I can tell
  - bigstrat2003 1y ago
    I wouldn't call that a Linux issue or a Windows issue. It's kind of like driving on the left or right side of the road: either way is fine, you just need to have everyone agree on which way they are going to use.
    - Borealid 1y ago
      There in an advantage to using UTC: when legislatures change the rules about which time zone is which, or you move your computer while it's off, the time remains correct. Using local time for the RTC theoretically makes it simpler to schedule wakeups at user friendly times, but that seems less impactful.
kayo_20211030 1y ago
> It’s been two years now. I finally weaned myself off of Big Daddy. There are people that spend less time on a divorce and its aftermath. Maybe I'm jaded, but use whatever makes you happy, fulfilled and productive. The hand-wringing post facto justifications, which include Star Wars references to "freedom", are maybe a little tto much, don't you think?
- klabb3 1y ago
  > The hand-wringing post facto justifications, which include Star Wars references to "freedom", are maybe a little tto much, don't you think? Back in university RMS came to a neighbor uni in Stockholm for a traditional lecture about software freedoms etc. I think everyone thought he was a bit crazy or idealistic (I guess most still do). But the warnings of how you weren't going to own anything, that you have to ask permission, that your devices can be disabled etc, that sounded like fiction at the time. But looking back to that era (2011 or so), it slowly did change for the worse exactly like he warned. While a lot of the early internet idealisms have fizzled out, I think today those ideas and passions were much more important than we thought. For instance, I usually say that if the web was invented today, browsers would not be approved by the app stores. We take some things for granted, and a lot of those things came from a different era, arising out of preconditions that largely no longer exist.
  - Seattle3503 1y ago
    Email couldn't be invented today.
    - klabb3 1y ago
      But if someone tried, it would look like LinkedIn.
    - marcosdumay 1y ago
      If you mean that each company would insist on making their own that won't talk to the others... Email was actually invented that way. I don't remember exactly what company (I think it was Novel), but one made a fortune bridging them.
pcunite 1y ago
I've wanted to switch to Linux. May have to give it another go someday. Currently moving over to macOS. Will see how it goes.
- roscas 1y ago
  Great. macOS is freebsd so it's not Linux but closer to Linux than Windows. That is good. The bad is that Apple is just like Windows, just wants to look better. It is not. Better than Windows? Ok, a little better yes.
  - p_ing 1y ago
    macOS is not FreeBSD. It’s Darwin which contains some FreeBSD subsystems built atop Mach, and some FreeBSD userland. https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/KernelProgramming/Architecture/Architecture.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000905-CH1g-CACDAEDC https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Da...
- adham-omran 1y ago
  I did this a few months back and never looked back. Linux failed me in music production and gaming, while the latter isn't important, I have invested heavily in audio VSTs and it's unacceptable that even with Wine, they do not work and no virtual machines are not enough. I hope MacOS treats you well.
avhception 1y ago
One of the companies I'm working for has a b2c retail division. We're still buying the Lenovo all-in-one destkops that are used as POS systems with Windows licenses even though we wipe the machine and auto-install our Linux-based POS system as soon as we deploy the machine. Trying to buy a machine w/o Windows is just too much friction. I call it the Microsoft tax. I really wish that not to be a thing any more.
greazy 1y ago
The two last issues facing users switching are (imo) battery management and track pads. I know there are solutions but they're very complicated to setup properly for the average user.
- shmerl 1y ago
  Lenovo laptops have good trackpad support on Linux.
- Cyan488 1y ago
  Libinput is adding Lua scripting to handle hardware quirks and edge cases without needing to rely on hardcoding hacks into the library[1], which might help the trackpad situation. [1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/libinput-Lua-Plugin-System https://www.phoronix.com/news/libinput-Lua-Plugin-System
- drpixie 1y ago
  Is that really still a problem? I've always had trackpads work straight-off 100%, and find battery life to be way better under linux (perhaps because it's not running a million unwanted services.)
  - greazy 1y ago
    What laptop and which os are you running? I'm thinking taking an existing laptop (say hp), installing debian variant. I'd be intrigued what other options are out there as I'm trying to move the whole family over
    - arp242 1y ago
      Trackpads pretty much always work out of the box, but typically do not support more advanced features, and/or they're kind of a pain to set up. I think you and the person you're replying to are talking about different things(?) Whether these advanced features are desirable is of course a matter of opinion. Personally, I find macbooks very hard to use because the trackpad never does what I want on account of having the motor skills of a spastic five year old. So I don't miss this at all.
deater 1y ago
it's funny that a lot of us Linux nuts on comp.os.linux.advocacy back in the 90s predicted this was Microsoft's planned endgame. I personally thought it would take less than 30 years for them to get around to it though.
- trinsic2 1y ago
  You were pretty spot on its been about 20 I think
sneak 1y ago
The same applies to GitHub and VS Code, fwiw. It’s the same surveillance-based slow boil. If you think Windows is bad for the world, stop driving eyeballs to their same strategies in the f/oss world as well.
- lioeters 1y ago
  > GitHub and VS Code It's impressive how these Microsoft-owned products became fundamental to my daily software needs. I know I have to find better alternatives, move to using Codeberg/Forgejo, Spacemacs/Neovim.. And programming languages? I like TypeScript, and Microsoft has been a good steward of the project. Similarly with Go and Google. I also rely on VC-funded language runtimes, frameworks, libraries. That's a risk I sometimes question. Ideally I would shift to using FOSS altogether, the whole stack top to bottom. Even the hardware I'd prefer "open source" if possible.
  - sneak 1y ago
    Using Typescript is not the same as using VS Code. One is an actual open source free software project. The other is spyware cosplay open source.
shmerl 1y ago
Yes, give desktop Linux a try if you are still not using it. There is a good progress with the likes of Lenovo (who for decades refused to refund Windows tax) selling computers with Linux pre-installed. If you want gaming on Linux, get an AMD GPU.
mvdtnz 1y ago
Unfortunately there's just no solution for an important part of my life - gaming. If it was completely up to me I would completely ignore games that didn't work on Linux. But I maintain an important friendship group through gaming, and those guys are not going to forgo Battlefield 6 or Dawn of War 4 or any of the many games that straight up won't work. Not to mention the additional effort on my side getting a game to work when it's not officially supported - something I am not willing to put a ton of persona time into.
- trinsic2 1y ago
  Yeah I hear you. I also had a similar game that played with friends. PubG. But then when I switched to Linux and I couldn't play it any more. I switched to other games that I could play, some of the joined me and some didn't. I had reached a point that I wasn't willing to justify using software that was not in my control any longer. Relationships change and I chalk that up to personal growth. Some people join you, and some don't. Not judging you, but for me I just couldn't tolerate it any longer.
  - mvdtnz 1y ago
    Just to add a bit more context, the group of people who I play games with are not people I met playing games. They are my lifelong friends. I'm not willing to walk away from those friendships or my interactions with them for the sake of an operating system.
    - trinsic2 1y ago
      Yeah maybe in that case, I might have a dual boot setup for just when I play with them. But Im not using Windows as my Daily Drive any longer.
rr808 1y ago
The only thing I need Windows for is citrix to connect to my work machine. I'm thinking of getting a laptop just for this one task.
- smackeyacky 1y ago
  Windows VM in QEMU will solve this problem. I had multiple clients with different VPN or remote access tech and used to keep a VM for each of them.
  - trinsic2 1y ago
    which vm software do you use? I have had a hard time with vm software on linux no that Vmware got exploited by Broadcom.
    - smackeyacky 1y ago
      QEMU is the one I prefer. https://www.qemu.org/ https://www.qemu.org/ I had it set up with a network bridge so that each VM looked like an actual PC on my network.
      - trinsic2 1y ago
        Thanks, I used QEMU back in the commedore days. Didn't know it was still alive.
ekusiadadus 1y ago
Indeed, Linux has improved a lot, but for many people whose main applications are gaming and Office, the adoption cost still feels too high.
- jayess 1y ago
  That’s my roadblock. I need Office and still want to be able to play Fortnite.
hoherd 1y ago
> One day their data was on the local drive and the next it became online-only files that had to be downloaded from Microsoft’s servers. That is insane. If this happened to me, there is zero chance I would continue using that product. If something like this happened to my parents, I'd make them switch off windows if they wanted help with their computers (which I already did for other reasons, and the result was immensely positive, though the target OS was macOS, not linux.)
ItsBob 1y ago
This post has come along at an interesting time as it happens... I was at my mum and dads yesterday and I was asking my dad if he'd seen any messages or nag screens about upgrading his computer from Windows 10? It's ancient and I wouldn't put Windows 11 on it, even though I can burn a copy with Rufus to remove all the requirements. As it happens, he had. In fact, he thought Microsoft wanted him to pay for it, such is their confusing marketing! Now, my dad is no dumbass. He has a PhD in electrical engineering, all his faculties are still present and correct and he's used computers for years and he won numerous awards as uni for being smart af! Anyway, I put him off the idea of Windows 11 and onto the idea of a Chromebox instead. He seemes keen to try it. Also, my dad only uses the web, the odd spreadsheet to keep track of his money, the odd YT video and that's about it: he's not a power-user. My reasoning for the Chromebox is that I can't be about all the time when he needs tech support and I'm worried he's scammed by someone wanting him to "install an anti-virus, quick, before all his money is gone" or something. Plus, he has an Android phone already... it makes sense I think. Next week I'll drop off my Chromebook and set it up for him to try. I think it'll work out, and if it does, I'll buy a Chromebox for about £300 and that'll do him for ever I think. On a side-note, I've switched back to Windows 10 a few weeks ago: specifically Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC. I used the Massgrave script and it's valid until 2038 or something. I've had it with the latency and general dystopia (and the broken printer... ffs Microsoft!) around Windows 11, which I'd been using for a couple of years until last week. It may sound trivial but I still can't get over the volume slider latency in Windows 11: When you change the volume slider in the quick launch area and the "ding" sound happens 400ms later, not at the same time, it drives me nuts! Anyway, my £0.02
braggerxyz 1y ago
Ever since Steam released in Beta for Linux (proud owner of the Tux accessory for the Demoman in TF2!) I switched to Linux and stayed there. In the beginning I ran Ubuntu 12.04 and used Steam there. I also used Wine to run Diablo 3 and WoW, although performance was bad at that time. All other programs I needed where there also. (Im a software engineer, so using Linux is even better). But Ubuntu moved to slowly and broke here and there. What followed was a odyssey between a lot of distributions. Six years ago I tried Void Linux (rolling release without SystemD) and finally settled. Then Steam Proton came around and changed the whole Gaming On Linux scene again for the better. Playing retail WoW with on par performance is now possible. Running any game from Steam on Linux is now a breeze, even if not a native game. Open Source office tools are also on par with Windows / Microsoft counterparts. There really is nothing holding me back from using Linux full time. There is nothing I am missing, and the more I read about problems in the Windows world, the more I am glad I switched all these years ago. Convincing all my friends doing the same is difficult though. They frankly do not care about privacy or freedom to make the switch. But in the end it is their fault, not mine. If someone comes to me for guidance to make the switch, I will guide them. But I won't evangelise anymore.
- umbra07 1y ago
  There's no equivalent to Excel if you need compatability with a proper Excel spreadsheet (anything more than basic formulae), outside of spinning up a VM.
  - j_w 1y ago
    Office 365 in browser + avoiding Excel like the plague.
atoav 1y ago
My entry drug to Linux was WSL. When I started at my current job I started with a dual boot machine (Windows/Linux) with the thought of testing Linux as a desktop OS out for a bit. After a year I realized I wasn't booting into the Windows installation anymore so I removed it. Now 5 years on I am still as happy as ever. I am still struggling with some Adobe Creative Suite replacements, but in those 5 years things have gotten so much better already (and so much worse on the Windows-side) that I can see myself doing this for the long-term future. There is just something relaxing about working on an OS that treats you with respect instead of trying to trick you into something constantly.
pgsandstrom 1y ago
I've coded on linux for a decade now, but always used windows at home. Just last week I switched from windows 10 to ubuntu on my media computer since it cant upgrade to windows 11. I open up firefox, go to youtube, and immediately notice that 30% of all frames are gone. Hardware acceleration isnt working. I put the computer to sleep and go make dinner. When I return my wireless keyboard cant wake it up, I have to hard-reboot the computer to wake it up. I ask chatgpt about solutions to these problems, and it start spitting out terminal commands that end up making no difference. In my experience, 2025 is not yet the year of linux. I'll try again in 2027.
- 5350-uiop-1130 1y ago
  yeah all these "move to linux" posts i feel are virtue signalling. its bad advice for most imo.
- j_w 1y ago
  You ask ChatGPT for answers to questions and your surprised that random terminal commands don't work? If you look at linux forums, all issues always include hardware and software versions. Some problems are extremely context dependent. Hardware acceleration isn't working -> what GPU? Do you have the right drivers installed (yes for Linux this is a consideration as there are so many display configurations not all drivers cough nvidia work for all scenarios). You also didn't specify anything like the quality you were trying to playback at. Is this 30% dropped frames at 4k60 or 1080p30? You can argue that this is too much detail for something that should "just work" but given where you are and what you're talking about I would think you would be more nuanced in the troubleshooting. If you want the most seemless and effort free web browsing and media viewing experience just buy a macbook air (good product and also good dev machines for most).
  - max51 1y ago
    Is it even worth the time searching on forums to fix these issues? I can't speak for OP... but if an OS I freshly installed is unable to watch youtube videos and wake up from sleep, I'm wiping it and installing something else unless I can fix it extremely easily (eg. with chatgpt). >You also didn't specify anything like the quality you were trying to playback at. If hardware acceleration isn't working, it doesn't matter which youtube video made you realize the issue existed. It's not as if the method you use to fix the driver would be different when the video you want to watch is 1080p30 instead of 4k60.
CommenterPerson 1y ago
Want to thank the OP and commenters for this. I am not a hacker, and am hanging on to a Windows 10 and 7 (yes) laptop. I need to make some time and get one of the Linux systems. It would help a great deal if someone wrote or pointed to a blog that has step by step instructions. Something like a Hello World including what to use for common applications like browsing, writing documents, and spreadshees. Thank you.
- lproven 1y ago
  There are literally hundreds of them. What do you need? What do you want?
- lproven 1y ago
  > if someone wrote or pointed to a blog that has step by step instructions You still have not answered. That is saddening. Ah well. Here are 2 of my efforts. This is my 1st try for my current employer. I still stand by most of it, though. P1: https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/06/21/reg_linux_guide_1/ https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/06/21/reg_linux_guide... P2: https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/06/23/reg_linux_guide_2/ https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/06/23/reg_linux_guide... P3: https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/06/24/reg_linux_guide_3/ https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/06/24/reg_linux_guide... My more recent take with some updated de-cruftifying steps: https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/22/linux_nonapproved_laptop/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/22/linux_nonapproved_lap... I talked about choosing a distro here: https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/31/the_cynics_guide_to_linux/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/31/the_cynics_guide_to_l... Executive summary: use Linux Mint. The latest version, with the default Cinnamon desktop. Anyone who disagrees has an agenda and it's not ease of use, so can probably be ignored.
Havoc 1y ago
Finally managed to switch everything too. Was probably my 3rd serious try over the span of a decade. Travel laptop to Mint was smooth so then decided to get ambitious and try Arch/Hyprland on Desktop. Was far easier than expected (cuda, audio, bt etc) and the fiddly parts were mostly because its Arch/Hyprland - fiddling is kinda what you sign up for with that combo The only 2nd thoughts I'm having is that I kinda want to play the new battlefield and the anticheat makes that a no go on linux
morcus 1y ago
In about 2021 I set up dual boot on my Windows PC and slowly ended up using Linux more over time. In 2023 I built a new PC and this time didn't even bother getting Windows. the only things that didn't run natively were a few video games, and even for these it seems there is a good emulation (?) layer now in Steam (I forgot the details as I didn't game often).
flkiwi 1y ago
I don't want to be dismissive of some of the concerns of switching to Linux, but I feel like a lot of the "it's too hard!" in 2025 is "it's needlessly difficult to get a consistent Python container in NixOS Unstable" like that's something Aunt Jennifer is going to need. Even the Adobe suite is not a factor for most people. I ended up in this discussion with someone on Reddit who was convinced to their core that asking an older person to use Linux was "cruel" because they shouldn't have to spend their remaining years learning to type esoteric commands and older people simply aren't interested in or capable of learning new things. Aside from the bizarrely confident ageism, give someone a thinkpad running fedora with KDE (put away your knives for a moment) and they'll be fine. And if they have issues with Linux they're going to have issues with Windows too. (As to the distro, as long as it's not one of the DIY distros, it's also probably fine, and I'd bet most people--even those brittle, sad old people (/s)--would figure out Gnome in a day.)
- QuiEgo 1y ago
  Aunt Jennifer is the person iPads were made for. YMMV but it just seems to click for non tech people in a way a desktop OS (windows, Linux, or Mac) never does.
  - flkiwi 1y ago
    A few years ago I'd have agreed with you, but between (a) Apple giving in to landscape orientation on their tablets as the default and risking the rise of angry zombie Steve Jobs from the grave in the process and (b) the increasing availability of desktop-like UI features in iPadOS--something I welcome for my use cases but that might be confusing for Aunt Jennifer--I have to wonder if that's still the case. Of course, some people insist they want a computer, so even if an iPad is a better option, it might not be a choice they're happy with.
- asoneth 1y ago
  Nontechnical folks are fine using a computer until they're not, at which point they need to find someone with more experience or become someone with more experience. Many Windows or Mac users rely on a combination of paid support and friends/family with computer experience. But few people know someone with Linux experience, and fewer still know how to get paid Linux support. That's why every story of a nontechnical person running Linux seems to include a Linux enthusiast friend or family member in the background. > older people simply aren't interested in or capable of learning new things I agree that people of all ages can be interested and capable of learning new things, even something as dry as learning how to administer a computer. And Linux is a great option for someone who actually wants to learn more about operating systems. But the overwhelming majority of people who use a computer use it as a tool to do things, like keep in touch with family members, listen to music, write a book, read the news, look up tutorials, draw, make a webpage, play computer games, etc. Unless you aspire to learn about Linux itself, every second spent dealing with Linux driver issues is a waste that steals time from the actual things you want to do. In those cases it's absolutely cruel to force someone to dedicate time to learning esoteric technical skills before they're allowed to use their computer. That's why the only people I've evangelized Linux to are people I'm happy to continue to support indefinitely or who are actively interested in learning about Linux itself.

126 points by trinsic2 1y ago

I feel it. If I had control to wipe all machines as start over today, the SMB I work for would have to strongly consider all machines on Linux. What is it our users do? Word, Excel, PowerPoint, browsers. So right off the bat, I’ve either shuttered the idea, or need to commit my users to be software social pariahs whenever we need to work with another company. I suggest the battle isn’t the OS. But, rather Microsoft Office.

SoftTalker 1y ago
Google Office docs are pretty acceptable these days unless you need really specific Excel functionality.
- roscas 1y ago
  Don't want anyone to use that but that is good to prove that almost everybody can use a spreedsheat that is not Excel. Including LibreCalc. And many others. The same situation is for email. Who needs Outlook? Nobody! You can do almost everything with Thunderbird. So does Outlook have some "special" things? Maybe, never used it! I even had my email on clawsmail and it was amazing.
zdw 1y ago
Trapping user's data in their roach motel formats (the data goes in, but can never leave with full fidelity) is the longest running objection I have to using any Microsoft software. This is also why they fought so hard against the XML standardization of docs formats, and still to this day docs created by their own apps don't even validate against the schemas they created.
globalnode 1y ago
And games.
- adamors 1y ago
  Gaming has actually seen the biggest improvement on Linux in the last couple of years, check out https://www.protondb.com/ https://www.protondb.com/ for just how many titles are playable.
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
  I figured that one is mostly solved now between Steam, Bazzite or even just VM Windows ( if you really have to go that route ).
  - mvdtnz 1y ago
    It definitely isn't solved.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
      Hmm. I might be speaking from a perspective of a more.. restrained gamer ( my last bigger indulgence was BG3 and, while there were issues after updates, drivers tended to solve those eventually ). Any particular titles you have a problem with? If you are thinking of permanently online games that effectively put malware on your system, I am ok with that not being solved ( but even for those there are ways to go around those restrictions -- which should not be surprise given the nature of cat and mouse game ).
      - mvdtnz 1y ago
        Battlefield 2024 (and the upcoming 6) and all recent Call of Duty games are the obvious ones. And if you're interested in sim racing then device compatibility is a major problem even before you get to launch the game. > I am ok with that not being solved Great, good for you? You can't claim a problem is solved and then say "well I don't care" when shown it's not solved.
        A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
        << You can't claim a problem is solved and then say "well I don't care" when shown it's not solved. It is a fair point in that sense so you get full points for argument counter. That said, I personally think gamers, as a demographic, has some responsibility to say.. 'yeah, no. stop being dicks'. It is not that I don't care exactly. It is that I care too much to allow this crap on my computer.
bawolff 1y ago
Maybe it depends on what you work on, but i havent seen powerpoint or .docx file in like a decade. Everyone i know uses google docs. I'm sure there are users with specialized needs who need something more complex, but i dont think microsoft office is quite the moat it used to be.
- ejiblabahaba 1y ago
  My employer blocks access to Google Docs as part of our confidential information protection policy. They're certainly not the only ones. I'd hesitate to call on-premises file management "specialized needs" - rather, it's (still) the default, particularly if you take a peek outside of the software bubble.
  - bawolff 1y ago
    I suspect that that is more an anti-shadow IT measure than an anti-google docs measure.
- SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
  Trade one devil for another? I’ve never looked to see the compatibility of Office to Gsuite. So unless it is 110% perfect it is a non-starter. The second we have a supplier send an excel with some goofball formula in it and we don’t see some data or can’t open it - it’s over. This isn’t even getting to the next devil… Adobe.
n3storm 1y ago
Please consider checking LibreOffice periodically, every 4 - 6 months Ms compatibility increases at steady pace, it may have solved that issue that was keeping you back from using it (25 years using linux and staroffice)
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Functionality is pretty good but the UI is from the 1990s.
  - bigstrat2003 1y ago
    That's a good thing. UI design peaked around that era and has been going downhill ever since.
    - zaruvi 1y ago
      These days you can choose between different UIs, some of which will have the "ribbon" style. I do agree though that it feels a bit dated if you're used to MS' office, but you get used to it quite quickly.
    - uncircle 1y ago
      GP probably wanted to say that LibreOffice’s UI is 90s era Linux quality, rather than the beauty of Office 97 and such. Mismatched, not native, terrible stock icons, clunky and frankly ugly.
  - n3storm 1y ago
    You haven't checked in a lon time ;)
- trinsic2 1y ago
  Libre office has some annoyances though. I cannot for the life of me disable the document recovery model that always pops up on every launch regardless if a document needs to be recovered or not. Also I cant seem to get printing to default to 8 1/2x11 formatting.
BrenBarn 1y ago
The weird thing is that to a significant extent that battle is really just about the words "Microsoft Office". LibreOffice has some awkwardness and annoyances, but it's quite adequate for probably 90% of mundane office tasks people need to do (and MS Office has its own pain points). A major barrier is just a specific insistence that Word be used, without any reference to functional requirements of the actual document.
- jamiek88 1y ago
  People always say this but the 90% doesn’t count. The 90% is easy. It’s the other bit that people hit and compatibility issues mean any non standard approach whether it’s fair or not will always, always get the blame. Plus I dispute that libreoffice has even close to 90% of what excel can do.
  - roscas 1y ago
    Let's not compare the advanced options of Excel or how Excel bugs annoy me. There are loads of them. Let's just compare what people do when they need a tool like Excel. That's when the 90 or maybe more % of people will do. That is what I do. Everything I do in Excel can be done on LibreCalc. So it is true that LibreCalc can replace 90% or more, because not everybody needs those advanced topics. Same for the other LibreOffice apps, Writer is good for almost everybody. As LibreDraw and others.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  I’ve never met a document an office document that wouldn’t have been better as a wiki (if it is intended to be impermanent), or as a something like a LaTeX document (if it is not).
  - SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
    Doesn’t matter what you think (or I). The real world runs on MS Office.
- upboundspiral 1y ago
rahkiin 1y ago
Would the Office 365 in browser work for you?
- roscas 1y ago
  I've used it for very simple things but I don't thing it even has 1% of the installed Excel program does. It is too simple and buggy. Few days ago wife opened an excel file on the browser and something was right away wrong, she noticed, can't remember what it was. Had to download and execute local.
  - p_ing 1y ago
    I wouldn’t call it simple. It does have Python scripting. Obviously not the functionality she needed, but that’s fairly advanced in the Excel world. And that’s the issue with every alternative, it lacks 1:1 features/bugs so what’s usable for one isn’t for another.

BrenBarn 1y ago

Sounds very similar to my situation. I switched to Linux around the same time and for basically the same reasons. I had looked at Linux at various times in the past, and attempted to switch around 10 years ago, but wound up going back to Windows. The horrors of Windows 10/11 made me more determined this time, and also the Linux desktop experience has improved slowly but steadily. I hope that Linux continues to improve as a viable solution for average nontechnical users. The level of evil that's being pushed by mainstream for-profit software vendors is becoming outrageous.

jppittma 1y ago
Still a ways to go. I found out part of the reason for my linux bluetooth woes is that a settings in bluetooth called “JustWorks” and “FastConnect” default to off. Like. Why? As if most linux users who enable bluetooth want it to connect slowly and not work. Being a bit hyperbolic intentionally but the point still stands
- uncircle 1y ago
  Funny, I had issues with my adapter where I had to turn BT fast connect off. In computing there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Windows has its own share of idiosyncrasies. You're just used to them. Bluetooth hardware is terrible, often proprietary and vendors write drivers only for Windows and macOS. What is Linux supposed to do about that? EDIT: By the way, JustWorks and FastConnect are the official names of two Bluetooth connection techniques. The name is stupid because that's what the marketing people decided to call it, Linux is being consistent so you know what's going on when they're active, and I assume they have their downsides.
  - godelski 1y ago
    > Windows has its own share of idiosyncrasies. Using all 3 main OSes frequently (Windows the least) I think this is the key point I've noticed. There's tons of frustrations on each of them. But at least for me, the reason why I like Linux so much is that I am far more likely to be able to fix things and move on. With Windows and OSX a fix usually involves some super hacky method that comes with costs, often invisibly so. It reminds me of an argument I had with a friend. I was saying <FAANG Company> should add an option to change some (very minor) attributes. My ask was literally about text size and location. He just came back and said that I like to fiddle with things and am out of touch because most people want things to "just work." He's not wrong, I like to fiddle. But the problem was that something was broken. Things weren't "just working". I was asking for that feature because the options were "clicking 3 buttons worth of fiddling" and "not using the product." If it is broken it is broken ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. If people are willing to fiddle to repair, great! They'll continue using the product. People that won't? Well it's broken so they weren't going to anyways. At least with the capacity for fiddling you maintain some. These days, I find myself having fewer problems on Linux than either Windows or OSX. I expect most people to be surprised by that comment because I am too. A decade ago it was the exact opposite situation. But things change. > The name is stupid "2 hard things in Computer Science" but it isn't a off-by-one error! Though these names are just objectively stupid and confusing. At least an incomprehensible name wouldn't be misleading.

roscas 1y ago

This blog post deserves a good reading. Thank you Scott for sharing this experience.

lproven 1y ago
How interesting. I thought it was very poor, myself.

neilv 1y ago

Seeing posts like this upvoted on HN restores some of my faith that we can still be a field of the smart and the professional.

bawolff 1y ago

Its kind of interesting that in the end its RMS style "freedom" that is still winning the day, and not price or even better software.

worik 1y ago
RMS as a Cassandra?
- SlowTao 1y ago
  Absolutely. RMS ultimately is completely right, its just the conditions for it to work are nowhere near right. If anything we seem to be slipping further all the time despite the uptake in users.

time0ut 1y ago

I always seem to end up dual booting Windows to play games. I’ve made it quite a while without installing Windows now. Mostly because I haven’t had the desire to game much, but also because of how good gaming on Linux is now. I will hold out until there is some big multiplayer game with anticheat that my friends get me into.

riazrizvi 1y ago

That’s one way to frame it: Encroaching corporations are a front, trying to subdue the public, and we need to unite and fight back for ourselves. Myself I’ve moved away from this. Now, I frame it all as just people with the same fundamental nature, that I understand through little rules. Like ‘In the absence of a better more personal and mutually rewarding relationship we end up commoditizing each other which becomes more and more exploitative over time’. Or ‘We choose comfortable, pandering stories that make us feel better about ourselves, avoid situations to better understand others if they challenge our aspirational truths’.

trinsic2 1y ago
I'm wondering if promoting better relationship with each other has the same effect as fighting back against something that is actually harming us?
- riazrizvi 1y ago
  There’s overlap - I think mostly we harm ourselves, then we harm each other inadvertently, and lastly we harm each other intentionally. So promoting better relationships is a piece of it, but helping each other not harm ourselves (ie reach enlightenment) has the biggest effect. The hard thing is to balance it with our need to make a living, and to also not trigger some landmine of aspirational truth that others are determined to hold onto when we share our perspective.
trinsic2 1y ago
Im confused as to how this looks in practice. Are you saying you embody making the right choices in a relationship as setting an example? or convincing others that this is a good want to go? How do we stop the exploitation of each other in relationships? It seems like its burned into our genetic make up that started a long time ago. We sort of use each other to get what we want. I know there is a higher path, but as you said I don't see how thats possible in commerce as it appears like its exploitable by nature.
- riazrizvi 1y ago

runjake 1y ago

An option if you don't want to deal with dual boot: buy something like a Bee-link SER8 for $499 and use that for Linux. It's tiny and performs well. Use a KVM or swap cables between computers. (I only game on the weekends so I just cable swap, because my KVM is Mac <--> Gaming PC/SER8.)

3eb7988a1663 1y ago
Computers are so stupidly fast now, it does seem like this is the future. Thanks to the laptop market, the tiny desktop models have more then sufficient oomph to do everything that 99% of users require. Keep the bulky tower for gaming or workstation loads. Hypocrite because my daily driver is a uATX where I mostly just browser the internet and watch movies.
Seattle3503 1y ago
Finding a good KVM switch at a good price can be hard. Usually the video output isnt great. what I found works isnusing a USB switch with a monitor that supports two inputs. Switching machines is two operations. First, switch monitors, then switch USB.
rs186 1y ago
Not a bad idea in principle but I can't justify purchasing separate hardware just for this purpose -- I have an almost perfectly running machine, and I don't want to spend a few hundred dollars on a separate one. If I have files that need to be shared, that makes things more complicated.
smackeyacky 1y ago
Too hard. Just take your original windows license and run up a VM in QEMU. Perfect for dealing with windows only things

psyclobe 1y ago

I made the switch a few years ago mostly because the only thing I do on computers is write software for the companies I work for; I don’t game, I try but idk just feels like work. Everything is mostly fine on Linux, minus things like display drivers (pick the wrong nvidia driver and you’ll have crashes), power management (honestly I just use a remote switch to turn off my displays), and random stuff like my gnome classic shell will nearly always crash the moment I try to resume working after a few hours (just kicks me back to the login screen). But sometimes I go back to windows and I am taken aback as the sheer completeness of the user experience. Also Linux always hangs hard if I run it out of ram. Windows never does that. Not going back anytime soon either way.

beeflet 1y ago
>Also Linux always hangs hard if I run it out of ram disable swap. Programs will crash instead, which may be more useful.
- malfist 1y ago
  Programs, including the kernel
  - beeflet 1y ago
    I've never had that happen. It usually just kills user-space programs
- justsomehnguy 1y ago
  Uhm, no. Anything what would request memory would just outright die, including even the most basic services. Source: actually had a system without swap what would just die running `dnf update`. Or quietly die in a week or so if left unattended.
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    Swap isn’t unlimited, it just delays the inevitable and makes everything slow while doing it. A 4GB swap partition isn’t going to save you if you run your 32GB computer out of memory.

rossdavidh 1y ago

The last time my wife's laptop died, I convinced her to give a Linux laptop from System76 a try. Then, when her store's Windows box died, I convinced her (and her business partner) to give Linux a try there. My daughter, 20, has a Linux laptop as well (although in order to get Adobe Creative Suite for school she still has to own a Windows desktop, thanks Adobe). None of these people were interested in software freedom, so their patience for problems during the switch was pretty minimal, and they all switched, and stayed switched. If you buy something like System76 that has Linux pre-installed, and help out with something like Spotify that is possible to install on Linux but not completely trivial, it is not so difficult to convince people anymore.

beeflet 1y ago
what's wrong with the web app
- LPisGood 1y ago
  In my experience web apps are almost always worse than native apps unless the native app is just a wrapper around a web app.
  - mathiaspoint 1y ago
    The native Spotify app is just a wrapper around the web app though.
    - sneak 1y ago
      This is decidedly untrue.
    - bigstrat2003 1y ago
      Even for apps where that is true, sometimes the wrapper adds some features that it doesn't have running in a browser tab. For example, the Discord electron app can get hotkeys when it's not focused (useful for push to talk/mute when playing a game), but not when you run it in a browser.

k__ 1y ago

I used Xubuntu and LMDE until Windows 7, because it came with my laptop and I could use Linux on a cloud IDE anyway. But with the end of life for windows 10 in October, I switched back to Linux and I'm quite happy. I'm running Manjaro with Xfce on my 4 year old LG Gram and it's really snappy while only using 900MB idle memory.

estimator7292 1y ago
I run manjaro on a 12 year old Thinkpad and it's the best computer I've ever had. It needed a CPU upgrade, but now I can do all my development work on this ancient beast.

Venn1 1y ago

Windows will keep dominating the desktop PC market as long as manufacturers ship it by default. Convincing someone to install an operating system from scratch is a fantastically large ask.

greazy 1y ago
I ah haven't looked very hard but Lenovo is the only company I've seen offer Linux (Ubuntu) machines, limited for a very small number or devices though. Do any other companies do the same?
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Dell does (or did, haven’t looked in a few years).
- esseph 1y ago
  The bigger players like Dell and Lenovo do and have for a very long time. Maybe HPE? Not sure Then there are more bespoke vendors that cater specifically to Linux. System76 is probably the most well known, but there are many others. I'm speaking mainly for laptops/desktops. For servers it's always been you just put whatever on. Linux gets the most time on servers and containers but the desktop base continues to grow, so expect most problems to be there (bluetooth, wifi, etc.). Accessibility is getting much better.
  - dontlaugh 1y ago
    It depends on your region and models.
- lproven 1y ago
  > Do any other companies do the same? Important relevant note: Some companies offer "DOS" or "FreeDOS" computers. This is notably common in poorer countries. These commonly do not really run DOS. They run a very old version of FreeDOS in a VM under Linux. HP uses Debian. https://blog.tmm.cx/2022/05/15/the-very-weird-hewlett-packard-freedos-option/ https://blog.tmm.cx/2022/05/15/the-very-weird-hewlett-packar... 1. When you look for Linux machines, look in other countries than your own. 2. Include machines described as DOS machines. They are really Linux machines and will run Linux fine because they in fact ship with it.

skinkestek 1y ago

At my last two workplaces Linux has been an alternative for those who wanted it, along with Mac (unlike Linux you have to ask for Mac, but you usually get it if you have a good reason or a couple of years experience it seems) and Windows (the standard). Personally I have found Linux to be ready for (some) desktops (including mine and several friends) since around 2005 and I have even worked for a company that mandated Linux for everyone who couldn't document a need for Windows only software.

fdsf111 1y ago

I dual boot windows with linux, but I haven't used windows in over a year. The thing that stuck me about windows (windows 11) was how slow the right mouse button click feels. On the main screen, between right clicking and seeing the modal pop up, there is a ~150-200 ms delay that wasn't there on Windows XP and Windows 7. Those were the last major version of Windows I used as my daily drivers. In windows 11, I was also annoyed by all the bloat on my home screen that I had to turn off manually, like the news feed or the weather or the stock market tracker. Oh -- and here is a good one -- my system clock resets every time I restart. I easily spent 2-3 hours trying to figure out why, and I eventually I gave up. Yes, there is a setting for "synchronize time automatically", but it doesn't work for me. Every time I log into windows, I have to go into the clock settings and manually force a resync with the correct time zone. To me this is just wild. I transitioned to using Linux full time around 2018-ish, when I stopped playing MMOs. I still keep a version of Windows on my PC, but single-player gaming is a first-class citizen on Linux now, so I haven't logged into windows for some time.

estimator7292 1y ago
The clock problem is actually a Linux issue. Linux sets the hardware system clock to UTC and only applies time zones when displaying the time. Windows sets the hardware clock to local time. Every time one or the other updates the clock, it's now in the wrong format for the other OS. The fix is to tell Linux to use local time. There are no side effects as far as I can tell
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  I wouldn't call that a Linux issue or a Windows issue. It's kind of like driving on the left or right side of the road: either way is fine, you just need to have everyone agree on which way they are going to use.
  - Borealid 1y ago
    There in an advantage to using UTC: when legislatures change the rules about which time zone is which, or you move your computer while it's off, the time remains correct. Using local time for the RTC theoretically makes it simpler to schedule wakeups at user friendly times, but that seems less impactful.

kayo_20211030 1y ago

> It’s been two years now. I finally weaned myself off of Big Daddy. There are people that spend less time on a divorce and its aftermath. Maybe I'm jaded, but use whatever makes you happy, fulfilled and productive. The hand-wringing post facto justifications, which include Star Wars references to "freedom", are maybe a little tto much, don't you think?

klabb3 1y ago
> The hand-wringing post facto justifications, which include Star Wars references to "freedom", are maybe a little tto much, don't you think? Back in university RMS came to a neighbor uni in Stockholm for a traditional lecture about software freedoms etc. I think everyone thought he was a bit crazy or idealistic (I guess most still do). But the warnings of how you weren't going to own anything, that you have to ask permission, that your devices can be disabled etc, that sounded like fiction at the time. But looking back to that era (2011 or so), it slowly did change for the worse exactly like he warned. While a lot of the early internet idealisms have fizzled out, I think today those ideas and passions were much more important than we thought. For instance, I usually say that if the web was invented today, browsers would not be approved by the app stores. We take some things for granted, and a lot of those things came from a different era, arising out of preconditions that largely no longer exist.
- Seattle3503 1y ago
  Email couldn't be invented today.
  - klabb3 1y ago
    But if someone tried, it would look like LinkedIn.
  - marcosdumay 1y ago
    If you mean that each company would insist on making their own that won't talk to the others... Email was actually invented that way. I don't remember exactly what company (I think it was Novel), but one made a fortune bridging them.

pcunite 1y ago

I've wanted to switch to Linux. May have to give it another go someday. Currently moving over to macOS. Will see how it goes.

roscas 1y ago
Great. macOS is freebsd so it's not Linux but closer to Linux than Windows. That is good. The bad is that Apple is just like Windows, just wants to look better. It is not. Better than Windows? Ok, a little better yes.
- p_ing 1y ago
  macOS is not FreeBSD. It’s Darwin which contains some FreeBSD subsystems built atop Mach, and some FreeBSD userland. https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Darwin/Conceptual/KernelProgramming/Architecture/Architecture.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000905-CH1g-CACDAEDC https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Da...
adham-omran 1y ago
I did this a few months back and never looked back. Linux failed me in music production and gaming, while the latter isn't important, I have invested heavily in audio VSTs and it's unacceptable that even with Wine, they do not work and no virtual machines are not enough. I hope MacOS treats you well.

avhception 1y ago

One of the companies I'm working for has a b2c retail division. We're still buying the Lenovo all-in-one destkops that are used as POS systems with Windows licenses even though we wipe the machine and auto-install our Linux-based POS system as soon as we deploy the machine. Trying to buy a machine w/o Windows is just too much friction. I call it the Microsoft tax. I really wish that not to be a thing any more.

greazy 1y ago

The two last issues facing users switching are (imo) battery management and track pads. I know there are solutions but they're very complicated to setup properly for the average user.

shmerl 1y ago
Lenovo laptops have good trackpad support on Linux.
Cyan488 1y ago
Libinput is adding Lua scripting to handle hardware quirks and edge cases without needing to rely on hardcoding hacks into the library[1], which might help the trackpad situation. [1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/libinput-Lua-Plugin-System https://www.phoronix.com/news/libinput-Lua-Plugin-System
drpixie 1y ago
Is that really still a problem? I've always had trackpads work straight-off 100%, and find battery life to be way better under linux (perhaps because it's not running a million unwanted services.)
- greazy 1y ago
  What laptop and which os are you running? I'm thinking taking an existing laptop (say hp), installing debian variant. I'd be intrigued what other options are out there as I'm trying to move the whole family over
  - arp242 1y ago
    Trackpads pretty much always work out of the box, but typically do not support more advanced features, and/or they're kind of a pain to set up. I think you and the person you're replying to are talking about different things(?) Whether these advanced features are desirable is of course a matter of opinion. Personally, I find macbooks very hard to use because the trackpad never does what I want on account of having the motor skills of a spastic five year old. So I don't miss this at all.

deater 1y ago

it's funny that a lot of us Linux nuts on comp.os.linux.advocacy back in the 90s predicted this was Microsoft's planned endgame. I personally thought it would take less than 30 years for them to get around to it though.

trinsic2 1y ago
You were pretty spot on its been about 20 I think

sneak 1y ago

The same applies to GitHub and VS Code, fwiw. It’s the same surveillance-based slow boil. If you think Windows is bad for the world, stop driving eyeballs to their same strategies in the f/oss world as well.

lioeters 1y ago
> GitHub and VS Code It's impressive how these Microsoft-owned products became fundamental to my daily software needs. I know I have to find better alternatives, move to using Codeberg/Forgejo, Spacemacs/Neovim.. And programming languages? I like TypeScript, and Microsoft has been a good steward of the project. Similarly with Go and Google. I also rely on VC-funded language runtimes, frameworks, libraries. That's a risk I sometimes question. Ideally I would shift to using FOSS altogether, the whole stack top to bottom. Even the hardware I'd prefer "open source" if possible.
- sneak 1y ago
  Using Typescript is not the same as using VS Code. One is an actual open source free software project. The other is spyware cosplay open source.

shmerl 1y ago

Yes, give desktop Linux a try if you are still not using it. There is a good progress with the likes of Lenovo (who for decades refused to refund Windows tax) selling computers with Linux pre-installed. If you want gaming on Linux, get an AMD GPU.

mvdtnz 1y ago

Unfortunately there's just no solution for an important part of my life - gaming. If it was completely up to me I would completely ignore games that didn't work on Linux. But I maintain an important friendship group through gaming, and those guys are not going to forgo Battlefield 6 or Dawn of War 4 or any of the many games that straight up won't work. Not to mention the additional effort on my side getting a game to work when it's not officially supported - something I am not willing to put a ton of persona time into.

trinsic2 1y ago
Yeah I hear you. I also had a similar game that played with friends. PubG. But then when I switched to Linux and I couldn't play it any more. I switched to other games that I could play, some of the joined me and some didn't. I had reached a point that I wasn't willing to justify using software that was not in my control any longer. Relationships change and I chalk that up to personal growth. Some people join you, and some don't. Not judging you, but for me I just couldn't tolerate it any longer.
- mvdtnz 1y ago
  Just to add a bit more context, the group of people who I play games with are not people I met playing games. They are my lifelong friends. I'm not willing to walk away from those friendships or my interactions with them for the sake of an operating system.
  - trinsic2 1y ago
    Yeah maybe in that case, I might have a dual boot setup for just when I play with them. But Im not using Windows as my Daily Drive any longer.

rr808 1y ago

The only thing I need Windows for is citrix to connect to my work machine. I'm thinking of getting a laptop just for this one task.

smackeyacky 1y ago
Windows VM in QEMU will solve this problem. I had multiple clients with different VPN or remote access tech and used to keep a VM for each of them.
- trinsic2 1y ago
  which vm software do you use? I have had a hard time with vm software on linux no that Vmware got exploited by Broadcom.
  - smackeyacky 1y ago
    QEMU is the one I prefer. https://www.qemu.org/ https://www.qemu.org/ I had it set up with a network bridge so that each VM looked like an actual PC on my network.
    - trinsic2 1y ago
      Thanks, I used QEMU back in the commedore days. Didn't know it was still alive.

ekusiadadus 1y ago

Indeed, Linux has improved a lot, but for many people whose main applications are gaming and Office, the adoption cost still feels too high.

jayess 1y ago
That’s my roadblock. I need Office and still want to be able to play Fortnite.

hoherd 1y ago

> One day their data was on the local drive and the next it became online-only files that had to be downloaded from Microsoft’s servers. That is insane. If this happened to me, there is zero chance I would continue using that product. If something like this happened to my parents, I'd make them switch off windows if they wanted help with their computers (which I already did for other reasons, and the result was immensely positive, though the target OS was macOS, not linux.)

ItsBob 1y ago

This post has come along at an interesting time as it happens... I was at my mum and dads yesterday and I was asking my dad if he'd seen any messages or nag screens about upgrading his computer from Windows 10? It's ancient and I wouldn't put Windows 11 on it, even though I can burn a copy with Rufus to remove all the requirements. As it happens, he had. In fact, he thought Microsoft wanted him to pay for it, such is their confusing marketing! Now, my dad is no dumbass. He has a PhD in electrical engineering, all his faculties are still present and correct and he's used computers for years and he won numerous awards as uni for being smart af! Anyway, I put him off the idea of Windows 11 and onto the idea of a Chromebox instead. He seemes keen to try it. Also, my dad only uses the web, the odd spreadsheet to keep track of his money, the odd YT video and that's about it: he's not a power-user. My reasoning for the Chromebox is that I can't be about all the time when he needs tech support and I'm worried he's scammed by someone wanting him to "install an anti-virus, quick, before all his money is gone" or something. Plus, he has an Android phone already... it makes sense I think. Next week I'll drop off my Chromebook and set it up for him to try. I think it'll work out, and if it does, I'll buy a Chromebox for about £300 and that'll do him for ever I think. On a side-note, I've switched back to Windows 10 a few weeks ago: specifically Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC. I used the Massgrave script and it's valid until 2038 or something. I've had it with the latency and general dystopia (and the broken printer... ffs Microsoft!) around Windows 11, which I'd been using for a couple of years until last week. It may sound trivial but I still can't get over the volume slider latency in Windows 11: When you change the volume slider in the quick launch area and the "ding" sound happens 400ms later, not at the same time, it drives me nuts! Anyway, my £0.02

braggerxyz 1y ago

Ever since Steam released in Beta for Linux (proud owner of the Tux accessory for the Demoman in TF2!) I switched to Linux and stayed there. In the beginning I ran Ubuntu 12.04 and used Steam there. I also used Wine to run Diablo 3 and WoW, although performance was bad at that time. All other programs I needed where there also. (Im a software engineer, so using Linux is even better). But Ubuntu moved to slowly and broke here and there. What followed was a odyssey between a lot of distributions. Six years ago I tried Void Linux (rolling release without SystemD) and finally settled. Then Steam Proton came around and changed the whole Gaming On Linux scene again for the better. Playing retail WoW with on par performance is now possible. Running any game from Steam on Linux is now a breeze, even if not a native game. Open Source office tools are also on par with Windows / Microsoft counterparts. There really is nothing holding me back from using Linux full time. There is nothing I am missing, and the more I read about problems in the Windows world, the more I am glad I switched all these years ago. Convincing all my friends doing the same is difficult though. They frankly do not care about privacy or freedom to make the switch. But in the end it is their fault, not mine. If someone comes to me for guidance to make the switch, I will guide them. But I won't evangelise anymore.

umbra07 1y ago
There's no equivalent to Excel if you need compatability with a proper Excel spreadsheet (anything more than basic formulae), outside of spinning up a VM.
- j_w 1y ago
  Office 365 in browser + avoiding Excel like the plague.

atoav 1y ago

My entry drug to Linux was WSL. When I started at my current job I started with a dual boot machine (Windows/Linux) with the thought of testing Linux as a desktop OS out for a bit. After a year I realized I wasn't booting into the Windows installation anymore so I removed it. Now 5 years on I am still as happy as ever. I am still struggling with some Adobe Creative Suite replacements, but in those 5 years things have gotten so much better already (and so much worse on the Windows-side) that I can see myself doing this for the long-term future. There is just something relaxing about working on an OS that treats you with respect instead of trying to trick you into something constantly.

pgsandstrom 1y ago

I've coded on linux for a decade now, but always used windows at home. Just last week I switched from windows 10 to ubuntu on my media computer since it cant upgrade to windows 11. I open up firefox, go to youtube, and immediately notice that 30% of all frames are gone. Hardware acceleration isnt working. I put the computer to sleep and go make dinner. When I return my wireless keyboard cant wake it up, I have to hard-reboot the computer to wake it up. I ask chatgpt about solutions to these problems, and it start spitting out terminal commands that end up making no difference. In my experience, 2025 is not yet the year of linux. I'll try again in 2027.

5350-uiop-1130 1y ago
yeah all these "move to linux" posts i feel are virtue signalling. its bad advice for most imo.
j_w 1y ago
You ask ChatGPT for answers to questions and your surprised that random terminal commands don't work? If you look at linux forums, all issues always include hardware and software versions. Some problems are extremely context dependent. Hardware acceleration isn't working -> what GPU? Do you have the right drivers installed (yes for Linux this is a consideration as there are so many display configurations not all drivers cough nvidia work for all scenarios). You also didn't specify anything like the quality you were trying to playback at. Is this 30% dropped frames at 4k60 or 1080p30? You can argue that this is too much detail for something that should "just work" but given where you are and what you're talking about I would think you would be more nuanced in the troubleshooting. If you want the most seemless and effort free web browsing and media viewing experience just buy a macbook air (good product and also good dev machines for most).
- max51 1y ago
  Is it even worth the time searching on forums to fix these issues? I can't speak for OP... but if an OS I freshly installed is unable to watch youtube videos and wake up from sleep, I'm wiping it and installing something else unless I can fix it extremely easily (eg. with chatgpt). >You also didn't specify anything like the quality you were trying to playback at. If hardware acceleration isn't working, it doesn't matter which youtube video made you realize the issue existed. It's not as if the method you use to fix the driver would be different when the video you want to watch is 1080p30 instead of 4k60.

CommenterPerson 1y ago

Want to thank the OP and commenters for this. I am not a hacker, and am hanging on to a Windows 10 and 7 (yes) laptop. I need to make some time and get one of the Linux systems. It would help a great deal if someone wrote or pointed to a blog that has step by step instructions. Something like a Hello World including what to use for common applications like browsing, writing documents, and spreadshees. Thank you.

lproven 1y ago
There are literally hundreds of them. What do you need? What do you want?
lproven 1y ago
> if someone wrote or pointed to a blog that has step by step instructions You still have not answered. That is saddening. Ah well. Here are 2 of my efforts. This is my 1st try for my current employer. I still stand by most of it, though. P1: https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/06/21/reg_linux_guide_1/ https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/06/21/reg_linux_guide... P2: https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/06/23/reg_linux_guide_2/ https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/06/23/reg_linux_guide... P3: https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/06/24/reg_linux_guide_3/ https://www.theregister.com/Print/2010/06/24/reg_linux_guide... My more recent take with some updated de-cruftifying steps: https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/22/linux_nonapproved_laptop/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/22/linux_nonapproved_lap... I talked about choosing a distro here: https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/31/the_cynics_guide_to_linux/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/31/the_cynics_guide_to_l... Executive summary: use Linux Mint. The latest version, with the default Cinnamon desktop. Anyone who disagrees has an agenda and it's not ease of use, so can probably be ignored.

Havoc 1y ago

Finally managed to switch everything too. Was probably my 3rd serious try over the span of a decade. Travel laptop to Mint was smooth so then decided to get ambitious and try Arch/Hyprland on Desktop. Was far easier than expected (cuda, audio, bt etc) and the fiddly parts were mostly because its Arch/Hyprland - fiddling is kinda what you sign up for with that combo The only 2nd thoughts I'm having is that I kinda want to play the new battlefield and the anticheat makes that a no go on linux

morcus 1y ago

In about 2021 I set up dual boot on my Windows PC and slowly ended up using Linux more over time. In 2023 I built a new PC and this time didn't even bother getting Windows. the only things that didn't run natively were a few video games, and even for these it seems there is a good emulation (?) layer now in Steam (I forgot the details as I didn't game often).

flkiwi 1y ago

I don't want to be dismissive of some of the concerns of switching to Linux, but I feel like a lot of the "it's too hard!" in 2025 is "it's needlessly difficult to get a consistent Python container in NixOS Unstable" like that's something Aunt Jennifer is going to need. Even the Adobe suite is not a factor for most people. I ended up in this discussion with someone on Reddit who was convinced to their core that asking an older person to use Linux was "cruel" because they shouldn't have to spend their remaining years learning to type esoteric commands and older people simply aren't interested in or capable of learning new things. Aside from the bizarrely confident ageism, give someone a thinkpad running fedora with KDE (put away your knives for a moment) and they'll be fine. And if they have issues with Linux they're going to have issues with Windows too. (As to the distro, as long as it's not one of the DIY distros, it's also probably fine, and I'd bet most people--even those brittle, sad old people (/s)--would figure out Gnome in a day.)

QuiEgo 1y ago
Aunt Jennifer is the person iPads were made for. YMMV but it just seems to click for non tech people in a way a desktop OS (windows, Linux, or Mac) never does.
- flkiwi 1y ago
  A few years ago I'd have agreed with you, but between (a) Apple giving in to landscape orientation on their tablets as the default and risking the rise of angry zombie Steve Jobs from the grave in the process and (b) the increasing availability of desktop-like UI features in iPadOS--something I welcome for my use cases but that might be confusing for Aunt Jennifer--I have to wonder if that's still the case. Of course, some people insist they want a computer, so even if an iPad is a better option, it might not be a choice they're happy with.
asoneth 1y ago
Nontechnical folks are fine using a computer until they're not, at which point they need to find someone with more experience or become someone with more experience. Many Windows or Mac users rely on a combination of paid support and friends/family with computer experience. But few people know someone with Linux experience, and fewer still know how to get paid Linux support. That's why every story of a nontechnical person running Linux seems to include a Linux enthusiast friend or family member in the background. > older people simply aren't interested in or capable of learning new things I agree that people of all ages can be interested and capable of learning new things, even something as dry as learning how to administer a computer. And Linux is a great option for someone who actually wants to learn more about operating systems. But the overwhelming majority of people who use a computer use it as a tool to do things, like keep in touch with family members, listen to music, write a book, read the news, look up tutorials, draw, make a webpage, play computer games, etc. Unless you aspire to learn about Linux itself, every second spent dealing with Linux driver issues is a waste that steals time from the actual things you want to do. In those cases it's absolutely cruel to force someone to dedicate time to learning esoteric technical skills before they're allowed to use their computer. That's why the only people I've evangelized Linux to are people I'm happy to continue to support indefinitely or who are actively interested in learning about Linux itself.