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The best thing to happen to Linux Desktop is Windows 11, with perfect timing too as modern Linux has been a joy to use as a daily driver. Normally I'd be unhap

by mythz 1y ago

The best thing to happen to Linux Desktop is Windows 11, with perfect timing too as modern Linux has been a joy to use as a daily driver. Normally I'd be unhappy when a sleazy corp forces me to give up on 25 years of muscle memory of using my preferred OS, but I'm thankful they gave me the push I needed to rip off the ad/spyware laced Windows Band-Aid that I only need to do once in my life. It's been over a year since I switched to Linux which has been a breath of fresh-air, all my dev tools work natively, the console is far superior and I'm still able to play all my favorite Steam games. Best of all I'm not reminded daily that I'm using an OS that works against my best interests, I can actually use an App Store again that's been designed for the benefit of its Users, imagine that.

Neil44 1y ago
I switched to Ubuntu on my main machine this year and even as a heavy 365 user it's better. Battery life is massively improved. I even still run the odd game on cs2. 11 feels like toy town in comparison.
- pcchristie 1y ago
  How do you run 365?
  - TheWookieDavid 1y ago
    Not OP but 365 has web apps for every software offered. The only disadvantage is that the web apps require an internet connection and the native windows apps don't.
  - Neil44 1y ago
    PWA for Outlook and Teams, just straight web access for everything else. You can also access onedrive etc via the nautilus file manager as a onedrive:// url which is easier for some things.
gambiting 1y ago
Sadly, as a developer there is no beating Visual Studio. Microsoft still makes the best developer IDE that unfortunately only runs on their worst OS. But as a C++ developer there is just no substitute(imho). Not to mention some development toolchains only work on windows(for playstation/xbox/switch) so if you work in games there is very little choice.
- tommica 1y ago
  Is running windows inside a VM a possibility for you?
  - f1shy 1y ago
    Or maybe even WSL?
  - gambiting 1y ago
    No, but also.....why would you do that? If you're going to do 99% of your work inside a Windows VM, just.....run Windows?
- f1shy 1y ago
  I use Emacs. It does need some fine tuning, tree-sitter installation, etc. but after that, I cannot understand colleges using VS. I have seen no feature in VS not available in Emacs. Some colleges have switched from years VS to Emacs and after a week won’t look back.
  - wolvesechoes 1y ago
    > I have seen no feature in VS not available in Emacs. Guys, please. I am all for FOSS, but such delusions can only be harmful, for they prevent from actually improving stuff. Did you sir ever use debugger in your life?
    - f1shy 1y ago
      Almost every day. I use gdb both for JTAG targets in embedded systems, as in a programs running in my host. Emacs has a front end for gdb. Some colleges use other front ends. What I’m preventing to improve, in your opinion?
globular-toast 1y ago
I did it 15 years ago and never looked back. Vista was enough to give me the nudge. On the occasion I've had to use Windoze over the years I've laughed harder and harder each time. It's hard to explain to people who only know Windoze, but it's just really nice to use software made by people who don't hate you.
- dspillett 1y ago
  While I don't disagree with you at all, I'd advise against calling the OS “Windoze” (or “Winblows”, or the company “Micro$oft”). This gives off a very “From my parent's basement, I stab at thee!” impression and reduces how seriously a lot of people will take you and what you are saying, and those people could apply the same impression to the rest of us too. I used to do the same thing, about 1½-to-2 decades ago.
  - globular-toast 1y ago
    "The worst kind of oppression is when the victims think and talk in the language of their oppressors." Why would I care if suits "take me seriously"? I grew out of "Windoze" etc. Now I've grown back into it, because fuck Micro$oft.
    - dspillett 1y ago
      I'm not talking about “the suits” and what they think. I'm talking about the people, the home users nominally in control of their own machines, who are on the edge of considering Linux, or something else non-MS, who might be put off if they see something that reinforces a negative stereotype that they've been fed elsewhere (for instance, that the surrounding community is mostly a bunch of undeservedly cocksure 14-year-olds or practically indistinguishable from the same).
      - globular-toast 1y ago
        You might consider it childish but it's the way I am and it's not just me. I've been masking it for decades but I'm sick of it. I won't use their carefully crafted marketing language. The internet was more fun when people could just be themselves and not try to be beige for fear of scaring people away. We need more variety in the world, not less.
naldb 1y ago
The best thing to happen to Linux Desktop is not that it has improved but that its biggest competitor has dropped the ball? That’s not really praising it.
- mythz 1y ago
  Linux is the better OS. Windows 11 just forces people to evaluate other OS's to experience the latest Linux for themselves. I didn't have the time as a working Adult for distro hopping and Gentoo compiles, but the thought of having to live with Windows 11 made me try out modern linux again, glad I did.
  - krige 1y ago
    Linux is now the better OS, after the other one got significantly worse than it used to be, and even that is close call depending on what you need Linux to do.
    - jbstack 1y ago
      Very subjective. I made the switch to Linux from Windows 7 over 10 years ago and even at that time I found Linux to be orders of magnitude better in almost every aspect, and those few areas where it was worse (which, aside from games, I'm struggling to even think of any now) were well worth the trade-off.
    - wiseowise 1y ago
      Linux distros became much better than Windows during Win 10 times.
      - koiueo 1y ago
        I love how people confidently claim something like this. FWIW, for me Linux became better in the times of Windows XP.
        rkomorn 1y ago
0rdinal 1y ago
I daily drive Ubuntu, the user experience is comparable (in many cases better) to Windows 11. The only sticking point for me is display drivers. HDR on Wayland is barely functional (in my experience), and getting things like hardware accelerated AV1 encoding, full Vulkan API support etc to work has been extremely difficult. Every time I login using a Wayland desktop, only my main monitor is detected and it defaults to 60hz. I have to go through a whole process of unplugging the "undetected" monitors and plugging them back in. X11 doesn't suffer from this, but of course does not support HDR. Yes, this is almost entirely Nvidia's fault, and yes I should know better than to use NV graphics cards on Linux distros; but frankly, the barrier to entry should not be having to replace an expensive piece of hardware to achieve feature parity. (Obligatory "Nvidia, f*k you!")
- ruszki 1y ago
  All of my problem was solved by disabling hybrid graphics and use the dedicated card only. I had not a single bug since then on X11 (I didn’t try Wayland yet, because it was almost completely unusable with hybrid config). The only drawback is battery life, but that wasn’t great even before. I could never reach the ~4 hours, which was possible with Windows. Even with the dedicated card disabled. So, I’m not entirely sure that it’s entirely on Nvidia.
  - orwin 1y ago
    Hybrid graphics had troubles last spring, but in my case it was fixed around late July. I still launch steam with weird env variables (i don't often change my shortcuts), but i'm not sure it's needed.
  - blincoln 1y ago
    Same, on my laptop. Hybrid graphics destabilised both Debian (with Nvidia drivers installed) and the Windows 11 installation I have on there for SharpCap. Switching to Nvidia GPU only made everything rock solid. This was my first experience with hybrid graphics, and so far I'm not impressed.
- database64128 1y ago
j45 1y ago
Developing for linux servers using a linux workstation can be so unbelievably smooth.
KronisLV 1y ago
> It's been over a year since I switched to Linux which has been a breath of fresh-air, all my dev tools work natively, the console is far superior and I'm still able to play all my favorite Steam games. I moved back to Linux Mint with Cinnamon yesterday, because my boot drive with Windows got fried and the replacement will only be here on Thursday. It doesn't feel like the OS is trying to make my life worse, it just sucks sometimes. Note: this ended up being a bit long, there's a summary at the bottom. Apologies. It doesn't save window positions after boot properly (I'd probably have to look in the direction of devilspie2 for that, admittedly I was using FancyZones on Windows as well). The grouped window list Applet in the panel doesn't show windows on the correct screen even if I move them from one monitor to the other and then back. This is really annoying because I have 4 monitors and want each of them have a panel and half of those being wrong about what is where sucks, admittedly Windows sometimes had a similar issue with its taskbar, BUT it resolved itself by just dragging the windows across monitors, instead of needing to refresh the entire applet. The sound output default is something called Line Out Starship/Matisse HD Audio Controller which works fine, but there's no obvious way for me to disable HDMI/DisplayPort output devices so programs can't pick those by accident. Whereas for input I have Rear Microphone Starship/Matisse HD Audio Controller but that one makes the sound horrible, so I instead need to switch over to Microphone USB PnP Audio Device and hope that will be fine. Better than the issues with audio on Fedora years ago, still not great. Software availability varies - some stuff is in the regular repositories, some software needs PPAs, some comes in Flatpaks, other software needs AppImages. I still appreciate that I can get most stuff running, but there's occasional weirdness, like KeePassXC starting up with the wrong theme, for example, the light mode kinda burns my eyes. Speaking of which, I no longer need Redshift because Mint comes with a built in Night Light, except that when it toggles on and fades the screen color, it makes the CPU usage spike (Ryzen 7 5800X) and renders the whole system unusable. Oh and speaking of which there is something weird with the CPU scheduler or something, because when I launch some intensive task, it makes even the desktop environment freeze entirely (and voice calls stall) for seconds at a time. Windows wasn't amazing at this, but could definitely be made even better with Process Lasso. Oh and I tried some gaming with Steam: out of 20 games I tried only 6 worked. Turns out that if I mount my NTFS drives then Wine will get confused and claim I don't own the directory (which I only figured out by enabling Proton logging), which is funny for something that's supposed to provide Windows compatibility and could probably be resolved by UID/GID in the drive mount config... but even so some games like Mashinky just crash the desktop - I get a screen with the OS desktop background and a pointer, much like the login screen, but nothing reacts to input, no ability to close the game or switch to other windows. At the end of it, to even get some games running, I have to put them on the only ext4 drive that I have... which is also only 256 GB and the reason for me picking Linux in the first place until the 1 TB replacement drive arrives. And other games just don't launch no matter how much you babysit them, for example, I couldn't get Motor Town: Behind the Wheel working at all, but maybe because I don't have a lot of time to tinker. I also miss software like SourceTree (used to pay for GitKraken, cool software, now just have Git Cola), MobaXTerm (way better than Remmina), SteelSeries Sonar, GlassWire and some other packages that don't have direct equivalents. I really like the more consistent approach to theming and fonts, though. Also, way nicer that I don't have to jump through hoops with setting up dev tools and now what's running locally can be closer to what's either on the server or inside of the containers I build. Oddly enough, I didn't find a way to change the default width of the Cinnamon terminal to 120 characters instead of 80. Also I still like how nice updates generally are and how the system seems to have less bitrot and uses less space and resources, even with a midweight DE like Cinnamon (would have gone for XFCE otherwise). Maybe KDE some day. Summary: This isn't really meant to be a hit piece or condemnation, but there's plenty of real problems that I still very much encounter for my preferences and desires of using an OS, there are probably solutions and to someone else these might not be problems. The difference is that Windows feels purposefully enshittified and works against me even when the software ecosystem (and stuff like support for games) is good. If they didn't try to make the OS bad with their bullshit and incentives, it would blow the Linux experience out of the water in quite a few regards. At the same time, Linux distros feel like they're trying to be good and the OS generally respects you as the user... but there's a lot of moving pieces and lots of stuff breaks and some things (like anti-cheat support for games) won't be fixed because that's out of the control of the community and depends on corpos. Same for running Windows software, if Wine has issues you're often on your own, or just have to get used to the closest Linux software equivalent if you want fewer issues. I will say that it constantly feels like it's getting better, though. In the limited subset of things that "just work" (generally webdev and DevOps stuff, without venturing too far off the beaten path), I have to say that I prefer Linux distros to both Windows and macOS though.
agumonkey 1y ago
Also, the new look and feel is kinda botched. Win10 was sharp and sleek. Really a bad turn imo.
anal_reactor 1y ago
I used Windows since always and switched to Linux two months ago. On one hand I still run into lots of Linuxisms on daily basis and I cannot recommend the system to a non-IT personn - bluetooth crashes, GPU driver crashes, applications crash, devices crash, all that stuff that's always been there. At the same time I have to say that the switch was easier than expected, and last weekend I removed Windows from my drive. I thought I'd keep dual-booting for a while, but no. Wine and Proton are marvelous pieces of software, pure magic. Moreover, I cannot recommend Linux to my parents until it gets MS Office. My parents specifically need MS Office.
- kabes 1y ago
  For me it's been the opposite experience. I used to regularly get BSOD on windows, but ubuntu has been rock solid for me.
- ivolimmen 1y ago
  I personally migrated to seniors (70+) to Linux. They both enjoyed it for years. One even found and installed a new driver for their printer when he switched. Plus most ChromeOS users can easily migrate to Linux. For Office I recommend ONLYOFFICE as that looks and behaves mostly the same as Microsoft Office. I haven't experience any issues with drivers but then again I never use NVIDEA, I used AMD and currently an Intel ARC.
  - anal_reactor 1y ago
    When I put my computer to sleep and then wake it up, sometimes there's no video output until I switch to a different terminal and then back to GUI. How on Earth is a non-IT person supposed to figure this out. Also, my parents bring home documents from work, and they often get documents from different institutions, which means they already hit edge cases of compatibility issues between different office suites, and telling them "this one sometimes reads docx correctly" is hard sell.
    - le-mark 1y ago
      Is office 365 an option? What are the issues there? I thought web based office would solve this problem?
hyperman1 1y ago
As a long term Linux desktoppy, I find this a mixed blessing. I fear Linux will get ruined by the influx of windows runaways. Enterprise managers will start enforcing their braindead ideas. Group policies, DRM, security scanner slowness, ads, they will all start to appear. Banks will start to 'secure' yoyr desktop. Then politicians will come in and require the KDEs of this world to implement chat control-like things. Eternal september awaits. Linux is still reasonably controlled by the end user. The powers that be only allow that if we are a fringe group. The golden cage to lock down Linux is already built or being built, and letting us keep the key to it is not something that will be tolerated.
- vladms 1y ago
  I am confused. What "Linux"? There are many distributions. There is the kernel (many versions). Maybe even today they are some distributions that are as you described, used in certain companies or states or whatever. But you can choose another one and you will still be fine.
  - hyperman1 1y ago
    Yes and no. There are many distros, but they all use the same components. If outside entities only allow you to run specific distros or configs, you're done. Some examples: * My jobs VPN only runs on Ubuntu. There is code in there that checks your OS. * My bank wants the chrome browser. Messing with headers makes it work on firefox. But that's for now and needs me spending time fighting them. * sssd is starting some light GPO enforcement on my laptop. * systemd slowly moves towards encrypted home dirs and a fully validated boot chain. That's a golden cage with a lock to which we have the key. Microsoft can take the key away, and governements can make them do this. * Android is also theoretically multi distro, but Google is the only one that matters. And they just decided they want developers identity. * Most if the big sites make you jump trough hoops for non-chrome browsers. Facebook, cloudflare, Teams... Computers are now part of networks, a bit like their own societies. These will force you to use their rules or isolate you. And that's assuming you can keep buying machines that are open or legally jailbreakable.
kelseydh 1y ago
Is Linux gaming on Steam actually competitive in performance and availability to what you'll get on Windows? I'm looking into building a gaming computer I'm surprised to hear I could roll with Linux for it.
- ticoombs 1y ago
  Yes. Nearly every game is compatible. Checkout protondb.com and check the games you play. Anything that has a kernel level anti check (Valorant) will always be a resounding No. But besides from that, everything is pretty damn nice.
  - akimbostrawman 1y ago
    >Anything that has a kernel level anti check (Valorant) will always be a resounding No. Please stop repeating this long outdated information. The two most widely used kernel anti cheat provider easyanticheat and battle eye support linux with a user space component which needs to be enabled by the developer and has been in many games. https://areweanticheatyet.com/breakdown https://areweanticheatyet.com/breakdown
    - Mindwipe 1y ago
      That is... a bit of an oversimplifciation. Tools like Battle eye and EAC are not just one tool that gives a binary answer, they are tools that detect a huge range of heuristics about the device and how easy it is to interfere with the memory. While they have been ported to Linux, an awful lot of those bits of telemetry simply don't give the desired answer, or even any answer at all, because that is very hard to so when there aren't proprietary drivers signed down to the hardware root of trust by a third party (and certainly the average Linux user on HN wouldn't want there to be!). It's really not a matter of "enabled by the developer", it's entirely dependent on what your threat model is.
      - akimbostrawman 1y ago
        None of this is relevant to the original point of "kernel anti cheats don't work" when yes the two most widely used ACs do work despite being kernel level. >It's really not a matter of "enabled by the developer", it's entirely dependent on what your threat model is. Again irrelevant to the original point
wslh 1y ago
I am looking forward for a good energy management on Linux notebooks. I think it is currently one of Linux blind spots.
- wltr 1y ago
  What do you mean? My Intel MacBook Pro works better on Linux than it works on the latest supported macOS (Big Sur in my case). It works longer, and fans almost always stay silent. I have a fairly minimal sway setup, however.
  - wslh 1y ago
    I mean, when you have an Mx notebook there is no step back regarding energy management and duration. It is a hardware innovation first but the macOS helps. We need the same for Linux.
surgical_fire 1y ago
I made the jump to Linux 3 years ago, when I learned that Windows 10 support was coming to an end, and I really didn't like what Windows 11 looked like. 3 years, and not a single time I had any regrets. Not a single time I thought about moving back. I went for Mint because I am a filthy casual, and as you put it, that system is a joy to use. On Windows I needed to do yearly fresh installs as I could feel performance degrading as time went on, On Linux the laptop is performing as well if not better than when I freshly installed it. It's so good that I even donate 20 bucks to the project every year. It has no right of being that good and also free. About games - not only I can play basically everything in my Steam library, but even installing things from other sources is very easy with minor tinkering. At least to me, Windows became nearly superfluous nowadays.
UpsideDownRide 1y ago
Indeed. I always dabbled with Linux here and there. W11 was the final straw for me as well. I feel like LLMs help a ton too, not only do they make initial troubleshooting much easier, they also are pretty great at generating simple scripts that enhance the system. I'm so happy to have made the swap, using my system is now much more enjoyable and if I don't like some aspect of it I can change it up with MUCH less effort than in Windows. Also I'm positively surprised how good gaming on Linux is now. It was always a big blocker to full commitment to Linux.
sunaookami 1y ago
I swear I saw these exact same comments when Windows 8 released.
- renegat0x0 1y ago
  Dogs will always bark. I daily drive linux, and I am happy with it. Majority will not make the switch because they either are dependent on the office, adobe, or video editing software. Linux user base grows. One tiny percent of percent every year. Too little to make a dent.
- anonymars 1y ago
  We were able to wait out Windows 8. Windows 7 was supported through 2020 and Windows 10 came out in 2015.
blincoln 1y ago
100% agree. I supported enterprise Windows systems for a decade, although I had Unix and Linux experience as well and liked all of them. I skipped Windows 8 entirely. For the 10 era, I had at least one Linux VM on each of my systems, and migrated to open-source where possible even on the host OS (Blender, Inkscape, etc.). Windows 11 pushed me to flip things around - Linux as the host OS, and a Windows VM or dual-boot if I absolutely need to do something with that system that only runs well on Windows. These days, that list is very short. All of the many frustrations of 11 become much less pressing when it's just throwing a temper tantrum in its playpen instead of interrupting serious work; the effect is magnified by rarely needing to interact with it at all anymore on my personal devices. Linux still has a few quirks, but IMO there are fewer and fewer of those every year, while they seem to be increasing on Windows. The most recent 11 update has made Windows Explorer unreliable for me. I'm still stunned. The last time I saw stability issues with Explorer was on 98 SE.
- _carbyau_ 1y ago
  Regards " stability issues with Explorer", I doubt it is Explorer itself. 2 thoughts: 1. Possibly something hooked into Explorer. Not necessarily malicious but could be like an acrobat extension or image editor extension or similar that helps to make thumbnails/previews. Or a context menu hook in. Use Sysinternals Autoruns [0] to have a look. It is a free diagnostics tool from MS that shows everything that loads on startup. It looks at Start menu Startup folder, registry run and runonce keys and a bunch more places where things are hooked in. No restarts or anything required simply to look. It will show plugins/addons to Explorer too. Easy disable/re-enable process allows for somewhat easy troubleshooting. You'll have to restart Explorer after a "disable" step to see the results though. Be sure to use the "hide microsoft entries" option if you want to narrow it down some. 2. Filesystem filters - things like antivirus "scan on read". If a "scan on read" goes to an antivirus that is not playing ball it will halt the "file open" request for example. The command "fltmc" will list filesystem filter drivers. But making sense of which one belongs to what software is a further exercise. Which is why I suggest this investigative path as number 2... [0]:https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autoruns https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/aut...
giancarlostoro 1y ago
It's been two to three years now for me. I'm never going back. The only time I use Windows is on employer provided hardware. If given the choice I'd rather get a Mac or be allowed to smash over Windows with Linux (which most employers wont allow anyway).
josefritzishere 1y ago
I will move back to Linux if they're going to force account creation. This is my red line.
cobbaut 1y ago
Congrats. I had the same thought when Windows XP came out in 2001. I triple booted OS/2 Warp with Win98 and Linux for a couple years. Linux only since 2003, I guess I missed a lot of MS fun.
TheCleric 1y ago
Agreed. I used to toy with Linux at home, but now it's my daily driver along with Mac OS.
jama211 1y ago
Speak for yourself, I tried again to switch to Linux last year with standard Ubuntu and had multiple issues, the machine wouldn’t wake from sleep, would lock up with a grey graphics glitched login screen when locked, I tried to upgrade the OS and it broke all my graphics drivers, after I spent another few hours trying to fix it (and seeing a lot of very unfriendly and unwelcoming “help” from the Linux community), and running into other issues I didn’t list here, I gave up and switched back. I’ve been a multi-os user for years, tried Linux on and off, but for now I have a windows machine I just use for gaming and a mac that I use for development and everything else. The truth if I struggled as much as I did and I’m a software developer with years of experience with this stuff, the dream of the general public using Linux is doomed. Every few years I hope Linux has gotten its act together so that it can actually grow again, but it’s still behind the times. But my experiences aside, the truth is 99% of people would rather just make a Microsoft account than have to learn and switch to a whole new OS. It might be the breaking point for you, but that doesn’t mean it’s the breaking point for many. If the Linux community continues to stay blind about this and about the very real problems people experience that they insist aren’t problems, then they’ll continue to have a tiny market share, that’s all there is to it.
- goosedragons 1y ago
  Nvidia graphics? How much care did you take in getting a machine for running Linux? Did you get one specifically with that in mind? Or did you slap it on the machine you already had?
  - hbn 1y ago
    Endless raving about how painless and troubleshoot-free Linux is and then you try installing it on your very standard-built PC and face major glaring issues and then get told you're the idiot for not junking your perfectly good GPU from the most popular GPU maker and most valuable company on the planet. I'm sure it's Nvidia's fault for whatever reason but Linux proselytizers need to stop being so dishonest about how pain-free switching is.
    - goosedragons 1y ago

by mythz 1y ago

Neil44 1y ago

I switched to Ubuntu on my main machine this year and even as a heavy 365 user it's better. Battery life is massively improved. I even still run the odd game on cs2. 11 feels like toy town in comparison.

pcchristie 1y ago
How do you run 365?
- TheWookieDavid 1y ago
  Not OP but 365 has web apps for every software offered. The only disadvantage is that the web apps require an internet connection and the native windows apps don't.
- Neil44 1y ago
  PWA for Outlook and Teams, just straight web access for everything else. You can also access onedrive etc via the nautilus file manager as a onedrive:// url which is easier for some things.

gambiting 1y ago

Sadly, as a developer there is no beating Visual Studio. Microsoft still makes the best developer IDE that unfortunately only runs on their worst OS. But as a C++ developer there is just no substitute(imho). Not to mention some development toolchains only work on windows(for playstation/xbox/switch) so if you work in games there is very little choice.

tommica 1y ago
Is running windows inside a VM a possibility for you?
- f1shy 1y ago
  Or maybe even WSL?
- gambiting 1y ago
  No, but also.....why would you do that? If you're going to do 99% of your work inside a Windows VM, just.....run Windows?
f1shy 1y ago
I use Emacs. It does need some fine tuning, tree-sitter installation, etc. but after that, I cannot understand colleges using VS. I have seen no feature in VS not available in Emacs. Some colleges have switched from years VS to Emacs and after a week won’t look back.
- wolvesechoes 1y ago
  > I have seen no feature in VS not available in Emacs. Guys, please. I am all for FOSS, but such delusions can only be harmful, for they prevent from actually improving stuff. Did you sir ever use debugger in your life?
  - f1shy 1y ago
    Almost every day. I use gdb both for JTAG targets in embedded systems, as in a programs running in my host. Emacs has a front end for gdb. Some colleges use other front ends. What I’m preventing to improve, in your opinion?

globular-toast 1y ago

I did it 15 years ago and never looked back. Vista was enough to give me the nudge. On the occasion I've had to use Windoze over the years I've laughed harder and harder each time. It's hard to explain to people who only know Windoze, but it's just really nice to use software made by people who don't hate you.

dspillett 1y ago
While I don't disagree with you at all, I'd advise against calling the OS “Windoze” (or “Winblows”, or the company “Micro$oft”). This gives off a very “From my parent's basement, I stab at thee!” impression and reduces how seriously a lot of people will take you and what you are saying, and those people could apply the same impression to the rest of us too. I used to do the same thing, about 1½-to-2 decades ago.
- globular-toast 1y ago
  "The worst kind of oppression is when the victims think and talk in the language of their oppressors." Why would I care if suits "take me seriously"? I grew out of "Windoze" etc. Now I've grown back into it, because fuck Micro$oft.
  - dspillett 1y ago
    I'm not talking about “the suits” and what they think. I'm talking about the people, the home users nominally in control of their own machines, who are on the edge of considering Linux, or something else non-MS, who might be put off if they see something that reinforces a negative stereotype that they've been fed elsewhere (for instance, that the surrounding community is mostly a bunch of undeservedly cocksure 14-year-olds or practically indistinguishable from the same).
    - globular-toast 1y ago
      You might consider it childish but it's the way I am and it's not just me. I've been masking it for decades but I'm sick of it. I won't use their carefully crafted marketing language. The internet was more fun when people could just be themselves and not try to be beige for fear of scaring people away. We need more variety in the world, not less.

naldb 1y ago

The best thing to happen to Linux Desktop is not that it has improved but that its biggest competitor has dropped the ball? That’s not really praising it.

mythz 1y ago
Linux is the better OS. Windows 11 just forces people to evaluate other OS's to experience the latest Linux for themselves. I didn't have the time as a working Adult for distro hopping and Gentoo compiles, but the thought of having to live with Windows 11 made me try out modern linux again, glad I did.
- krige 1y ago
  Linux is now the better OS, after the other one got significantly worse than it used to be, and even that is close call depending on what you need Linux to do.
  - jbstack 1y ago
    Very subjective. I made the switch to Linux from Windows 7 over 10 years ago and even at that time I found Linux to be orders of magnitude better in almost every aspect, and those few areas where it was worse (which, aside from games, I'm struggling to even think of any now) were well worth the trade-off.
  - wiseowise 1y ago
    Linux distros became much better than Windows during Win 10 times.
    - koiueo 1y ago
      I love how people confidently claim something like this. FWIW, for me Linux became better in the times of Windows XP.
      - rkomorn 1y ago

0rdinal 1y ago

I daily drive Ubuntu, the user experience is comparable (in many cases better) to Windows 11. The only sticking point for me is display drivers. HDR on Wayland is barely functional (in my experience), and getting things like hardware accelerated AV1 encoding, full Vulkan API support etc to work has been extremely difficult. Every time I login using a Wayland desktop, only my main monitor is detected and it defaults to 60hz. I have to go through a whole process of unplugging the "undetected" monitors and plugging them back in. X11 doesn't suffer from this, but of course does not support HDR. Yes, this is almost entirely Nvidia's fault, and yes I should know better than to use NV graphics cards on Linux distros; but frankly, the barrier to entry should not be having to replace an expensive piece of hardware to achieve feature parity. (Obligatory "Nvidia, f*k you!")

ruszki 1y ago
All of my problem was solved by disabling hybrid graphics and use the dedicated card only. I had not a single bug since then on X11 (I didn’t try Wayland yet, because it was almost completely unusable with hybrid config). The only drawback is battery life, but that wasn’t great even before. I could never reach the ~4 hours, which was possible with Windows. Even with the dedicated card disabled. So, I’m not entirely sure that it’s entirely on Nvidia.
- orwin 1y ago
  Hybrid graphics had troubles last spring, but in my case it was fixed around late July. I still launch steam with weird env variables (i don't often change my shortcuts), but i'm not sure it's needed.
- blincoln 1y ago
  Same, on my laptop. Hybrid graphics destabilised both Debian (with Nvidia drivers installed) and the Windows 11 installation I have on there for SharpCap. Switching to Nvidia GPU only made everything rock solid. This was my first experience with hybrid graphics, and so far I'm not impressed.
database64128 1y ago

j45 1y ago

Developing for linux servers using a linux workstation can be so unbelievably smooth.

KronisLV 1y ago

> It's been over a year since I switched to Linux which has been a breath of fresh-air, all my dev tools work natively, the console is far superior and I'm still able to play all my favorite Steam games. I moved back to Linux Mint with Cinnamon yesterday, because my boot drive with Windows got fried and the replacement will only be here on Thursday. It doesn't feel like the OS is trying to make my life worse, it just sucks sometimes. Note: this ended up being a bit long, there's a summary at the bottom. Apologies. It doesn't save window positions after boot properly (I'd probably have to look in the direction of devilspie2 for that, admittedly I was using FancyZones on Windows as well). The grouped window list Applet in the panel doesn't show windows on the correct screen even if I move them from one monitor to the other and then back. This is really annoying because I have 4 monitors and want each of them have a panel and half of those being wrong about what is where sucks, admittedly Windows sometimes had a similar issue with its taskbar, BUT it resolved itself by just dragging the windows across monitors, instead of needing to refresh the entire applet. The sound output default is something called Line Out Starship/Matisse HD Audio Controller which works fine, but there's no obvious way for me to disable HDMI/DisplayPort output devices so programs can't pick those by accident. Whereas for input I have Rear Microphone Starship/Matisse HD Audio Controller but that one makes the sound horrible, so I instead need to switch over to Microphone USB PnP Audio Device and hope that will be fine. Better than the issues with audio on Fedora years ago, still not great. Software availability varies - some stuff is in the regular repositories, some software needs PPAs, some comes in Flatpaks, other software needs AppImages. I still appreciate that I can get most stuff running, but there's occasional weirdness, like KeePassXC starting up with the wrong theme, for example, the light mode kinda burns my eyes. Speaking of which, I no longer need Redshift because Mint comes with a built in Night Light, except that when it toggles on and fades the screen color, it makes the CPU usage spike (Ryzen 7 5800X) and renders the whole system unusable. Oh and speaking of which there is something weird with the CPU scheduler or something, because when I launch some intensive task, it makes even the desktop environment freeze entirely (and voice calls stall) for seconds at a time. Windows wasn't amazing at this, but could definitely be made even better with Process Lasso. Oh and I tried some gaming with Steam: out of 20 games I tried only 6 worked. Turns out that if I mount my NTFS drives then Wine will get confused and claim I don't own the directory (which I only figured out by enabling Proton logging), which is funny for something that's supposed to provide Windows compatibility and could probably be resolved by UID/GID in the drive mount config... but even so some games like Mashinky just crash the desktop - I get a screen with the OS desktop background and a pointer, much like the login screen, but nothing reacts to input, no ability to close the game or switch to other windows. At the end of it, to even get some games running, I have to put them on the only ext4 drive that I have... which is also only 256 GB and the reason for me picking Linux in the first place until the 1 TB replacement drive arrives. And other games just don't launch no matter how much you babysit them, for example, I couldn't get Motor Town: Behind the Wheel working at all, but maybe because I don't have a lot of time to tinker. I also miss software like SourceTree (used to pay for GitKraken, cool software, now just have Git Cola), MobaXTerm (way better than Remmina), SteelSeries Sonar, GlassWire and some other packages that don't have direct equivalents. I really like the more consistent approach to theming and fonts, though. Also, way nicer that I don't have to jump through hoops with setting up dev tools and now what's running locally can be closer to what's either on the server or inside of the containers I build. Oddly enough, I didn't find a way to change the default width of the Cinnamon terminal to 120 characters instead of 80. Also I still like how nice updates generally are and how the system seems to have less bitrot and uses less space and resources, even with a midweight DE like Cinnamon (would have gone for XFCE otherwise). Maybe KDE some day. Summary: This isn't really meant to be a hit piece or condemnation, but there's plenty of real problems that I still very much encounter for my preferences and desires of using an OS, there are probably solutions and to someone else these might not be problems. The difference is that Windows feels purposefully enshittified and works against me even when the software ecosystem (and stuff like support for games) is good. If they didn't try to make the OS bad with their bullshit and incentives, it would blow the Linux experience out of the water in quite a few regards. At the same time, Linux distros feel like they're trying to be good and the OS generally respects you as the user... but there's a lot of moving pieces and lots of stuff breaks and some things (like anti-cheat support for games) won't be fixed because that's out of the control of the community and depends on corpos. Same for running Windows software, if Wine has issues you're often on your own, or just have to get used to the closest Linux software equivalent if you want fewer issues. I will say that it constantly feels like it's getting better, though. In the limited subset of things that "just work" (generally webdev and DevOps stuff, without venturing too far off the beaten path), I have to say that I prefer Linux distros to both Windows and macOS though.

agumonkey 1y ago

Also, the new look and feel is kinda botched. Win10 was sharp and sleek. Really a bad turn imo.

anal_reactor 1y ago

I used Windows since always and switched to Linux two months ago. On one hand I still run into lots of Linuxisms on daily basis and I cannot recommend the system to a non-IT personn - bluetooth crashes, GPU driver crashes, applications crash, devices crash, all that stuff that's always been there. At the same time I have to say that the switch was easier than expected, and last weekend I removed Windows from my drive. I thought I'd keep dual-booting for a while, but no. Wine and Proton are marvelous pieces of software, pure magic. Moreover, I cannot recommend Linux to my parents until it gets MS Office. My parents specifically need MS Office.

kabes 1y ago
For me it's been the opposite experience. I used to regularly get BSOD on windows, but ubuntu has been rock solid for me.
ivolimmen 1y ago
I personally migrated to seniors (70+) to Linux. They both enjoyed it for years. One even found and installed a new driver for their printer when he switched. Plus most ChromeOS users can easily migrate to Linux. For Office I recommend ONLYOFFICE as that looks and behaves mostly the same as Microsoft Office. I haven't experience any issues with drivers but then again I never use NVIDEA, I used AMD and currently an Intel ARC.
- anal_reactor 1y ago
  When I put my computer to sleep and then wake it up, sometimes there's no video output until I switch to a different terminal and then back to GUI. How on Earth is a non-IT person supposed to figure this out. Also, my parents bring home documents from work, and they often get documents from different institutions, which means they already hit edge cases of compatibility issues between different office suites, and telling them "this one sometimes reads docx correctly" is hard sell.
  - le-mark 1y ago
    Is office 365 an option? What are the issues there? I thought web based office would solve this problem?

hyperman1 1y ago

As a long term Linux desktoppy, I find this a mixed blessing. I fear Linux will get ruined by the influx of windows runaways. Enterprise managers will start enforcing their braindead ideas. Group policies, DRM, security scanner slowness, ads, they will all start to appear. Banks will start to 'secure' yoyr desktop. Then politicians will come in and require the KDEs of this world to implement chat control-like things. Eternal september awaits. Linux is still reasonably controlled by the end user. The powers that be only allow that if we are a fringe group. The golden cage to lock down Linux is already built or being built, and letting us keep the key to it is not something that will be tolerated.

vladms 1y ago
I am confused. What "Linux"? There are many distributions. There is the kernel (many versions). Maybe even today they are some distributions that are as you described, used in certain companies or states or whatever. But you can choose another one and you will still be fine.
- hyperman1 1y ago
  Yes and no. There are many distros, but they all use the same components. If outside entities only allow you to run specific distros or configs, you're done. Some examples: * My jobs VPN only runs on Ubuntu. There is code in there that checks your OS. * My bank wants the chrome browser. Messing with headers makes it work on firefox. But that's for now and needs me spending time fighting them. * sssd is starting some light GPO enforcement on my laptop. * systemd slowly moves towards encrypted home dirs and a fully validated boot chain. That's a golden cage with a lock to which we have the key. Microsoft can take the key away, and governements can make them do this. * Android is also theoretically multi distro, but Google is the only one that matters. And they just decided they want developers identity. * Most if the big sites make you jump trough hoops for non-chrome browsers. Facebook, cloudflare, Teams... Computers are now part of networks, a bit like their own societies. These will force you to use their rules or isolate you. And that's assuming you can keep buying machines that are open or legally jailbreakable.

kelseydh 1y ago

Is Linux gaming on Steam actually competitive in performance and availability to what you'll get on Windows? I'm looking into building a gaming computer I'm surprised to hear I could roll with Linux for it.

ticoombs 1y ago
Yes. Nearly every game is compatible. Checkout protondb.com and check the games you play. Anything that has a kernel level anti check (Valorant) will always be a resounding No. But besides from that, everything is pretty damn nice.
- akimbostrawman 1y ago
  >Anything that has a kernel level anti check (Valorant) will always be a resounding No. Please stop repeating this long outdated information. The two most widely used kernel anti cheat provider easyanticheat and battle eye support linux with a user space component which needs to be enabled by the developer and has been in many games. https://areweanticheatyet.com/breakdown https://areweanticheatyet.com/breakdown
  - Mindwipe 1y ago
    That is... a bit of an oversimplifciation. Tools like Battle eye and EAC are not just one tool that gives a binary answer, they are tools that detect a huge range of heuristics about the device and how easy it is to interfere with the memory. While they have been ported to Linux, an awful lot of those bits of telemetry simply don't give the desired answer, or even any answer at all, because that is very hard to so when there aren't proprietary drivers signed down to the hardware root of trust by a third party (and certainly the average Linux user on HN wouldn't want there to be!). It's really not a matter of "enabled by the developer", it's entirely dependent on what your threat model is.
    - akimbostrawman 1y ago
      None of this is relevant to the original point of "kernel anti cheats don't work" when yes the two most widely used ACs do work despite being kernel level. >It's really not a matter of "enabled by the developer", it's entirely dependent on what your threat model is. Again irrelevant to the original point

wslh 1y ago

I am looking forward for a good energy management on Linux notebooks. I think it is currently one of Linux blind spots.

wltr 1y ago
What do you mean? My Intel MacBook Pro works better on Linux than it works on the latest supported macOS (Big Sur in my case). It works longer, and fans almost always stay silent. I have a fairly minimal sway setup, however.
- wslh 1y ago
  I mean, when you have an Mx notebook there is no step back regarding energy management and duration. It is a hardware innovation first but the macOS helps. We need the same for Linux.

surgical_fire 1y ago

I made the jump to Linux 3 years ago, when I learned that Windows 10 support was coming to an end, and I really didn't like what Windows 11 looked like. 3 years, and not a single time I had any regrets. Not a single time I thought about moving back. I went for Mint because I am a filthy casual, and as you put it, that system is a joy to use. On Windows I needed to do yearly fresh installs as I could feel performance degrading as time went on, On Linux the laptop is performing as well if not better than when I freshly installed it. It's so good that I even donate 20 bucks to the project every year. It has no right of being that good and also free. About games - not only I can play basically everything in my Steam library, but even installing things from other sources is very easy with minor tinkering. At least to me, Windows became nearly superfluous nowadays.

UpsideDownRide 1y ago

Indeed. I always dabbled with Linux here and there. W11 was the final straw for me as well. I feel like LLMs help a ton too, not only do they make initial troubleshooting much easier, they also are pretty great at generating simple scripts that enhance the system. I'm so happy to have made the swap, using my system is now much more enjoyable and if I don't like some aspect of it I can change it up with MUCH less effort than in Windows. Also I'm positively surprised how good gaming on Linux is now. It was always a big blocker to full commitment to Linux.

sunaookami 1y ago

I swear I saw these exact same comments when Windows 8 released.

renegat0x0 1y ago
Dogs will always bark. I daily drive linux, and I am happy with it. Majority will not make the switch because they either are dependent on the office, adobe, or video editing software. Linux user base grows. One tiny percent of percent every year. Too little to make a dent.
anonymars 1y ago
We were able to wait out Windows 8. Windows 7 was supported through 2020 and Windows 10 came out in 2015.

blincoln 1y ago

100% agree. I supported enterprise Windows systems for a decade, although I had Unix and Linux experience as well and liked all of them. I skipped Windows 8 entirely. For the 10 era, I had at least one Linux VM on each of my systems, and migrated to open-source where possible even on the host OS (Blender, Inkscape, etc.). Windows 11 pushed me to flip things around - Linux as the host OS, and a Windows VM or dual-boot if I absolutely need to do something with that system that only runs well on Windows. These days, that list is very short. All of the many frustrations of 11 become much less pressing when it's just throwing a temper tantrum in its playpen instead of interrupting serious work; the effect is magnified by rarely needing to interact with it at all anymore on my personal devices. Linux still has a few quirks, but IMO there are fewer and fewer of those every year, while they seem to be increasing on Windows. The most recent 11 update has made Windows Explorer unreliable for me. I'm still stunned. The last time I saw stability issues with Explorer was on 98 SE.

_carbyau_ 1y ago
Regards " stability issues with Explorer", I doubt it is Explorer itself. 2 thoughts: 1. Possibly something hooked into Explorer. Not necessarily malicious but could be like an acrobat extension or image editor extension or similar that helps to make thumbnails/previews. Or a context menu hook in. Use Sysinternals Autoruns [0] to have a look. It is a free diagnostics tool from MS that shows everything that loads on startup. It looks at Start menu Startup folder, registry run and runonce keys and a bunch more places where things are hooked in. No restarts or anything required simply to look. It will show plugins/addons to Explorer too. Easy disable/re-enable process allows for somewhat easy troubleshooting. You'll have to restart Explorer after a "disable" step to see the results though. Be sure to use the "hide microsoft entries" option if you want to narrow it down some. 2. Filesystem filters - things like antivirus "scan on read". If a "scan on read" goes to an antivirus that is not playing ball it will halt the "file open" request for example. The command "fltmc" will list filesystem filter drivers. But making sense of which one belongs to what software is a further exercise. Which is why I suggest this investigative path as number 2... [0]:https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autoruns https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/aut...

giancarlostoro 1y ago

It's been two to three years now for me. I'm never going back. The only time I use Windows is on employer provided hardware. If given the choice I'd rather get a Mac or be allowed to smash over Windows with Linux (which most employers wont allow anyway).

josefritzishere 1y ago

I will move back to Linux if they're going to force account creation. This is my red line.

cobbaut 1y ago

Congrats. I had the same thought when Windows XP came out in 2001. I triple booted OS/2 Warp with Win98 and Linux for a couple years. Linux only since 2003, I guess I missed a lot of MS fun.

TheCleric 1y ago

Agreed. I used to toy with Linux at home, but now it's my daily driver along with Mac OS.

jama211 1y ago

Speak for yourself, I tried again to switch to Linux last year with standard Ubuntu and had multiple issues, the machine wouldn’t wake from sleep, would lock up with a grey graphics glitched login screen when locked, I tried to upgrade the OS and it broke all my graphics drivers, after I spent another few hours trying to fix it (and seeing a lot of very unfriendly and unwelcoming “help” from the Linux community), and running into other issues I didn’t list here, I gave up and switched back. I’ve been a multi-os user for years, tried Linux on and off, but for now I have a windows machine I just use for gaming and a mac that I use for development and everything else. The truth if I struggled as much as I did and I’m a software developer with years of experience with this stuff, the dream of the general public using Linux is doomed. Every few years I hope Linux has gotten its act together so that it can actually grow again, but it’s still behind the times. But my experiences aside, the truth is 99% of people would rather just make a Microsoft account than have to learn and switch to a whole new OS. It might be the breaking point for you, but that doesn’t mean it’s the breaking point for many. If the Linux community continues to stay blind about this and about the very real problems people experience that they insist aren’t problems, then they’ll continue to have a tiny market share, that’s all there is to it.

goosedragons 1y ago
Nvidia graphics? How much care did you take in getting a machine for running Linux? Did you get one specifically with that in mind? Or did you slap it on the machine you already had?
- hbn 1y ago
  Endless raving about how painless and troubleshoot-free Linux is and then you try installing it on your very standard-built PC and face major glaring issues and then get told you're the idiot for not junking your perfectly good GPU from the most popular GPU maker and most valuable company on the planet. I'm sure it's Nvidia's fault for whatever reason but Linux proselytizers need to stop being so dishonest about how pain-free switching is.
  - goosedragons 1y ago