6 ms·

I spent a year on Linux and forgot to miss Windows

68 points by speckx 10mo ago

jqpabc123 10mo ago
One year on Linux, two distros, a few tears, four desktop environments In other words, you've found a new hobby along with your new operating system. And that's OK --- but not everyone is looking for a hobby.
- maxwellsdeamons 10mo ago
  This comment summarises it well. Linux requires you to think about your OS. Which can be fun, but for most people it’s not.
  - jqpabc123 10mo ago
    Technology advances by increasing the number of things people can achieve without thinking about them.
  - baal80spam 10mo ago
    For me it came with age. I'm in my mid-forties now and although I loved to tinker with stuff, now I want things to "just work". I certainly see the allure of Apple ecosystem. (anecdata but my brother is the same).
  - DennisP 10mo ago
    I'm not convinced that's the case. A few years ago I had a laptop with pre-installed Ubuntu and it worked without any fiddling. You certainly can turn Linux into a hobby and try all sorts of variations, which isn't really an option with Windows or Mac. But you don't have to do that.
    - queenkjuul 10mo ago
      Buying it preinstalled is the trick. Installing Linux on a laptop without official vendor support can be unpleasant.
      - DennisP 10mo ago
        Yes. Most people buy OS X and Windows preinstalled, too.
  - taeric 10mo ago
    Linux doesn't really require you to think about it, necessarily. More that odds are high if you have tinkered with something recently, you are more likely to do so again. Think of it as a reverse lindy number. (And this can be frustrating for folks with automated marketing that feel that they are too dumb. They are, but the dumb approach works rather well.) To that end, the last time I tinkered with what linux distro I'm using is over a decade ago.
- juujian 10mo ago
  I have definitely spent less time on maintaining my Linux setup than I spent on trying to tame Windows to my wishes. Windows imposes a steep toll on your time as well. Just looking at the time spent to set up Linux is not sufficient. Unlike Windows, once you set up your Linux system it generally runs well a long, long time.
- mindcrash 10mo ago
  I've seen a lot of people switch from Windows to Bazzite and they are super happy with it. The only thing you'll have to decide is if you want a desktop which looks more similar to MacOS (GNOME) or Windows (KDE). For now they don't even care about even more advantages or disadvantages, like the fact that KDE is customizable to the point things can get a little crazy. Graphical desktop and Steam support (with a little pinch of Lutris added on top), and that's good enough.
- lukaslalinsky 10mo ago
  You get a computer that's compatibles with Linux, you install Ubuntu LTS, and you just keep using it. After a couple of years, you reinstall it. If you are a power user able to prepare the boot USB and boot from it, you do it yourself, otherwise you have to pay someone to do it for it for you or buy a computer with Ubuntu preinstalled. I've been using Ubuntu for more than 20 years, Debian before that, and Linux is definitely not my hobby.
- t0bia_s 10mo ago
  I like this hobby, but it is so irritating that I cannot apply this hobby to workstation because of industry standards. Adobe and linux are no options for progressional work.
ufmace 10mo ago
https://archive.ph/N4thi https://archive.ph/N4thi
rpigab 10mo ago
As a gamer and software developer, I've been Windows-free for over two years, no regrets, maybe kernel level anticheat competitive multiplayer games, but I have tons of other games and not much time to spend in multiplayer. Ubuntu on desktop gaming PC, Ubuntu on laptop, Steam Deck, Debian/Raspbian for servers. GNOME everywhere except on Steam Deck which has KDE, love both. > Linux won't stop you if you try to use a command that deletes every file on your PC ("sudo rm -rf /"). It will definitely stop you from running that command because of "--preserve-root" that is enabled by default, if you want to break your system you have to opt out of it. Just don't try to put an asterisk after, pathname expansion will be a different case ("rm -rf /*").
- canistel 10mo ago
  Fedora has the following aliases in the root .bashrc. alias rm='rm -i' alias cp='cp -i' alias mv='mv -i'
  - rpigab 10mo ago
    It's a nice addition for certain use cases, however in the case of running "rm -rf ...", it has no effect because of the "-f / --force" flag set afterwards. "rm -if" never prompts, "rm -fi" prompts. --preserve-root is an entirely different thing which will stop the command from deleting files even if you told it to. $ sudo rm -ri / rm: it is dangerous to operate recursively on '/' rm: use --no-preserve-root to override this failsafe When in doubt, you might want to activate xtrace with "set -x", run the command and see what it expanded to. then "set +x" to disable.
    - zahlman 10mo ago
      "It is dangerous to operate recursively on '/'" is such a stereotypically traditional Linux way to explain the situation. (I would write something like "Refusing to delete the entire filesystem (did a shell variable expansion go wrong?)".)
      - Linux-Fan 10mo ago
Rick76 10mo ago
I've been gaming on Linux (CachyOS) for roughly a year now as well, and I love it. Better performance, faster loading, but I do admit there are drawbacks. I'm a developer, so I'm techy enough how to look up what I don't know, but I would never recommend this to someone who struggles with technology. Kernel antic heat is frustrating but usually its games where I feel like I won't lose anything if I don't play it.
- mindcrash 10mo ago
  > Kernel antic heat is frustrating but usually its games where I feel like I won't lose anything if I don't play it. And for those you still have options, through streaming: 1> A small headless Windows PC powered with a videocard like a Radeon 9070 XT and a nifty app called Moonlight (https://moonlight-stream.org/ https://moonlight-stream.org/) enables you to stream games protected with kernel level anti cheat to Linux machines (and some other devices). 2> Geforce Now supports some games notoriously renowned for their kernel level anti cheat like Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty Black Ops 7. With some trickery it is possible to run the app they "exclusively" developed for handhelds like the Deck on any Linux distro, because it is just a desktop app distributed through Flatpak.
johnboiles 10mo ago
Y'all it's been a couple decades but is it _actually_ the year of the Linux desktop now??
- LorenDB 10mo ago
  We're getting there! I think the new Valve hardware (especially the Steam machine) will help a lot, and obviously Microsoft has a lot more AI antics planned for the future, which will drive more users away from Windows.
  - p_ing 10mo ago
    Valve hardware is a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of a blip for desktop hardware sales. It will not bring the Year of Linux to the Desktop.
    - tapoxi 10mo ago
      No, but their work will. Gaming is now perfectly viable because of their investment and developers targeting the Steam Deck.
      - p_ing 10mo ago
        It's far from "perfect". It may be "okay" or "acceptable" or even "good", but it lacks perfection.
      - xboxnolifes 10mo ago
        I wouldn't give it "perfectly viable" yet. It's very good, but there are a lot of popular titles that have kernel anti-cheat that make linux a non-starter if you play even one of the titles frequently. If this can be overcome, I would give linux the perfectly viable title.
- zxcvasd 10mo ago
  [dead]
estimator7292 10mo ago
It's sort of hilarious to me that for anything high performance-- or indeed low-middle performance, Windows is entirely out of the question. C++ compilation under Windows is 60-80% slower than in a Linux VM on the same machine. The EM simulations we do at work are several times faster on Linux. That aside, the Windows API is one of the most godawful, miserable pieces of code I've ever had to work with. I've been up to my neck in WinRT writing Bluetooth drivers and holy fuck I wouldn't wish this misery on anyone. I don't know how any developer or engineer ever gets anything done on Windows. Last job let me use Linux where it mattered most, and new job doesn't care so long as the work is done. I don't think I'll accept a job anywhere that requires Windows in the future. There is just plain and simple no feasible way to do my work on Windows anymore.
- delta_p_delta_x 10mo ago
  > WinRT writing Bluetooth drivers This is a bit suspect. WinRT is an entirely user-mode library meant for writing user-mode applications; why would you be writing Bluetooth drivers in that? It's like writing Linux drivers with GTK. Why aren't you writing the driver with UMDF2[1]? I have so many questions. [1]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-hardware/drivers/wdf/getting-started-with-umdf-version-2 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-hardware/drivers/w...
bigpeopleareold 10mo ago
Everything I see on this topic involves gaming. The last game I played in a long while was Cities Skylines on my laptop (which was taxing, but ran it fine). I used to use Macs, but for a long time, until up to 2013, I decided that since I look at mostly text editors, terminals and a web browser and some other common things, I'd rather spend less for equipment and get used to some desktop UI on a Linux. I have had reliable ThinkPads (procured used) for years as a result. While there were bumps, it's been fine. Since I am in the vicinity of financial applications, I have to use Windows about 30% of the time, and I hate it every time. Can someone be the Steam for Excel, please? :)
- dale_glass 10mo ago
  I went for the uber-nerd approach to gaming. Whatever's possible, local on Linux. If it's not, one of my servers has a GPU that I pass through to a Windows VM, and run the games there and displayed by streaming. Also works for VR. Not a setup for everyone and a tad technically complex to set up, but it works well enough for my needs. It does run into some trouble with games that don't like virtual machines, but since I'm a very casual gamer I just play things that don't complain about that. > Can someone be the Steam for Excel, please? :) You can actually add anything you want to Steam, so you can use Steam Link to run Excel remotely.
lordleft 10mo ago
I love Linux and use it daily, but this paragraph gave me pause: "I’ve spent dozens of hours combing through Reddit threads, analyzing old Stack Overflow solutions, and, in times of true desperation, asking AI chatbots like Mistral’s Le Chat and Anthropic’s Claude for help deciphering error messages. Luckily, the Linux community is also very supportive. If you’re willing to ask for help, or at least do a little troubleshooting, you’ll be able to work out any problems that come your way." There are many people -- like my Mom or Dad, for example -- who will never find this appealing and are likely to dig themselves into deeper holes trying to fix system issues on the command line. That's why Steve Jobs was on the money when he talked about a computer that was as intuitive as an appliance -- it has to "just work" for most normies. While I'm as frustrated with Windows as the next person, I'd probably just hand the average person a Mac mini instead of popping a linux distro on their machine if they needed a new computer (though if all they are doing is just browsing the web and reading emails, a ubuntu install is probably fine).
- tcfhgj 10mo ago
  Reminds me of C++ (templates) or Latex vs Rust or Typst error messages - good errors are possible
- cosmic_cheese 10mo ago
  There are plenty of folks with some (or lots of) technical capability who’d rather not have to deal with these things, too. I’m in favor of Linux becoming more dominant as a desktop operating system but there is still plenty of work to be done in making it suitable for mass adoption. Denying that only slows the timeline on Linux’s ascendance.
- mkozlows 10mo ago
  It gave me pause in the sense that it doesn't feel true. I mean, yes, I've had to look things up to see how to do things in Linux. I've also had to do that on MacOS. (Just the other day, I couldn't remember what the Task Manager-equivalent on MacOS was, and nothing I typed into the launcher was coming up with an appropriate app, so I had to ask the robot what it was named.) But dozens of hours? Maybe back in the Red Hat 4.2 days, but not now. Some of that is obviously just that I have a lot of knowledge about things, but even so.
ranger207 10mo ago
One common complaint with the idea of the year if the Linux desktop is that Linux simply doesn't "just work" in the way MacOS and even Windows do. I think that's becoming less and less a barrier though for both the fact that Linux is getting closer to "just working" (especially as Windows and MacOS get further away), but also because more and more of the people still using Windows are power users and aren't as intimidated by the command line or manually resolving library dependencies or whatever. Like, there's a lot of PC gamers that'll happily spend hours on messing with their system to eke out another 5 FPS, or doing manual dependency resolution to get 200 SkyDome mods to play nicely together. "Doesn't just work" isn't as big a deal to power users that are more likely to be annoyed by Windows and MacOS's trajectory anyway
- Zak 10mo ago
  The idea that Windows "just works" is pretty recent. 20 years ago, any time I visited a relative who had a Windows PC, I was installing Firefox, fixing a driver, and removing spyware, if not outright malware. Either you were a power user, or you were having a bad time.
  - mkozlows 10mo ago
    It's also still not true. My son has a Windows machine that he's responsible for, after a long time running ChromeOS. He's reported all kinds of weird driver things, and having had to watch YouTube tutorials to figure out how to fix issues.
    - p_ing 10mo ago
      At least the vendor writes a Windows driver, no matter how bad it is. If your device doesn't work on Linux, you're simply SOL.
  - cosmic_cheese 10mo ago
    The main difference is that with Windows the work is mostly front loaded. From 2000/XP forward, as long as you set up the correct drivers post-install, they for most intents and purposes, barring shitty hardware, really did “just work”. There’s something to be said for “Windows creep” though, where the install decays over time and a reinstall is required. Back in the 2K/XP/Vista days this could be pretty bad, but that improved with 7 onwards. It still exists today, but the decay takes years to become noticeable instead of months. Linux isn’t without its own issues there however. Even on a more friendly distro like Ubuntu or Fedora, eventually one will end up with things like config files that slipped through the cracks and didn’t get migrated correctly, very slowing degrading the desktop experience.
tapoxi 10mo ago
I built a new PC in May of 2024 and decided to put Linux on it. Partly as a challenge to see how long I could last with it, partly because I want my kid to know how a computer works and use a platform that respects the user. I went with Fedora Kinoite, and everything worked perfectly fine. I did choose an AMD GPU for this experiment, going with a 7800 XT. Later that summer I decided to rebase (not reinstall, rebasing in fedora atomic is neat) to Bazzite, a more gaming focused version with some convience features, but that's about it. Everything I want to do on my computer works fine, I don't feel hamstrung by it and really enjoy using it. The only game I regularly play that doesn't work is Battlefield 6, which I had a small Windows drive for, but I stopped playing that after the hype died down. The Finals, Arc Raiders, CS2, Hunt Showdown, Guild Wars 2, all run great.
lizknope 10mo ago
I first learned Unix in high school in 1991. I wanted a Sun workstation so bad but they were over $10,000 in 1991 money. Got a PC in 1994 just to install Linux and I've been happy ever since. Completely skipped over windows 95 and all the stuff after and continue to ignore it.
Happily2020 10mo ago
As a long term linux user, I agree with the comments that essentially say: "you found a hobby and not an OS". While I see that recommending a different distro seems like more change and more fiddling about, Bazzite is something to try out for sure. As long as you don't have a very complicated usecase, it really does get out of your way and remove a lot of the foot-guns you find on linux. I really think it's ideal for a gamer usecase, and it's also great for a parent/casual user who does most of their work inside a browser anyway. As a programmer with a big distro-hopping past, I've switched to Bluefin/Bazzite on all my personal computers and things work well. I'm glad to have something that works well out of the box and glad to not think about the OS.
deterministic 10mo ago
I work on Linux every day and wish it was Windows. Linux is package dependency hell. Switching to working on a different application I am often forced to setup a new VM to even build it without breaking other apps I am working on. I never had that problem on Windows.

68 points by speckx 10mo ago

One year on Linux, two distros, a few tears, four desktop environments In other words, you've found a new hobby along with your new operating system. And that's OK --- but not everyone is looking for a hobby.

maxwellsdeamons 10mo ago
This comment summarises it well. Linux requires you to think about your OS. Which can be fun, but for most people it’s not.
- jqpabc123 10mo ago
  Technology advances by increasing the number of things people can achieve without thinking about them.
- baal80spam 10mo ago
  For me it came with age. I'm in my mid-forties now and although I loved to tinker with stuff, now I want things to "just work". I certainly see the allure of Apple ecosystem. (anecdata but my brother is the same).
- DennisP 10mo ago
  I'm not convinced that's the case. A few years ago I had a laptop with pre-installed Ubuntu and it worked without any fiddling. You certainly can turn Linux into a hobby and try all sorts of variations, which isn't really an option with Windows or Mac. But you don't have to do that.
  - queenkjuul 10mo ago
    Buying it preinstalled is the trick. Installing Linux on a laptop without official vendor support can be unpleasant.
    - DennisP 10mo ago
      Yes. Most people buy OS X and Windows preinstalled, too.
- taeric 10mo ago
  Linux doesn't really require you to think about it, necessarily. More that odds are high if you have tinkered with something recently, you are more likely to do so again. Think of it as a reverse lindy number. (And this can be frustrating for folks with automated marketing that feel that they are too dumb. They are, but the dumb approach works rather well.) To that end, the last time I tinkered with what linux distro I'm using is over a decade ago.
juujian 10mo ago
I have definitely spent less time on maintaining my Linux setup than I spent on trying to tame Windows to my wishes. Windows imposes a steep toll on your time as well. Just looking at the time spent to set up Linux is not sufficient. Unlike Windows, once you set up your Linux system it generally runs well a long, long time.
mindcrash 10mo ago
I've seen a lot of people switch from Windows to Bazzite and they are super happy with it. The only thing you'll have to decide is if you want a desktop which looks more similar to MacOS (GNOME) or Windows (KDE). For now they don't even care about even more advantages or disadvantages, like the fact that KDE is customizable to the point things can get a little crazy. Graphical desktop and Steam support (with a little pinch of Lutris added on top), and that's good enough.
lukaslalinsky 10mo ago
You get a computer that's compatibles with Linux, you install Ubuntu LTS, and you just keep using it. After a couple of years, you reinstall it. If you are a power user able to prepare the boot USB and boot from it, you do it yourself, otherwise you have to pay someone to do it for it for you or buy a computer with Ubuntu preinstalled. I've been using Ubuntu for more than 20 years, Debian before that, and Linux is definitely not my hobby.
t0bia_s 10mo ago
I like this hobby, but it is so irritating that I cannot apply this hobby to workstation because of industry standards. Adobe and linux are no options for progressional work.

ufmace 10mo ago

https://archive.ph/N4thi https://archive.ph/N4thi

rpigab 10mo ago

As a gamer and software developer, I've been Windows-free for over two years, no regrets, maybe kernel level anticheat competitive multiplayer games, but I have tons of other games and not much time to spend in multiplayer. Ubuntu on desktop gaming PC, Ubuntu on laptop, Steam Deck, Debian/Raspbian for servers. GNOME everywhere except on Steam Deck which has KDE, love both. > Linux won't stop you if you try to use a command that deletes every file on your PC ("sudo rm -rf /"). It will definitely stop you from running that command because of "--preserve-root" that is enabled by default, if you want to break your system you have to opt out of it. Just don't try to put an asterisk after, pathname expansion will be a different case ("rm -rf /*").

canistel 10mo ago
Fedora has the following aliases in the root .bashrc. alias rm='rm -i' alias cp='cp -i' alias mv='mv -i'
- rpigab 10mo ago
  It's a nice addition for certain use cases, however in the case of running "rm -rf ...", it has no effect because of the "-f / --force" flag set afterwards. "rm -if" never prompts, "rm -fi" prompts. --preserve-root is an entirely different thing which will stop the command from deleting files even if you told it to. $ sudo rm -ri / rm: it is dangerous to operate recursively on '/' rm: use --no-preserve-root to override this failsafe When in doubt, you might want to activate xtrace with "set -x", run the command and see what it expanded to. then "set +x" to disable.
  - zahlman 10mo ago
    "It is dangerous to operate recursively on '/'" is such a stereotypically traditional Linux way to explain the situation. (I would write something like "Refusing to delete the entire filesystem (did a shell variable expansion go wrong?)".)
    - Linux-Fan 10mo ago

Rick76 10mo ago

I've been gaming on Linux (CachyOS) for roughly a year now as well, and I love it. Better performance, faster loading, but I do admit there are drawbacks. I'm a developer, so I'm techy enough how to look up what I don't know, but I would never recommend this to someone who struggles with technology. Kernel antic heat is frustrating but usually its games where I feel like I won't lose anything if I don't play it.

mindcrash 10mo ago
> Kernel antic heat is frustrating but usually its games where I feel like I won't lose anything if I don't play it. And for those you still have options, through streaming: 1> A small headless Windows PC powered with a videocard like a Radeon 9070 XT and a nifty app called Moonlight (https://moonlight-stream.org/ https://moonlight-stream.org/) enables you to stream games protected with kernel level anti cheat to Linux machines (and some other devices). 2> Geforce Now supports some games notoriously renowned for their kernel level anti cheat like Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty Black Ops 7. With some trickery it is possible to run the app they "exclusively" developed for handhelds like the Deck on any Linux distro, because it is just a desktop app distributed through Flatpak.

johnboiles 10mo ago

Y'all it's been a couple decades but is it _actually_ the year of the Linux desktop now??

LorenDB 10mo ago
We're getting there! I think the new Valve hardware (especially the Steam machine) will help a lot, and obviously Microsoft has a lot more AI antics planned for the future, which will drive more users away from Windows.
- p_ing 10mo ago
  Valve hardware is a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of a blip for desktop hardware sales. It will not bring the Year of Linux to the Desktop.
  - tapoxi 10mo ago
    No, but their work will. Gaming is now perfectly viable because of their investment and developers targeting the Steam Deck.
    - p_ing 10mo ago
      It's far from "perfect". It may be "okay" or "acceptable" or even "good", but it lacks perfection.
    - xboxnolifes 10mo ago
      I wouldn't give it "perfectly viable" yet. It's very good, but there are a lot of popular titles that have kernel anti-cheat that make linux a non-starter if you play even one of the titles frequently. If this can be overcome, I would give linux the perfectly viable title.
zxcvasd 10mo ago
[dead]

estimator7292 10mo ago

It's sort of hilarious to me that for anything high performance-- or indeed low-middle performance, Windows is entirely out of the question. C++ compilation under Windows is 60-80% slower than in a Linux VM on the same machine. The EM simulations we do at work are several times faster on Linux. That aside, the Windows API is one of the most godawful, miserable pieces of code I've ever had to work with. I've been up to my neck in WinRT writing Bluetooth drivers and holy fuck I wouldn't wish this misery on anyone. I don't know how any developer or engineer ever gets anything done on Windows. Last job let me use Linux where it mattered most, and new job doesn't care so long as the work is done. I don't think I'll accept a job anywhere that requires Windows in the future. There is just plain and simple no feasible way to do my work on Windows anymore.

delta_p_delta_x 10mo ago
> WinRT writing Bluetooth drivers This is a bit suspect. WinRT is an entirely user-mode library meant for writing user-mode applications; why would you be writing Bluetooth drivers in that? It's like writing Linux drivers with GTK. Why aren't you writing the driver with UMDF2[1]? I have so many questions. [1]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-hardware/drivers/wdf/getting-started-with-umdf-version-2 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-hardware/drivers/w...

bigpeopleareold 10mo ago

Everything I see on this topic involves gaming. The last game I played in a long while was Cities Skylines on my laptop (which was taxing, but ran it fine). I used to use Macs, but for a long time, until up to 2013, I decided that since I look at mostly text editors, terminals and a web browser and some other common things, I'd rather spend less for equipment and get used to some desktop UI on a Linux. I have had reliable ThinkPads (procured used) for years as a result. While there were bumps, it's been fine. Since I am in the vicinity of financial applications, I have to use Windows about 30% of the time, and I hate it every time. Can someone be the Steam for Excel, please? :)

dale_glass 10mo ago
I went for the uber-nerd approach to gaming. Whatever's possible, local on Linux. If it's not, one of my servers has a GPU that I pass through to a Windows VM, and run the games there and displayed by streaming. Also works for VR. Not a setup for everyone and a tad technically complex to set up, but it works well enough for my needs. It does run into some trouble with games that don't like virtual machines, but since I'm a very casual gamer I just play things that don't complain about that. > Can someone be the Steam for Excel, please? :) You can actually add anything you want to Steam, so you can use Steam Link to run Excel remotely.

lordleft 10mo ago

I love Linux and use it daily, but this paragraph gave me pause: "I’ve spent dozens of hours combing through Reddit threads, analyzing old Stack Overflow solutions, and, in times of true desperation, asking AI chatbots like Mistral’s Le Chat and Anthropic’s Claude for help deciphering error messages. Luckily, the Linux community is also very supportive. If you’re willing to ask for help, or at least do a little troubleshooting, you’ll be able to work out any problems that come your way." There are many people -- like my Mom or Dad, for example -- who will never find this appealing and are likely to dig themselves into deeper holes trying to fix system issues on the command line. That's why Steve Jobs was on the money when he talked about a computer that was as intuitive as an appliance -- it has to "just work" for most normies. While I'm as frustrated with Windows as the next person, I'd probably just hand the average person a Mac mini instead of popping a linux distro on their machine if they needed a new computer (though if all they are doing is just browsing the web and reading emails, a ubuntu install is probably fine).

tcfhgj 10mo ago
Reminds me of C++ (templates) or Latex vs Rust or Typst error messages - good errors are possible
cosmic_cheese 10mo ago
There are plenty of folks with some (or lots of) technical capability who’d rather not have to deal with these things, too. I’m in favor of Linux becoming more dominant as a desktop operating system but there is still plenty of work to be done in making it suitable for mass adoption. Denying that only slows the timeline on Linux’s ascendance.
mkozlows 10mo ago
It gave me pause in the sense that it doesn't feel true. I mean, yes, I've had to look things up to see how to do things in Linux. I've also had to do that on MacOS. (Just the other day, I couldn't remember what the Task Manager-equivalent on MacOS was, and nothing I typed into the launcher was coming up with an appropriate app, so I had to ask the robot what it was named.) But dozens of hours? Maybe back in the Red Hat 4.2 days, but not now. Some of that is obviously just that I have a lot of knowledge about things, but even so.

ranger207 10mo ago

One common complaint with the idea of the year if the Linux desktop is that Linux simply doesn't "just work" in the way MacOS and even Windows do. I think that's becoming less and less a barrier though for both the fact that Linux is getting closer to "just working" (especially as Windows and MacOS get further away), but also because more and more of the people still using Windows are power users and aren't as intimidated by the command line or manually resolving library dependencies or whatever. Like, there's a lot of PC gamers that'll happily spend hours on messing with their system to eke out another 5 FPS, or doing manual dependency resolution to get 200 SkyDome mods to play nicely together. "Doesn't just work" isn't as big a deal to power users that are more likely to be annoyed by Windows and MacOS's trajectory anyway

Zak 10mo ago
The idea that Windows "just works" is pretty recent. 20 years ago, any time I visited a relative who had a Windows PC, I was installing Firefox, fixing a driver, and removing spyware, if not outright malware. Either you were a power user, or you were having a bad time.
- mkozlows 10mo ago
  It's also still not true. My son has a Windows machine that he's responsible for, after a long time running ChromeOS. He's reported all kinds of weird driver things, and having had to watch YouTube tutorials to figure out how to fix issues.
  - p_ing 10mo ago
    At least the vendor writes a Windows driver, no matter how bad it is. If your device doesn't work on Linux, you're simply SOL.
- cosmic_cheese 10mo ago
  The main difference is that with Windows the work is mostly front loaded. From 2000/XP forward, as long as you set up the correct drivers post-install, they for most intents and purposes, barring shitty hardware, really did “just work”. There’s something to be said for “Windows creep” though, where the install decays over time and a reinstall is required. Back in the 2K/XP/Vista days this could be pretty bad, but that improved with 7 onwards. It still exists today, but the decay takes years to become noticeable instead of months. Linux isn’t without its own issues there however. Even on a more friendly distro like Ubuntu or Fedora, eventually one will end up with things like config files that slipped through the cracks and didn’t get migrated correctly, very slowing degrading the desktop experience.

tapoxi 10mo ago

I built a new PC in May of 2024 and decided to put Linux on it. Partly as a challenge to see how long I could last with it, partly because I want my kid to know how a computer works and use a platform that respects the user. I went with Fedora Kinoite, and everything worked perfectly fine. I did choose an AMD GPU for this experiment, going with a 7800 XT. Later that summer I decided to rebase (not reinstall, rebasing in fedora atomic is neat) to Bazzite, a more gaming focused version with some convience features, but that's about it. Everything I want to do on my computer works fine, I don't feel hamstrung by it and really enjoy using it. The only game I regularly play that doesn't work is Battlefield 6, which I had a small Windows drive for, but I stopped playing that after the hype died down. The Finals, Arc Raiders, CS2, Hunt Showdown, Guild Wars 2, all run great.

lizknope 10mo ago

I first learned Unix in high school in 1991. I wanted a Sun workstation so bad but they were over $10,000 in 1991 money. Got a PC in 1994 just to install Linux and I've been happy ever since. Completely skipped over windows 95 and all the stuff after and continue to ignore it.

Happily2020 10mo ago

As a long term linux user, I agree with the comments that essentially say: "you found a hobby and not an OS". While I see that recommending a different distro seems like more change and more fiddling about, Bazzite is something to try out for sure. As long as you don't have a very complicated usecase, it really does get out of your way and remove a lot of the foot-guns you find on linux. I really think it's ideal for a gamer usecase, and it's also great for a parent/casual user who does most of their work inside a browser anyway. As a programmer with a big distro-hopping past, I've switched to Bluefin/Bazzite on all my personal computers and things work well. I'm glad to have something that works well out of the box and glad to not think about the OS.

deterministic 10mo ago

I work on Linux every day and wish it was Windows. Linux is package dependency hell. Switching to working on a different application I am often forced to setup a new VM to even build it without breaking other apps I am working on. I never had that problem on Windows.