5 ms·

Please don't say Linux.

by drylight 13y ago

dylangs1030 13y ago
Linux has come a long way.
rozap 13y ago
Spoken like someone who hasn't used Linux in the past decade.
- obiterdictum 13y ago
  I have been using it full-time circa 2006-2009. I guess that counts as "past decade". 1. There was no out of the box support of my particular NVidia video card, so I've had to build the driver from source and fiddle with my system to install it. 2. I've had userspace processes freeze on network activities and become impossible to kill, because of a kernel deadlock in my wireless driver. 3. Proper smooth fonts required work at the time (freetype did not ship with good subpixel hinting). 4. Proprietary media codecs did not work out of the box and required a third-party repositories. 5. The whole KDE four-point-not-really-zero debacle. A minimalistic XMonad+Vim+terminal setup was decent and worked for me, but eventually I got sick of desktop Linux and moved to OSX. I realise that many things have been fixed in the meantime, but it was not a flawless experience back then. If I was to give desktop Linux another shot today, I'd be cautiously optimistic, but not expect a miracle.
  - ekianjo 13y ago
    As you said many things happened in the meantime and you should not stay on your 2009 impressions. Besides, Please mention the distribution you used, there is no "single Linux Experience", just like you don't compare Windows 8 and windows XP as being a single brand of "Windows". For your particular comments: 1. Not an issue anymore in most recent distributions, and Nvidia is now supporting even the latest graphics cards on Linux. 2.3. I can't comment on that. 4. On Ubuntu and many other distros they now work out of the box.
josteink 13y ago
Linux is actually not half bad nowadays. It's not 2001 anymore. I've migrated my main laptop from Windows 8 to Elementary OS and the only complaint from my very non-technical SO is that things "are different" (i.e. the close button is in upper left corner of the window). Apart from that, everything just works. In fact it all worked out of the box, with the noticable exception of Skype. Linux is turning into a pretty viable option. Really.
- elnate 13y ago
  Things like the close button position irk me quite a lot. Are there ways to make it look as simliar as possible to win7?
  - BitMastro 13y ago
    There are ways, but maybe KDE is a better alternative
  - dkersten 13y ago
    Of course there are. It is the forever configurable Linux after all. But since the discussion was about Apple products having the close button on the left is a benefit ;-) But really these things are frustrations at first but you will learn the differences and get over them very very quickly. Just ask anyone who switched from win to osx.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
hdra 13y ago
Say one thing OS X does objectively better than Linux. I honestly can't think of any.
- adamnemecek 13y ago
  Laptop battery life.
- kleiba 13y ago
  Multiple screen support.
  - snikolic 13y ago
    As someone using OS X over Linux because of monitor-related reasons, I actually think Ubuntu supports multiple displays better than OS X.
    - eropple 13y ago
      IME, Linux has a long way to go for non-dual-head setups. I have four monitors with different geometries on two graphics cards on a Hackintosh and OS X handles it seamlessly. Ubuntu pukes hard and dies (or, almost as bad, just ignores monitors) when it can't figure out how it should handle them all in a single X session.
      - thomasmeeks 13y ago
        A single X session cannot span two graphics cards. X just doesn't support it. You're waiting on Mir or Wayland for that one. If you manage to get all four monitors on one card somehow, X can handle the multiple geometries just fine. Though it will generally do a terrible job of automatically detecting the right resolution. Love Linux, but this bit does disappoint.
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
        13y ago

Please don't say Linux.

dylangs1030 13y ago

Linux has come a long way.

rozap 13y ago

Spoken like someone who hasn't used Linux in the past decade.

obiterdictum 13y ago
I have been using it full-time circa 2006-2009. I guess that counts as "past decade". 1. There was no out of the box support of my particular NVidia video card, so I've had to build the driver from source and fiddle with my system to install it. 2. I've had userspace processes freeze on network activities and become impossible to kill, because of a kernel deadlock in my wireless driver. 3. Proper smooth fonts required work at the time (freetype did not ship with good subpixel hinting). 4. Proprietary media codecs did not work out of the box and required a third-party repositories. 5. The whole KDE four-point-not-really-zero debacle. A minimalistic XMonad+Vim+terminal setup was decent and worked for me, but eventually I got sick of desktop Linux and moved to OSX. I realise that many things have been fixed in the meantime, but it was not a flawless experience back then. If I was to give desktop Linux another shot today, I'd be cautiously optimistic, but not expect a miracle.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  As you said many things happened in the meantime and you should not stay on your 2009 impressions. Besides, Please mention the distribution you used, there is no "single Linux Experience", just like you don't compare Windows 8 and windows XP as being a single brand of "Windows". For your particular comments: 1. Not an issue anymore in most recent distributions, and Nvidia is now supporting even the latest graphics cards on Linux. 2.3. I can't comment on that. 4. On Ubuntu and many other distros they now work out of the box.

josteink 13y ago

Linux is actually not half bad nowadays. It's not 2001 anymore. I've migrated my main laptop from Windows 8 to Elementary OS and the only complaint from my very non-technical SO is that things "are different" (i.e. the close button is in upper left corner of the window). Apart from that, everything just works. In fact it all worked out of the box, with the noticable exception of Skype. Linux is turning into a pretty viable option. Really.

elnate 13y ago
Things like the close button position irk me quite a lot. Are there ways to make it look as simliar as possible to win7?
- BitMastro 13y ago
  There are ways, but maybe KDE is a better alternative
- dkersten 13y ago
  Of course there are. It is the forever configurable Linux after all. But since the discussion was about Apple products having the close button on the left is a benefit ;-) But really these things are frustrations at first but you will learn the differences and get over them very very quickly. Just ask anyone who switched from win to osx.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

hdra 13y ago

Say one thing OS X does objectively better than Linux. I honestly can't think of any.

adamnemecek 13y ago
Laptop battery life.
kleiba 13y ago
Multiple screen support.
- snikolic 13y ago
  As someone using OS X over Linux because of monitor-related reasons, I actually think Ubuntu supports multiple displays better than OS X.
  - eropple 13y ago
    IME, Linux has a long way to go for non-dual-head setups. I have four monitors with different geometries on two graphics cards on a Hackintosh and OS X handles it seamlessly. Ubuntu pukes hard and dies (or, almost as bad, just ignores monitors) when it can't figure out how it should handle them all in a single X session.
    - thomasmeeks 13y ago
      A single X session cannot span two graphics cards. X just doesn't support it. You're waiting on Mir or Wayland for that one. If you manage to get all four monitors on one card somehow, X can handle the multiple geometries just fine. Though it will generally do a terrible job of automatically detecting the right resolution. Love Linux, but this bit does disappoint.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - 13y ago