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Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

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Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#261

Post by kaba0 »

ammmir wrote: post #250

It's not the software availability, it just looks ugly. There was a short period in the mid-2000's where there was a lot of desktop eye candy (sup KDE) and accelerated window managers like Beryl, but it regressed from there. Look, nobody wants to be diffing config files when they upgrade random software packages. The lack of UI polish, multiple UI toolkits, questionable UX choices, and user ergonomics are poor. Give…

Knowing that preferences are subjective, both a pure gnome and pure plasma environment will be polished and frankly, good looking. Seriously, do check it out again.

Hell, windows definitely wins the price of “worst overall aesthetics” where not even their own native apps have a uniform look.

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#262

Post by kaba0 »

WelcomeShorty wrote: post #92

In short: dependency hell. Whatever distro I used it is the same at one point in time: In order to run X-n, you need Y-n-1 but Y-n+1 is installed and needed by Z. Next: sleep mode and or the not recovering from it. Linux is GREAT for tinkering, love it on my single purpose Raspis, love a dedicated VM/Laptop with Kali. But I will never again switch away from my macOS that just works for the job I need to get done.

NixOS (and guix) is the only OS (not just linux distro) that solves dependency hell hands down. Seriously. Windows and mac just pushes the problem around/can mandate certain versions due to their size.

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#263

Post by aragilar »

lostmsu wrote: post #91
gjhh244 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird how different people have different experiences. I've had way more cases of random things breaking on Win 10 than on Linux Mint. Especially corporate Win 10 on my working machine is utterly horrible, just endless problems.

Are any of those problems of "unchangeable 800x600 resolution" magnitude? Could you name a few?

Does "Windows 10 upgrades the driver for the monitor to a Microsoft-provided version, causing BSOD on boot" count?

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#264

Post by kaba0 »

jzellis wrote: post #89

I'm weird because I have a couple of older MacBooks, but my primary OS, even for web dev, is iPadOS. I use Textastic as my primary IDE for Node/JS/HTML and Blink to log into my remote servers and my Raspberry Pi. For me, as someone who does a lot of music and recording, Mac was always the 800 lb gorilla - Windows could never touch Mac in terms of giving OS priority to the audio layer, etc. Linux I don't even bother w…

The new pipewire looks very promising for audio processing, and it has stubs for Jack and pulseaudio. You may check it out from time to time as latency-wise it may be better than what mac’s offer.

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#265

Post by lostmsu »

aragilar wrote: post #263
lostmsu wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are any of those problems of "unchangeable 800x600 resolution" magnitude? Could you name a few?

Does "Windows 10 upgrades the driver for the monitor to a Microsoft-provided version, causing BSOD on boot" count?

Definitely! Was it an "optional update"? They recently stopped offering that because it was poorly presented: it was not actually an update rather installation of a different driver altogether.

Also, monitor driver? Are you sure?

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#266

Post by jonathantf2 »

I use Windows at work since all of our servers are Windows - at home since I play games, use Adobe software and don't like to tinker with my PC when I'm trying to relax. Windows just works.

Don't like Mac hardware for various reasons, again I want something reliable.

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#267

Post by firecall »

The Finder!

Nothing on Windows or Linux guis is as good as macOS’ Finder!

Quick Look and the use of Miller Columns are two features that spring to mind!

I spend most of my life in the terminal, an editor or a browser so can switch pretty easily.

Id rather use Linux than Windows, but sometimes I want and need to use Photoshop. And Linux isn’t great for that!

I feel like I’m fighting Windows or Linux.

But when I’m back in macOS, I can just get on with things!

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#268

Post by aragilar »

lostmsu wrote: post #265
aragilar wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does "Windows 10 upgrades the driver for the monitor to a Microsoft-provided version, causing BSOD on boot" count?

Definitely! Was it an "optional update"? They recently stopped offering that because it was poorly presented: it was not actually an update rather installation of a different driver altogether. Also, monitor driver? Are you sure?

No idea, wasn't my machine (been a linux user for >15 years), I just needed to fix it (which I did via a linux live usb). Yes to monitor driver (I don't even know why it needed one, removing the driver allowed it to work fine, it definitely wasn't the GPU driver), and if you plugged in a different monitor it worked fine (and if I recall, installing a old graphics card I had lying around and connecting the "bad" monitor to it still caused problems).

I'd have thought it was some kind of joke if I hadn't seen it myself (apparently this wasn't the first time)...

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#269

Post by ASalazarMX »

marviio wrote: post #254
ASalazarMX wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned that you gotta pick a boring Linux distro as your main OS. For me it's Kubuntu LTS. Sure, I've had small glitches like bluetooth headphone issues or flaky double screen support, but once you solve them, you're set for 5 years. At my age, I'll upgrade my main OS maybe 10-15 times at most. I used to eagerly try the six-month releases, but I can't devote time to beta test anymore. Give me a boring, non-bleedin…

When I ran Linux full time this was true for most desktops but not for laptops. There was always some hardware component (wifi, trackpad, webcam, sound, sleep/wake, GPU, USB) that needed the bleeding edge kernel. I remember always eagerly waiting for the next beta of Fedora. Is it better now?

Forgot to mention I also use a boring laptop. Dell sells laptops with Ubuntu preinstalled, so most flavors of Ubuntu work well on them even if you buy it with Windows and dual boot.

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#270

Post by simion314 »

captainmisery wrote: post #10

I'm using Windows 10. In the past year I've tried: Manjaro, Fedora, Linux Mint and some others. Why I'm not switching? Because every time I login there is something that needs a quick update or a quick fix. After I've tried Fedora the last time, I turned on my PC and the resolution of my monitor switched to 800x600 from the 1920x1080. There was no way of setting it back to the correct resolution. "Well, you know, you…

Don't try the cool distros, try Ubuntu or Kubuntu LTS.
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